Page 42 of George’s Big Day

I cleared my throat. “I wasn’t conscious for a bit after Wagner and Ruiz got me transported last time. I promise to call as soon as I wake up going forward.”

There was a wounded sound in the back of his throat.

“I’m fine,” I reminded him. “You can see I am.”

“Yes, but I want to see your ankle and hear everything that happened.”

“That’s really not⁠—”

“It is to me,” he said, meeting my gaze and holding it. “I want to see.”

“But you’ve seen my ankle.”

“Please George.”

“I––”

“Please.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now.”

Slowly, reluctantly, I took a seat beside him. Once I had my shoe off, he had me put my foot in his lap as he removed my sock.

“How many screws?” Jill asked, having gotten up to take a look as well, Noah following her.

“Four.”

“Dante has three in his left knee,” Noah told me. “He tore his ACL when he had to ditch a plane in some remote area near the beach outside Bushmans Kloof Wilderness Reserve years ago,” he said like it was no big deal.

“You sound okay with that.”

His eyes flicked to me. “Oh? Do I? Well, that’s not true at all. The only reason I don’t hyperventilate is because a, it’s been a bit since these things happened, and b, I can see him standing there in front of me whenever some horrible tidbit of information pops out of his mouth at some ridiculous moment, like when he’s changing the batteries in our smoke detectors.”

Jill started laughing.

“She gets it,” Noah said, tipping his head at her. “Out of the blue, some horrific memory will get shared with you, and they think they’re just making conversation.”

Jill was laughing harder and nodding.

Jory said, “My husband was shot once and told the ER doctor that if she could please go ahead and check to make sure nothing was nicked inside, then he would like to be bandaged up so he could go home. She wanted to murder him.”

“He made a doctor homicidal?” Kurt sounded appalled.

“Of course he did,” Jory said matter-of-factly. “And she was perfectly normal before her dealings with him.”

“Dante’s the same way,” Noah chimed in. “Every doctor he ever sees, he assures them whatever twinge is nothing and he merely needs some ibuprofen.”

Jory snorted.

“Same with Chris, who can say, with a straight face, every time, even when his medical file is this big.” Jill moved her hands apart like she was holding a stack of papers. “That maybe there’s some scar tissue that could, perhaps, be the issue.”

“Yep,” Noah agreed. “There are pins in the man’s spine, screws all over his body, and the scars… I can’t count them.”

Jill was nodding. “It’s so fun when your husband is cooking burgers and all of a sudden he’ll say, I remember this one time when I was being tortured and they held my hand on a grill much like this one.”

All eyes on her.