He looked at me like I was a stranger to him. “Shit. Where’d this new Carson come from? You usually only whine if you get the wrong coffee.”
“Stop,” I snarled. “Talking.”
“You’re no longer Car to me anymore. It’s only Carson from now on. And I’m no longer Ben to you.”
I gave him a scathing look. “You never were, Benjamin.”
He shut up after that, thank God. If he hadn’t, I’d have had to involve the police in his murder, by me.
I wasn’t kidding.
I’d never had a reaction to a guy like that, ever. But that man was in me.
He was still in me when they left, when I booted Benjamin out, and when I performed the last set of tests on her.
I wasn’t sure he was ever going to leave.
Chapter Seven
JONAH
Melissa had a lovely funeral. Her family was there. Her friends from high school and college. A couple medical students from our year.
Not me.
Her family didn’t want me there.
But I was still present. I was in an SUV, parked across the street. My brothers were with me. They couldn’t keep me all the way away.
And I was wrong. She had a beautiful funeral.
* * * *
“What are you going to do?” Kai asked me.
Sometime later—weeks? A month? I wasn’t sure—I was with Kai at the house in Vancouver.
Riley and Kai’s two children were here, playing. They’d kept me distracted. There were lots of tea parties with Brooklyn, but not with Blake. His nickname was Blade, after one of Riley’s friends. He was a hellion, and had no time for tea with his younger sister. He’d wanted hide-and-go-seek on the hundred-acre woods we owned. He did it up right, too. Camouflage. He came out wearing a parka with leaves and sticks glued on the back.
Riley had choked up. She was so proud.
Kai cleared his throat, an expectant look on his face. He was asking me this question because my time was up. I had to go back to being a doctor or decide on a different path.
“I’m going to go back.” I decided as I said this, and it felt right.
“You sure?” he asked. “You don’t have to do medicine. Or you don’t have to do it now. You can take time off.”
I shook my head, feeling it in my gut. “Melissa would be pissed if I did that. I need work, to be honest. I’ll be a better surgeon, for her.”
He nodded. That was done.
* * * *
“Brooke called, asked why you aren’t returning her calls,” Tanner informed me over the phone. I’d been back at work for two months now. And I’d been avoiding Brooke’s calls. She’d just had a high-risk pregnancy. Millie was still in the NICU.
“I don’t want her to know,” I told him. “The stress for her? I don’t want to be a part of that.”
Tanner sighed. “You sure?”
“I’m sure. Tell her I’m busy. Tell her I love her, but I can’t talk to her about this. I will, just not yet. She needs to focus on her family, on her new little girl.”
“Okay.”
I heard the sarcasm in his voice, and I almost smiled. Almost.
Brooke probably wouldn’t believe him. “You need to sell it, Tanner. I mean it. If anyone can, it’s you.”
“Riley wants to tell her.”
Kai’s wife. I loved her to death, but I shook my head as I held the phone up. “She can’t. I can’t handle Brooke falling apart over me. Put it that way to her.”
“I will.” He paused. “I’ll sell it, Jonah. Don’t worry. We love you. Just know that.”
I was loved. I felt it every day from my siblings. I’d never thought otherwise.
It was a blessing.
My throat swelled. “I love you, too.”
Chapter Eight
JONAH
Six months later
I was finishing dictating my notes when my phone lit up.
Crowler: Hey! We’re heading your way. You don’t get a say. We know people, know you’re not on call this weekend. We need group time together. Badly.
I’d had the phone on silent while I was working, and now that I saw this text, I could see more behind it, including one from my brother.
Tanner: In town. Want to meet up.
I thumbed a response.
Me: Finishing my notes. Where are you?
Crowler calling.
I picked up, leaning back. “Hey, man.”
“Bennett! You texted back.”
I just laughed, because this was Crowler. He was nicknamed Crowler for a reason. It was a long story, but it had to do with a night of howling and crawling.
There might’ve been drinking involved, too.
And Hawaiian shirts.
He and some others had been in my core unit from the first year of med school. It was rare, but sometimes we got an overlapping weekend off.
Seemed like this was one of them.
Beep beep.
I put the phone on speaker, but checked the incoming text.
Tanner: Not an option. Tell me where you are.
Fuck’s sakes. My family probably had an app on my phone to show when I was using it.
“What are you guys thinking for tonight? Who’s all in town?”
“Well, Bubs. Carlster. Babs. Yours truly, and uh, oh, Samsonite.”
Those nicknames were used only by our group, and only when we were together.
Bubs and Babs were a couple, like Melissa and I had been. Unlike Missy, Babs was still breathing. Pain sliced through me, but I swallowed, pushing it down.
After Melissa died, her family wanted nothing to do with me. I tried calling her parents a few times, and Oliver more than a few times, but her dad told me to leave them alone.
I did. I left everyone else alone, too, my family included.
They still hadn’t found Melissa’s killer, and until they did, I wanted nothing to do with any of them. Might not make sense, but it was the only thing that pushed the burn down inside of me. Maybe I was punishing my family—I was punishing myself for sure—but the need to hurt had only grown in the last nine months. Doing medicine was the only thing keeping me going.
But I could stop, would stop, when Kai brought me Melissa’s killer.
After that, well… I didn’t care. I just wanted her killer.
Kai had said he’d do it, but it’d been nine fucking months.
Tanner reaching out was for Tanner. If they had the guy, Kai would be in touch. That’s how Kai was.
“Hey,” Crowler broke into my thoughts. “Samsonite wants me to ask if you’re up for a trip this weekend.”
I frowned, coming back to our phone conversation. “I thought you said you’re coming to town?”
“We are, but Samsonite just got off the phone with someone, and she got tickets for a Mustangs game in Kansas City. Want to go?”
“How many tickets?”
I heard him echoing the question to her, and heard her response, “Eight.”
He came back. “Eight, so all of us and if we wanted to bring a couple friends.”
“How’d she get eight tickets to a professional hockey game?”
“Not sure…”