How About No
Page 40
My mouth fell open. “Someone shot me?”
He nodded, his face going hard. “The lady that shot you was apparently waiting for you to come out of the mall. She got you once in the stomach.”
I blinked, completely dumbfounded that I would forget something so important as being shot.
“Wow,” I finally settled on. “That’s unfortunate.”
Hoax snorted. “Unfortunate.”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “You have a crush on the pretty nurse.”
Said pretty nurse snorted. “He can’t decide whether he wants to strangle me or kiss me. There’s a line there between the two that he hasn’t crossed over. My guess is at this point he wants to strangle me.”
Yeah, right.
They looked like they wanted to tear each other’s clothes off.
Especially with the way they were both glaring at each other. It was almost as if it’d been happening for a while now.
“Y’all are so going to have sex,” I croaked.
Wade dropped his head to my arm and started to laugh.
Or cry.
With his face covered, I really couldn’t tell mostly because both reactions caused his back to move in very similar ways.
Or at least, the way a person’s back moved. I’d never actually seen Wade cry, so I really couldn’t compare it to him crying because I’d never witnessed it before.
Both Hoax and Pru, the cute nurse, looked at me over Wade’s shaking back.
They looked like I’d thrust my fist into their stomachs.
“What?” I said a little louder this time.
I honestly hadn’t meant for them to hear me.
Or maybe I had. I wasn’t too sure at this point.
My head was getting fuzzy again and I was finding it hard to keep my eyes open.
“Landry,” someone said from beside me. “Look over here, sweetheart.”
I frowned and did, finding Castiel standing there.
“You look like an angel of death,” I informed him, biting my lip after I said it because I didn’t want him to be mad at me. “I’m really sorry I hurt Wade. I didn’t mean to. I only meant to make him realize that I was more importanter than my sister.”
“Importanter’s not a word, and I honestly understand now,” he promised. “Do you remember what happened to you?”
I frowned. “I remember it felt like my soul had left my body when Wade went out there and hugged my sister. And when she started to cry as she tried to get her point across that I needed to donate, I broke a little bit inside when he gave her that really understanding look. That’s my understanding look, not hers. Mine.”
Castiel frowned. “No, not then, honey. I mean now. Today. Do you remember being shot today?”
I pursed my lips and tried to make my mind switch gears. “Yes. Kind of. Linc and Conleigh were standing in front of me while we walked to the car. I was standing behind because I was texting Wade to let him know we were on the way home and Conleigh had to poop. Did you know Conleigh won’t poop anywhere but her house? Apparently, it really is a phobia that she’s just recently acquired. A reporter followed her into the bathroom without her knowing it and she pooped, and it was all on that news channel, AMZ, CMT…something like that.”
“Honey,” Castiel said, a smile on his face. “The shooting. Do you remember who shot you?”
I glared at him. “I was getting there, Reaper!”
Castiel held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry, sorry. I’ll try not to interrupt.”
I glared. “You just do that.”
I felt the bed shaking, but since I was a focused individual, I chose not to acknowledge it and instead continued my narrative.
“Anyway, we stopped for a snack. I’m always hungry. We had some Subway, and Conleigh got a cookie. Linc told her not to get it because that particular kind always made her stomach hurt. But she got it anyway. And what do you know? She had to poop like fifteen minutes later, so we were going to go ahead and go. I was texting Wade about leaving when I must’ve gotten separated from Linc and Conleigh. I looked up and all of a sudden, I’m staring at a woman—the grandmother of one of my kiddos from the daycare—and she was pointing a gun at me. She was actually wearing a black ski mask kind of pulled up, but I could tell who it was from her body, her hands. She has this weird mole on the back of her left hand that looks like a pile of dog poop. Plus, she was with her daughter, Debbie Schultz, who I could see was in the car waiting for her—though she wasn’t wearing a mask.”
I paused, thinking about it. “I dropped my cookie in the parking lot. Man, I really wanted that cookie.” I turned to see Wade staring at me with a thunderous expression on his face. “Will you go get me a cookie?”
He blinked, and the thunderous expression was gone. “Yes, baby. What kind was it?”
“It was a double-stacked piece of cookie cake from the Cookie Factory. The top part had white icing on it, and the middle part had pink icing in it. That’s important. They have to be the same kind, and look the same, too. Conleigh!” I cried out.
“Right here, sweetheart,” Conleigh called, smiling wide.
I frowned at her. “I hope you didn’t poop your pants. That would’ve been very awkward.”
She opened her mouth and then closed it just as quickly. “No, I didn’t. That urge left me really fast when everything happened.”
The certainty in her words made me relax. “Oh, good. After all that you told me about the paparazzi, I was so worried you’d shit yourself and then it’d be on the cameras. What happened to your forehead?”
She pointed at her husband, who didn’t look the least bit sorry for hurting his wife.
“This man right here tackled me to the ground. It hurt really, really bad.” She paused. “I asked him to do that to me once, and he said no. Now I understand why he told me no.”
With that ringing in my ears, I went to sleep.
Chapter 18
Sometimes you have to be the bigger person and walk away. Just kidding. Turn around and knock that mofo’s teeth out.
-Wade to Landry
Wade
“I can’t decide whether to laugh or cry,” Linc said softly the moment Landry’s eyes closed.
I closed my eyes as I replayed the last two hours in my head. Like a goddamn bad record on repeat, with the same fucked up problem every single time it started over.
“Hello?” I answered the phone.
“Got a problem. Shooting at the mall. Your woman was shot in the belly. She’s on the way to the hospital,” Bayou growled over the line.
The next five minutes had been the longest of my life.
I’d made that trip to the hospital hundreds, no, thousands, of time. It’d always seemed so short.
But all of the times that I’d gone, it’d never been Landry in trouble. It’d always been someone else.
Never her.
I’d driven like a maniac, and I prayed the whole way that she’d be okay.
Generally, I wasn’t a religious man. I believed in God, but I also believed in proven facts.
Then, I hadn’t been able to prove a goddamn thing. All I could do was pray. So, that’s what I did.
Possible liver laceration. Severe concussion. Blood loss.
The list of her injuries were numerous, but the one that was the most worrisome was the liver damage.
“We’re going to take her up to the OR now,” someone said, causing me to blink and yank myself out of my head.
“What?”
“We have to assess the damage to her liver, and we’re going to remove the bullet,” the doctor said. He paused. “If you know anyone with AB negative blood, get them in here. We worked four traumas over the last six hours, and we haven’t been able to replenish our blood supply yet. O negative will work in a pinch.”
And that was how I found myself in the OR waiting room with my entire MC, waiting to hear the outcome of my wife’s surgery.
It was two hours into my wait when loud footsteps caused me to look up. Only it wasn’t the doctor like I was hoping. It was Castiel.
He looked pissed, too.
He’d left earlier once Landry had been able to identify her gunman. From there I hadn’t thought about him again until then, my thoughts too focused on Landry and whether she was okay.
He nodded, his face going hard. “The lady that shot you was apparently waiting for you to come out of the mall. She got you once in the stomach.”
I blinked, completely dumbfounded that I would forget something so important as being shot.
“Wow,” I finally settled on. “That’s unfortunate.”
Hoax snorted. “Unfortunate.”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “You have a crush on the pretty nurse.”
Said pretty nurse snorted. “He can’t decide whether he wants to strangle me or kiss me. There’s a line there between the two that he hasn’t crossed over. My guess is at this point he wants to strangle me.”
Yeah, right.
They looked like they wanted to tear each other’s clothes off.
Especially with the way they were both glaring at each other. It was almost as if it’d been happening for a while now.
“Y’all are so going to have sex,” I croaked.
Wade dropped his head to my arm and started to laugh.
Or cry.
With his face covered, I really couldn’t tell mostly because both reactions caused his back to move in very similar ways.
Or at least, the way a person’s back moved. I’d never actually seen Wade cry, so I really couldn’t compare it to him crying because I’d never witnessed it before.
Both Hoax and Pru, the cute nurse, looked at me over Wade’s shaking back.
They looked like I’d thrust my fist into their stomachs.
“What?” I said a little louder this time.
I honestly hadn’t meant for them to hear me.
Or maybe I had. I wasn’t too sure at this point.
My head was getting fuzzy again and I was finding it hard to keep my eyes open.
“Landry,” someone said from beside me. “Look over here, sweetheart.”
I frowned and did, finding Castiel standing there.
“You look like an angel of death,” I informed him, biting my lip after I said it because I didn’t want him to be mad at me. “I’m really sorry I hurt Wade. I didn’t mean to. I only meant to make him realize that I was more importanter than my sister.”
“Importanter’s not a word, and I honestly understand now,” he promised. “Do you remember what happened to you?”
I frowned. “I remember it felt like my soul had left my body when Wade went out there and hugged my sister. And when she started to cry as she tried to get her point across that I needed to donate, I broke a little bit inside when he gave her that really understanding look. That’s my understanding look, not hers. Mine.”
Castiel frowned. “No, not then, honey. I mean now. Today. Do you remember being shot today?”
I pursed my lips and tried to make my mind switch gears. “Yes. Kind of. Linc and Conleigh were standing in front of me while we walked to the car. I was standing behind because I was texting Wade to let him know we were on the way home and Conleigh had to poop. Did you know Conleigh won’t poop anywhere but her house? Apparently, it really is a phobia that she’s just recently acquired. A reporter followed her into the bathroom without her knowing it and she pooped, and it was all on that news channel, AMZ, CMT…something like that.”
“Honey,” Castiel said, a smile on his face. “The shooting. Do you remember who shot you?”
I glared at him. “I was getting there, Reaper!”
Castiel held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry, sorry. I’ll try not to interrupt.”
I glared. “You just do that.”
I felt the bed shaking, but since I was a focused individual, I chose not to acknowledge it and instead continued my narrative.
“Anyway, we stopped for a snack. I’m always hungry. We had some Subway, and Conleigh got a cookie. Linc told her not to get it because that particular kind always made her stomach hurt. But she got it anyway. And what do you know? She had to poop like fifteen minutes later, so we were going to go ahead and go. I was texting Wade about leaving when I must’ve gotten separated from Linc and Conleigh. I looked up and all of a sudden, I’m staring at a woman—the grandmother of one of my kiddos from the daycare—and she was pointing a gun at me. She was actually wearing a black ski mask kind of pulled up, but I could tell who it was from her body, her hands. She has this weird mole on the back of her left hand that looks like a pile of dog poop. Plus, she was with her daughter, Debbie Schultz, who I could see was in the car waiting for her—though she wasn’t wearing a mask.”
I paused, thinking about it. “I dropped my cookie in the parking lot. Man, I really wanted that cookie.” I turned to see Wade staring at me with a thunderous expression on his face. “Will you go get me a cookie?”
He blinked, and the thunderous expression was gone. “Yes, baby. What kind was it?”
“It was a double-stacked piece of cookie cake from the Cookie Factory. The top part had white icing on it, and the middle part had pink icing in it. That’s important. They have to be the same kind, and look the same, too. Conleigh!” I cried out.
“Right here, sweetheart,” Conleigh called, smiling wide.
I frowned at her. “I hope you didn’t poop your pants. That would’ve been very awkward.”
She opened her mouth and then closed it just as quickly. “No, I didn’t. That urge left me really fast when everything happened.”
The certainty in her words made me relax. “Oh, good. After all that you told me about the paparazzi, I was so worried you’d shit yourself and then it’d be on the cameras. What happened to your forehead?”
She pointed at her husband, who didn’t look the least bit sorry for hurting his wife.
“This man right here tackled me to the ground. It hurt really, really bad.” She paused. “I asked him to do that to me once, and he said no. Now I understand why he told me no.”
With that ringing in my ears, I went to sleep.
Chapter 18
Sometimes you have to be the bigger person and walk away. Just kidding. Turn around and knock that mofo’s teeth out.
-Wade to Landry
Wade
“I can’t decide whether to laugh or cry,” Linc said softly the moment Landry’s eyes closed.
I closed my eyes as I replayed the last two hours in my head. Like a goddamn bad record on repeat, with the same fucked up problem every single time it started over.
“Hello?” I answered the phone.
“Got a problem. Shooting at the mall. Your woman was shot in the belly. She’s on the way to the hospital,” Bayou growled over the line.
The next five minutes had been the longest of my life.
I’d made that trip to the hospital hundreds, no, thousands, of time. It’d always seemed so short.
But all of the times that I’d gone, it’d never been Landry in trouble. It’d always been someone else.
Never her.
I’d driven like a maniac, and I prayed the whole way that she’d be okay.
Generally, I wasn’t a religious man. I believed in God, but I also believed in proven facts.
Then, I hadn’t been able to prove a goddamn thing. All I could do was pray. So, that’s what I did.
Possible liver laceration. Severe concussion. Blood loss.
The list of her injuries were numerous, but the one that was the most worrisome was the liver damage.
“We’re going to take her up to the OR now,” someone said, causing me to blink and yank myself out of my head.
“What?”
“We have to assess the damage to her liver, and we’re going to remove the bullet,” the doctor said. He paused. “If you know anyone with AB negative blood, get them in here. We worked four traumas over the last six hours, and we haven’t been able to replenish our blood supply yet. O negative will work in a pinch.”
And that was how I found myself in the OR waiting room with my entire MC, waiting to hear the outcome of my wife’s surgery.
It was two hours into my wait when loud footsteps caused me to look up. Only it wasn’t the doctor like I was hoping. It was Castiel.
He looked pissed, too.
He’d left earlier once Landry had been able to identify her gunman. From there I hadn’t thought about him again until then, my thoughts too focused on Landry and whether she was okay.
