Page 59 of Fearless
“How much oxycodone did you give him?” Ben asks someone I can’t see.
“The minimum dosage to manage the pain,” says a man who comes over to take my vitals. “We need to get him into the ambulance.”
“I’m coming with him,” Harper announces.
“No, you’re not,” replies her father. “I’ll go with him. You can meet us at the hospital, Harper.”
I grin and then sing-song, “I’m going for a ride with my bestie. He’s not a righty. He’s a lefty. If you make him mad, he gets testy. He likes to puff out his chestie!”
The next thing I know, I’m being lifted into the ambulance on a stretcher. Robert sits beside me, and Harper glares at him as the paramedics close the door. “Bye, Baby! I love you!” I yell.
A few minutes pass, and my head lolls to the side. I stare at my best friend. “I thought you were guilty for like two seconds. Okay, maybe three. Four. No, it was five. Definitely five.”
“I can’t blame you, Roger. I should have come to you in the beginning. It all got out of control so quickly,” he says.
“You should have told my sweet Angel. She was worried about you. She came to me, you know.”
He sighs. “I figured she would, but I thought it would be for protection. I had no idea she would rope you into an investigation.”
My lips curl up. “She roped me into marriage! Yee-haw!”
“I assume you plan on getting it annulled, now that the charade can end?” he asks hopefully.
“Why would I do something as crazy as that? I love her.”
“Because you’re old enough to be her father!” he says, raising his voice. “She’s like a daughter to you!”
“I never said that. She’syourdaughter. Besides, you’re ten years older than me and have a full head of gray hair. I still have some color left in mine. We’re good.” I narrow my gaze at him. “I take that back. You don’t have a full head of hair. It’s thinning on top.”
Robert rubs his head as self-consciousness grips him. When he realizes what he’s doing, he drops his hand. “Eloise warned me this would happen. She said Harper has been in love with you since…forever.”
“Forever is a long time, so I doubt that’s true.”
“Fine, not forever, but since she was 18,” he admits. “One day, she wanted to be a ballerina, and the next, she was taking martial arts classes. Her whole life shifted, and I thought it was because she wanted to follow in my footsteps. Then, one day, she said it was because she admired Savannah. Eloise never believed it for a second, but I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.”
I laugh and point at him. “You don’t even like fishing!”
He smacks my hand away since I was waving it in his face. “I’m going to ask you one question, and I want a truthful answer. Are you able to do that in your condition?”
I furrow my brows and contemplate his question. “I’ve never lied to you before. There, I’ve answered your one question.”
“That wasn’t my one question.”
I frown. “You phrased it like one.”
“You got me, but I have one more. Is that okay?”
“Is ‘is that okay?’ your question?” I retort.
“Good grief. I feel like I’m talking to a toddler,” he mumbles. “Here’s my question. If you had the choice to keep 24 years of friendship intact or my daughter, which would you choose?”
“That’s the dumbest question I’ve ever heard. Don’t forget, I work with Jessie, and she can say some pretty dumb things.”
Robert’s face twists up in frustration. “It’s not dumb, Roger.”
“Oh, but it is, Robert. You’re asking me to choose between you and Harper. As my friend, you should want me to be happy. As her father, you should want the same thing for her. The question is selfish. So, if you put me in a position to choose, you will lose. Ya’ wanna know why? Because she would never ask me to choose.”
Robert sinks back into his seat and doesn’t say anything for some time. It’s not until the ambulance slows down to pull into the entranceway to the emergency room that he says, “I don’t think you could have given me a better answer. You have my blessing.”
