Page 22 of Red Queen (Red Thorns Crew 3)

I nodded. “We both will.”

I watched his eyes fall to the door as Mom squeezed my shoulder.

“Nice going, princess,” she whispered.

I watched my father head for the door. “Thanks, Mom.”

And I held my breath as my father started his journey toward the door.

Please don’t blow up in my face. Please don’t blow up in my face. Please don’t blow up in my face.

7

Max

I leaned my head against the painted cement wall and sighed. With the coffee and food growing cold at my feet, I crammed my hands into my pockets. Mostly to hide my bloodied knuckles. Every time a nurse or a patient passed by, they gave me ‘the look.’ You know, the one with the crooked eyebrow and the wandering eyes. The one with the soft pause as they gave me a once over.

“You sure you don’t need any pain medication?”

“You really should go lie down. You haven’t yet been discharged.”

“If the doctor sees you like this--”

I licked my lips. “You let me handle the doctor, Nurse. Thanks.”

They scoffed and snickered and whispered as they walked by. But it didn’t rile me up. I knew I looked like a wreck. One of those class-A, super-duper train wrecks. I felt the swelling in my eyes finally going down, but I also felt the bruising creeping underneath my skin and my neck stiffening. My arms were hard to move. And my back—damn it, my fucking back hurt like hell.

It hurt to breathe. It hurt to blink. It hurt to stand, or sit, or generally exist. But nothing would get me back in that room. Nothing would get me in a bed without Dani at my side. So I dealt with the uneasy looks and the constant barrage of questions and the nurses trying to talk me into pain medication.

I was fine with the Tylenol I kept swallowing down.

Every once in a while, I thought I heard voices behind the door. But with the door closed, this damn cement wall in my way, and Dani on the other side of the room, it was hard to hear anything. I started pacing outside the door. The coffee stopped steaming from the little hole in the lid and the fruit looked to be sitting in a pool of its own juices. Hardly appetizing at this point.

It’s the thought that counts.

For the first time in a very long time, I felt nervous. Truly, genuinely nervous. I mean, these were the parents of the woman I loved. If I couldn't make a good impression, what did that mean for Dani and me? Usually I didn’t give a shit about this stuff. I didn’t care about the girl’s life, or her family, or what she did for a living, or what she’d do the next morning. We met, we fucked, she left. That’s how it worked in my life.

But Dani stuck.

And I had to do my best to make sure her parents were on my side.

Now, how to sway her father…

The door ripped open and I turned around. With my hands still shoved in my pockets, I watched as the edge of the door caught the bag of danishes, and I heard the paper crunch. It didn’t matter, though. Not to me.

Because staring back at me from beyond the doorway was Dani’s father.

He stared at me for a long time. His eyes danced around my face before traveling down my body. I was familiar with the look. He was trying to size me up. Figure out how badly I was hurt. And I let him. I took no offense to it. I mean, his daughter was lying in a fucking hospital bed. I would’ve already killed the man at her side had the tables been turned and I’d been in Peter’s position.

Then he did something that shocked me.

He extended his hand.

“It’s been a trying morning, Max.”

I looked down at his hand before I slipped mine out of my pocket.

“I apologize for how I acted in there. It wasn’t kind, given the tense situation for all of us,” he said.

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