“I love you too,” Fredric answered, then let the line go dead as Agatha jolted the car to a stop.
“I’m at the ER entrance. Can Bas get you to the check-in?”
“Yes,” Fredric said. He felt momentarily off kilter and lost. Panic was setting in, and he needed to focus, so he forced himself to take three slow breaths and compartmentalize. Sitting out here in the car waiting for someone to take the lead wasn’t going to get him answers any faster, and it wasn’t going to make Ilan okay.
He stepped out of the car, took the harness in his hand, then commanded Bas to get him through the doors. It was only a few steps to the desk after that, and Bas nosed his hand toward the top of the counter.
“Sir, how can I help you?” came a voice through the glass.
Fredric swallowed thickly. “My son got a call from a nurse. An Ilan Nadav was brought in, and we don’t know why.”
He heard the sounds of typing. “Are you family?”
“No, I…”
“I’m sorry, I’m not able to give you information on him.”
Frustration welled in him, and his eyes went hot. He was mortified when a tear slipped out, and he swiped it with his hand. “He’s my partner.”
The woman let out a breath. “Are you married?”
“No,” Fredric said through clenched teeth. Not yet. But he’d be damned if this ever happened again. “My son is his emergency contact.”
“And is your son here with you?” she asked.
Fredric swallowed against a lump in his throat. “No, he’s flying in from Paris right now, and he won’t be here for hours. Please, he doesn’t have family. Just…just me.”
He heard the sounds of the keyboard again, and then she let out a breath. “There’s not a lot I can do, sir, but I can let Dr. Howard know you’re here. He’s one of the best surgeons we have in the OR today, alright? And he can come out and speak with you when he has a moment.”
“Surgeon,” he breathed out. The word rattled around his brain, and he felt hot panic slipping up his neck, threatening to steal his ability to reason. “He’s in surgery? What for? What…”
“I’m going to make sure he knows someone’s waiting,” the nurse said. “Do you need assistance?”
“No,” came Agatha’s voice to his right, and Fredric almost let a sob slip out. “We’ve got it. Thank you.”
Fredric let her take his hand, and they found a quiet corner of the room. The seat beneath him was hard and unforgiving, and he felt like he had ants crawling under his skin. He wanted to rush the doors, to run through the halls, to tear everything down until someone gave him some fucking answers.
“What did she say the doctor’s name was again?” Agatha asked.
“Howard, I think,” Fredric muttered, then turned his head toward her and frowned. “Why?”
“Google,” she replied. She was quiet a long time, then she hummed. “Oh. Uh…I think I found him. There’s two working here, but only one of them is a surgeon. Orthopedic.”
There was some sort of poetic irony in that, he thought for a fleeting moment. But that could mean any number of things, and most of them were not good. Fredric had never been gifted with luck before, but he wanted to drop to his knees and pray for some right then.
“He’s got five stars on all these med websites. It looks like he mostly does kids—like setting breaks and stuff from falls. Oh. He’s young. Oh, he’s kind of cute.”
“Agatha,” Fredric breathed out, but something about her words, and the way she was nonchalant, the way she just sat with him like this was any other day, allowed him to settle. “Thank you,” he said after a beat.
She gave him a gentle pat and didn’t pull away after her hand stilled. “He’s going to be okay.”
Fredric’s hands tightened into fists, because right then he didn’t want promises that no one could keep. He wanted answers—facts, figures, prognosis. He wanted details about what the fuck happened, and he wanted to crack the universe down to its very center and find out how the hell he’d gone from hearing Ilan walk out on him the night before to this moment right there.
He’d been such an ass. He’d been angry—he’d felt manipulated and a little scared, but facing the empty night with the chanukiah candle burning down to nothing, and the silence that came with it, made him realize he could do better. That his scars were still a little too tender, and he’d lashed out.
He was sorry—god, he was so sorry. He needed Ilan to know that.
He’d beg if he had to.
“How long have we been sitting?” Fredric asked.
Agatha hummed. “It looks like…ten minutes.”
No time at all. The clock felt like it was running backward, and he busied himself by letting Julian know he was there and waiting on information. He left the rest out, because there was no need to torture his son with the what ifs and could bes.
Another ten-minute eternity passed and then another.
Agatha wandered off to find the coffee cart, and she’d been gone a little while when he heard Ilan’s name. Jumping to his feet, he nearly tripped over Bas, his face blushing hot as he fumbled for the harness and then froze.
Footsteps crossed the tile, and he let out a breath when he smelled the sharp sting of chemicals. “I’m Dr. Howard,” the man said, and Fredric extended his hand.
A warm, papery-dry palm took his and shook it. “Fredric Pedalino.”
“Mr. Pedalino, Ilan’s been asking for you.”
Fredric’s relief was so intense, for a moment he thought he might be sick. “Is he…how is he?”
“Groggy, but waking up from his anesthesia. We had to set a break, and he does appear to have a mild concussion. He’ll be ready for visitors in about twenty minutes if you don’t mind waiting a bit longer.”
Fredric shook his head, trying to swallow around the lump in his throat. “I…what…” He took a second. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“He was brought in by two men from a building site. He got in the way of some falling debris and suffered a transverse break in his right arm, and a mild concussion from a blow to the right side of his head. He’ll need rest and to avoid screens, but I don’t anticipate any complications.”
Fredric felt unsteady for a moment, and leaned his legs harder against Bas. “Thank you.”
“Of course. A nurse will come out for you as soon as he’s able to see you.”
Fredric groped backward for the seat, then hung his head between his shoulders and shook until he felt a warm hand touch his lower back.
“What did the doctor say?” Agatha asked him.
Fredric let out a small laugh, which sounded like a sob, and felt another warm drop falling down his cheek. This time, he didn’t bother to lift his hand to wipe it away. “Break in his arm, mild concussion. He was at his office, and he was hit with falling debris.”
“Shit,” Agatha said, and she sounded almost as shaken as he did. “Thank god. Teddy called and asked me if we wanted him to come down here. He can bring food.”
“I don’t think I could eat,” Fredric admitted, “but you don’t need to stay either. He’s fine.”