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“Since you won’t leave your post, I figured I’d bring you a new patient to work on.” Carter beams.
“Is that why you brought me down here? Dammit, boy!” Mr. Renshaw turns to leave but wobbles on his feet and has to grab Carter’s arm for stability.
“Mr. Renshaw! Stay right there!” I run to the back.
I grab a rolling desk chair from what used to be the office and push it out to the center of the store where Carter’s dad is breathing heavily and wiping his brow with the back of his hand. He gives me a pained smile from somewhere behind his bushy, overgrown gray beard and then flops onto the mildewed vinyl seat with a grunt.
“Jeepers. I done told y’all, I’m fine,” Mr. Renshaw gasps.
“Ah, come on, old man. Rain needs a new patient. The one she’s got is boring.” Carter jerks his chin in Quint’s direction. Then, he leans down and whispers in his dad’s ear, loud enough for everybody to hear, “And he’s startin’ to smell.”
Carter ducks suddenly as a roll of medical tape goes whizzing past his head.
“I heard that, asshole,” Quint coughs out from behind the counter.
They all burst out laughing as Carter stands and gives Quinton another smile that I know all too well. It’s the same one he used to give Sophie after he teased her to the point of her smacking him.
Brotherly love.
“Glad you’re feeling better, man,” Carter says more seriously, walking over to the counter and reaching behind it to give Quint some kind of dude handshake/fist bump thing.
The three of us were in the same grade back in Franklin Springs, and even though Carter and Quint didn’t hang out that much, they’ve known each other since they were kids.
“Me too.” Quint’s words are strangled with pain, but his voice is getting a little stronger every day.
“Would you get out of here?” I huff. “You’re upsetting my patients.”
Carter chuckles as he strolls toward the door. I close my eyes as he passes, catching his subtle, masculine scent.
“Hey, Carter?” I blurt out just before he leaves.
Turning back around, my best friend flashes me a Hollywood smile and points a finger gun at me. “I knew it. I knew you’d rather hang out with me than stay here with a cripple and an angry, old man.”
I crack a smile—my first one in days. I don’t know how he does it, but Carter has always been able to make me laugh, no matter how badly I don’t want to.
“Uh, no.” I roll my eyes. “I was just wondering where you’re going.”
“Relax, Rainbow Brite.” Carter beams.
And my heart sinks like the Titanic. I know that smile too. It’s one that I saw more and more of toward the end of our relationship.
Carter has a secret.
“You won’t even miss me … much.” With a wink, he disappears into the hallway, and I turn to glare at my new patient.
“He gets it from you, you know.”
Mr. Renshaw chuckles and wipes the last few beads of sweat from his brow. The walk over must have really taken it out of him. As soon as his laughter fades, I can almost feel his defenses go up.
“Don’t worry,” I say, taking a seat on the edge of the counter a few feet away. “I’m not gonna make you show me.”
Mr. Renshaw relaxes into his chair. “You ain’t?”
“I already know it’s broken.”
His nostrils flare. “How do you s’pose that?”
“By your limp. That car accident was over a month ago. If you’re still limping this badly, it means something’s broken, and it’s not gonna heal unless you get it set and stop hobbling around on it like you’ve been doing.”
