“You’re not allowed to bleed in front of me ever again,” she told him and then looked around at us. “None of you are, got that?”
We couldn’t promise that, and she knew it, but we all nodded along and promised to do our best not to. “We have to go to the police station when you’re done here,” she said. “You have to give a statement.”
Callan sighed. “Of course.” He looked at Ethan. “Are we going to be spending time in jail?”
Ethan shook his head. “I think the investigator saw that it was self-defense and that we protected the people in that cafe, and—”
“And he’s totally a fanboy of Adrianne’s,” I added. “He’d do just about anything to make her happy.”
Adrianne blushed, but she looked mighty pleased with herself. “He’s not wrong,” she said. “I autographed napkins for him.”
The nurse came bustling back into the room with the suture tray. “There’s too many people in here,” she barked, annoyed. “You can keep someone to hold your hand, but the rest have to go.”
Adrianne looked conflicted. “I want to stay,” she said, “but I need to check on Ryan.”
“You go,” I said, shooing her and Ethan out of the room. “You go check on your friend. Once Callan’s patched up, we’ll go deal with the police.”
She smiled at me. “Thank you.”
Once they left, I lowered myself into a chair beside Callan’s bed. “You know she’s not going to numb you, right?” I asked, pitching my voice low.
“I’m aware,” Callan said.
“You need to hold my hand?” I asked teasingly.
“Shut up,” he growled. The nurse brought the tray over, and he tried giving her his best, most charming smile, but she wasn’t having it.
She cleaned the wound and then began stitching the torn flesh back together. Callan gritted his teeth and took the pain that came with it, but he did grab my arm once or twice when she hit a snag.
It took over an hour, but she made as clean a line as she could, still hoping to save him some scarring. She put an antibiotic ointment on the wound and applied a sterile gauze. She handed the rest of the ointment to Callan, as well as a prescription for pain medication. “Something tells me that I don’t need to tell you to change this dressing at least every other day?”
Callan shook his head. “I’ve got it handled, thanks,” he said.
She dipped her head in acknowledgement and declared him done. “There’s paperwork about wound care that I’m supposed to give you,” she said. “Are you just going to throw it away? Because I’d rather not waste it.”
“I’ll take it,” I said, and she plucked it off the side counter and handed it to me. “I’ll make sure he takes good care of himself.”
She huffed and told us that we could leave before she stomped from the room. I helped Callan off the bed. “Youreallypissed her off,” I said.
He shrugged. “Can’t help it when someone’s attracted to me, you know?”
“Come on, Don Juan, let’s go find our girl.”
Luckily, Ethan and Adrianne were coming out of a room just down the hall at the same time we were. “Are you okay?” she asked, eyes landing on Callan.
“Sore, but I’ll survive,” he said. “How’s Ryan?”
“They’re keeping him overnight,” Ethan said. “He had a little bleeding in his brain that shouldn’t need surgery, but they want to keep an eye on him.”
Shit, I thought. “Do we know if Steven is here?”
Adrianne shuddered. “We didn’t ask,” she said. “I’m not sure I want to know.”
That was fair. The guy obviously had some kind of problem, but it didn’t mean that Adrianne had to forgive him the torment that he’d rained down on her for months. “I’m sure the police are holding him somewhere.”
She nodded, taking the words as the comfort I meant for them to be. “You all need to go make your statements,” she said. “I’d like to get that done sooner rather than later, please.”
We agreed and made our way back out of the hospital. The town car was waiting. “One more stop before we head back to the hotel,” Ethan said to the driver. “The police station.” The driver nodded, completely unaffected by the directive, and pulled out of the parking lot as casually as if we’d asked if he could take us to McDonald’s. I thought we were pretty cool customers when it came to clients, but this guy was next-level.