Page 101 of Her Paramedic
“Will she be okay?” Wendy asked.
She would be okay, in the sense that she would live, but how this would affect her was a different story. Slate could lie to her, but he wouldn’t. “We’re going to take her to the hospital, and they’ll do everything they can to help her. Did you take any pills, Wendy?”
“No,” the teenager responded, shaking her head.
Jonah returned with the back brace almost as fast as he’d left. They got Ashley on it and returned to the van.
“I’m coming too,” Wendy said.
They loaded her in, and Jonah rode in back with the patient and teenager. Slate pulled away from the house, sirens on, and headed to St. Mary-Corwin Hospital.
Forty minutes later, Slate was finishing the incident report while Jonah talked to the nurse he liked. The younger man started his as soon as they’d handed Ashley over to the hospital staff and had finished, while Slate waited with Wendy for her dad to arrive. Since they hadn’t allowed her back with her sister, she’d stuck to his side until her father came.
While he waited with Wendy, she’d told him it was the second time her sister overdosed, but she hadn’t been there the first time. She knew how they were portrayed in movies, but never thought she’d see it in person. She’d been scared. That was normal, but Slate could tell that the image of her sister like that would bother her for a long while.
He signaled to Jonah that he was heading to the van once he finished and exited the hospital. As he slid into the driver’s seat, his phone vibrated in the cupholder. It was a text from Talia.
Talia:Hey, baby. How’s the night going?
Slate:A typical night.
Jonah got into the van. Slate placed his phone back into the cupholder and headed to their spot. He’d just pulled in when his phone vibrated again. He picked it up, checking the message.
Talia:I don’t know if that’s supposed to mean it’s slow or crazy. It could go either way.
“Ooh. Wifey must be available,” Jonah teased, eyes glued to his Switch as Slate got out of the van.
“She is,” he responded, closing the door before the other man could respond. He called his girlfriend, leaning against the ambulance.
“Hey, baby.”
“Hey, gorgeous. How was dinner?”
“It was good. We went to that new restaurant that opened a few weeks back. So, which kind of typical is it?”
“It hasn’t been too crazy,” he responded, wishing he had some wood to knock on. “We just came off a call where a teenager saw her sister overdose.”
“Are they okay?”
“As okay as they’re going to be.” Slate knew that it would affect Wendy mentally and maybe emotionally, but Ashley would get the trifecta. “What time is your first appointment on Tuesday?”
“Eight-thirty. Are you thinking about coming Tuesday morning when you get off instead of that evening?”
“Yeah. I wanted to make sure you’d be home when I got there.”
“You do remember you have a key, right?” she questioned.
“I do, but I wanted to see you before you went,” he responded.
“Someone’s clingy,” she teased.
“First Jonah calls me whipped, and now you’re calling me clingy.”
“Well, neither of us is wrong.”
Slate snorted, but he didn’t make it a habit of lying to her, so he didn’t deny it.
“Slate,” Jonah called, and Slate knew he was yelling through the window. “We have a call.”
