Jackson stepped inside.
“Well?” Rafe asked.
“Well, what?” Jackson slid into the other chair.
“Am I dying?”
“How the hell should I know? Do I look like a doctor?”
Rafe rolled his eyes, which only made his head hurt more. “What did Carmen say?”
“She said she thinks you’re a dick.”
“Very funny.”
“She said she thinks it’s a concussion, but they’ll know more after the CT scan. And if you have to get up to go down the hall to take a piss, one of us has to come with you so you don’t faint.”
Rafe frowned. “Fuck that.”
“No, seriously.”
“Don’t worry, bro, I’ll hold your hand,” Kal said, giving him his signature smart-ass smirk.
Rafe stared at the TV. “This whole situation sucks.”
“If you didn’t bang your head against doors, you wouldn’t be in this situation.”
He glared at Jackson. “How’s the house, by the way?”
“Fire’s contained. Finally. You did good in there.”
“Yeah, right up until the backdraft knocked me on my ass.”
“Hey, we’ve all been there.”
“Not me,” Kal said, his face glued to the game.
Rafe glared at his brother. “You’ll get your turn, asshole.”
Kal let out a laugh. “I’m not as dumb as you.”
“Ignore him,” Jackson said. “His time will come.”
Honestly, Rafe hoped his little brother would never have the same experience Rafe had had today.
Because this pretty much sucked.
“WHO’S THE EXTREMELY HOT FIREFIGHTER IN FIVE?” TESS asked when Carmen returned to the desk.
Carmen kept her focus on charting. “My next-door neighbor.”
“Shut the front door.” Tess’s jaw dropped. “He is not.”
“He is.”
“What’s his status?”
“Possible concussion. We won’t know more until after his CT scan.”
“Carmen Lewis, you’ve been holding out on me.”
“About his diagnosis?”
Tess tilted her head to the side. “No. About you and the hot firefighter.”
Carmen finished charting Rafe’s vitals, supplies they’d used on him and details about his status, then looked up at her friend. Tess Blackstone was a beautiful redhead with a killer smile who’d been Carmen’s best friend since nursing school. Carmen had been terrified her first day of nursing school, didn’t know anyone, felt inept and unprepared for what was ahead. It must have shown on her face, because Tess had sat next to her, leveled her signature bright smile on Carmen and told her they were going to be best friends forever.
And they had been ever since, including falling in love with emergency medicine together and ending up getting a job at the same emergency room. Carmen had been matron of honor at Tess’s wedding to her husband, George, and Tess had been there to offer a shoulder to cry on when Carmen’s marriage had ended so badly.
They’d been through it all together, and there was nothing that Carmen wouldn’t tell her.
“I hold nothing back from you, Tess, and you know it.”
“Apparently, you do, because you’ve been living next door to an extremely sexy firefighter for—how long?”
She shrugged. “A few years.”
“What? And I’m just now hearing about it?”
“Those are his two brothers in there with him. They live with him.”
Tess looked at the room, which just so happened to be across from the nurses station. She gaped, then turned to face Carmen. “Dear God in heaven, Carmen. I don’t think we can be friends anymore.”
Carmen laughed. “You’re so dramatic. There’s nothing to tell. We’re neighbors. That’s it.”
“And yet you never once thought to mention to me that three—count them, three—extremely good-looking firefighters were living right next to you.”
She signed out of her terminal, grabbed her netbook to do some inventory and left the station. “Nope.”
Tess followed. “Hmm.”
Carmen stopped. “What does that mean?”
“That means you’re interested. In which one?”
She shook her head. “None of them. You know I don’t date.”
“Which is weird enough on its own. Your vagina didn’t put up a Closed for business sign after your marriage ended, you know.”
Carmen looked around to make sure no one had heard that. “Tess.”
“What? Just stating the facts. You’re beautiful and vibrant and healthy and you should be having all kinds of sex.”
“Hmph.” She started walking again.
“No hmph. Hump. You should be humping. Everything with a penis.”
She reached the drug room and used a key card and password to enter. Tess followed.
“And you have sex on the brain.”
Tess laughed. “The key to a happy marriage, honey.”
Carmen shook her head and ordered some refills on a few of the drugs they needed.
“So the hurt one. He’s amazingly beautiful, Carmen.”
“Rafe? Yes, he is. He comes over and helps me with Grandpa.”
“Oh, he does? That’s so sweet. And after you get your grandpa to bed, does he help you out with anything else?”
She glanced over at Tess. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. Orgasms?”
Carmen laughed. “No.”
“Then you’re using him in all the wrong ways. Does he have a girlfriend?”
“Rafe? I . . . don’t think so. I’ve never asked.”
“For the love of . . . Girl, we need to get you laid.”
“No, we don’t.” She shut the drug cabinet, withdrew her key and walked out of the room, Tess on her heels.
Tess’s pager went off. “I gotta run. This conversation isn’t over.”
Carmen raised her hand to object, but Tess had already disappeared down the hall. She needed to go check on Rafe anyway, as well as general department status.
When she stopped by Rafe’s room, he was gone, but Kal and Jackson were hanging out there watching television.
“The CT people came to get him about five minutes ago,” Jackson said.
She nodded. “Good. It won’t take long, and we should have results soon.”
“You don’t think it’s anything serious, do you?” Kal asked.
“I couldn’t say, since I’m not a doctor.”
“Come on, Carmen,” Jackson said. “You see this kind of stuff all the time. We’re not asking for a diagnosis. We’re asking what you think.”
She liked that they cared so much about their brother. She also didn’t want to give them false hope. There were a lot of things that could show up on a CT scan. Sometimes bad things.
“He seems fine. A little dizzy and nauseated. If I were to guess, I’d say it’s a concussion. But you know as well as I do that we have to wait for the CT scan results to know for sure.”
Jackson nodded. “Thanks.”
She went back out to the desk, looking over at Rafe’s room every few minutes.