Page 58 of The Last Love Song
“Either that, or you can call me later.” Never had words been spoken with more sarcasm.
“Good point,” Megan muttered, passing over her notes while she withdrew her phone to take a picture of Bailey’s data.
When the bell rang, Bailey practically sprinted out of her seat, leaving Megan to put away the last of the equipment. At least the work was done. Honors physics was tough enough without taking late grades, too. Besides, Megan didn’t need to rush since her next period was her regular physics class anyhow.
She didn’t know what made her look up at Bailey again as her ex-friend reached the door, but she was just in time to catch sight of J.D. in the hall, waiting for her. He had such a pissed-off look on his face that Megan wondered if he’d seen her. But from where she stood, it sure seemed as if he glared at Bailey instead.
And although she couldn’t see Bailey’s face, she could sure tell that she darted right past him. Ignoring him?
Maybe she was just in a hurry or had a class on the far side of campus. Still, Megan didn’t like the vicious expression on J.D.’s face. What had gotten into that kid to make him act like such a complete waste of space all the time? He didn’t use to be that way.
Packing up her papers, Megan slid them into her bag before she noticed a pink sticky note on the back page of her composition book.
You stopped talking to me, remember? I’ve never said one bad thing about you, no matter what you think.
The note wasn’t signed. But—unlike the mystery texts—Megan knew exactly who’d written this.
Was it true?
Had she concocted the whole rift between her and Bailey? She sure hadn’t dreamed the way the kids had made fun of her at the wedding breakfast. Or the mean texts and website. But when she thought about the way her friendship with Bailey had dissolved, she had to admit that there’d never been a big blowup or confrontation. Had Megan imagined that Bailey was talking and whispering about her with her friends?
Peering around the physics class, Megan could find at least three pairs of girls who were talking and whispering right now. Some of them even looked her way as they did it. As if they were talking about her.
But what if they were simply looking around to see who was watching them? To see if they were overheard? To see if any boys noticed them, since that seemed of inordinate importance to most high school girls.
Maybe Megan could imagine a scenario where she’d dreamed up the idea that Bailey hated her. But she sure hadn’t imagined that Bailey had set out to steal J.D. Even Wade knew the two of them had been hanging out before Megan broke up with her former boyfriend.
As the bell rang to signal the start of class, Megan settled deeper in her seat and shoved aside Bailey’s note. She could ask Wade what he thought. He’d said he wished that Megan trusted him more, so she would trust him with this new piece of a puzzle she didn’t understand. If nothing else, it helped to know she had someone to talk to.
And if there was another kiss in their future…?
Megan couldn’t wait.
Chapter Fourteen
“Are you relatedto the patient?” an emergency room nurse asked Zach three hours after he’d brought Heather to the hospital.
He’d been by her side for the first hour, waiting for one kind of doctor and then another, watching over her as she snagged snippets of sleep that didn’t look all that restful, based on the pained expression pinching her mouth and furrowing her forehead. But he’d been there when she’d spoken to the first doctor. Heard her confess she’d been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis over the summer. Heard the doctor discount that RA could be causing her such sudden acute pain. But when they’d wheeled her down to the imaging department for some X-rays, Zach had been left behind and he hadn’t managed to find her since, after a staff change at dawn.
Frustrated, he was in the general waiting area searching the hell out of rheumatoid arthritis on his phone. He wanted to be with Heather, and instead, he was surrounded by assorted coughs, broken bones and one old man who couldn’t stop wailing despite no visible injury. Zach’s nerves were stretched thin, and the scent of antiseptic air was giving him serious flashbacks to the worst night of his life—when he’d brought Ellieto this hospital. He just wanted to find Heather. Make sure she was okay.
Unable to stand it any longer, he shot to his feet. He tucked his phone away and strode to the nurses’ station.
“I brought Heather Finley in last night.” Too tired to apply any charm to the situation, he stared down the nurse, the woman who was now in charge of the registration desk. “I have her personal belongings,” he lied. “I know she’ll want them. Can you just point me in the right direction?”
“Unless you’re related, sir, I can’t allow you into the restricted section.” Unimpressed, the woman lowered her attention back to her computer screen. “But I can print a label with Ms. Finley’s name and give you a bag for her personal items. I will make sure she gets them.”
“I don’t want a label.” He covered his face with one hand, squeezing the hell out of his temples to ward off the ache in his head. “I want to see my…girlfriend.” What else came close to describing their relationship? “We are not related. But I’m not some stranger off the street asking about her. I’m worried about her. She’s seriously ill.”
Pulling her hands off the computer keyboard, the nurse swiveled her chair to face him. One long ponytail trailed over her shoulder, not quite covering a name badge that read Lorena.
“Sir, I realize you want to be with Ms. Finley. But this is a hospital, and there are strict privacy laws in place to protect our patients. Those laws are there for a very good reason, even if they feel inconvenient to you this morning.”
Right. They were there to protect people like Heather, who didn’t want to share jack shit about herself with him. Who hadn’t told him or anyone else in her life that she was suffering from a serious condition, which he’d only learned about thanks to scanning the internet. Clearly, in Heather’s mind, it didn’tmatter that they’d slept together. That he was falling for her fast. He had been for months.
Heather Finley had one foot out of Heartache before she’d even met him, and nothing—not him, and not a debilitating disease—was going to slow her down.
Zach debated storming the doors behind the admitting desk. As he stared at them, the first doctor who’d seen Heather shoved through them, his attention on his phone.
