Page 161 of The Rom-Commers

“I’m not at liberty to say,” Logan said, starting the car.

“Logan,” I said, dropping my voice. “You weremyfriend first.”

Logan considered that as we pulled out of the garage. “Fine. Yes. He asked Jack to pop in and make it look random.”

“Jack Stapleton didn’tpop in. He can’tpop inanywhere. It was total mayhem. One of the nurses fainted.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“The point is, you’re making it sound like it wasn’t a big deal when it definitelywasa big deal.”

Logan nodded for a minute, and then he said, “Charlie wanted to look after you, but you sent him away.”

“This is my fault now?”

“Look,” Logan said. “Charlie agreed with you. He didn’t think you should have to see his face, either. So he worked from behind the scenes.”

“Worked to do what?”

Logan steeled himself to break a confidence. “To do nice things for you.”

“Like what? What kind of nice things?”

“You know,” Logan said. “Like upgrading your dad’s room.”

Now I turned to really look at him. “They said we won that upgrade! They were celebrating their ten-thousandth surgery.”

“I can’t believe you fell for that.”

“He told the hospital to lie to us? And they just did it?”

“He also made a sizable donation.”

This was an outrage. “He tricked us into being upgraded? I thought we’d won that VIP room randomly—like decent people.”

“Also,” Logan went on, “all those fancy lunches every day.”

“That was Charlie? That wasn’t just… life on the VIP wing?”

Logan shook his head. “That was all Charlie. He got a hotel room after you told him to get out of your sight, and he stayed close by until he knew your dad was okay.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Why do you think?”

“I honestly have no idea.”

“He also did the whole thing with the plants.”

“Theplants?” I demanded, like now this had gone too far.

“Why are you so mad about this? Those plant studies are real. Charlie can recite the statistics all day.”

“It wasn’t his place to do that stuff.”

“It wasn’t his place?”

“Yes,” I said, doubling down. “That’s totally inappropriate behavior. Would you secretly upgrade a work colleague’s father to a VIP room?”

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