"Thank you," he said, and didn't wait around in case someone else decided to throw him in a cell and leave him there.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Waiting rooms were the worst part of any hospital Quinn had ever had the misfortune to visit. He didn't do well in hospitals. Nothing good had ever come from a hospital. His mother had died in a hospital. His father had died in this very hospital. Nathan had almost died in another hospital.
Only Bethany had had the decency to not drag him into a hospital to wait for her eventual demise. He'd been nowhere near the woman when she died.
Maybe if he had been, she wouldn't have died. Maybe she would have taken Quinn with her. He'd never known if losing her was what saved him. In the end, it didn't matter if everyone he loved ended up dying before him.
Natalie sat across the room leaning on the shoulder of a beautiful Latina who held her like she was precious. Natalie held the woman as much as she was held. Lonnie's mother. Quinn couldn't remember her name.
His skin tingled. His brain buzzed. He was withering. He could feel it. The twitch had started at the back of his brain. These people sitting around him were familiar, yet so very strange. He knew them, but he didn't. Most of their faces were so much older than they should be. Maybe that was him.
He leaned against a wall, he didn't want to sit. He was afraid he'd fall if he walked around. They'd put Nathan in the back of an unmarked car and driven him away. Nate. He twitched. He needed to know if they were charging Nate with any of this bullshit. He needed … He flexed his fingers, holding his hands out to stare at them as if he'd never seen them before. His knuckles were larger than they should be. His fingertips callused and scarred. He had scars on the back of his hands from the breaking of guitar strings … and faces. He'd broken a few faces in his day.
The rusty stain of blood filled the crevices around his nails. He could smell the coppery tang. He'd washed his hands ten times. Scrubbing his skin raw to get the blood off. But he never could.
The sun came up as he tried not to drift off to sleep standing up. He'd fall and never get back up again. He hadn't slept in hours … days. He hadn't slept in days. Not really. He'd tried to sleep last night, but the image of Nate leaving him wouldn't stop playing in his brain. The casual shrug of his shoulders the only goodbye Quinn was ever going to get.
He never came back. Quinn knew where to find him. He'd be curled up in his bed, trying to get his oversized body into the bed he'd outgrown when he was sixteen. All Quinn had to do was walk to the house and drag him back. He hadn't done that.
He'd packed his bags and left. He'd just up and left the only life that mattered to him. Nurses came and went and nobody talked much. Cops came and went. One stood outside of a room just down the hallway. They were waiting for news. Quinn didn't know what he was waiting for.
The sun came up, people stirred. He could smell coffee. Someone offered to make a breakfast run. Quinn had shaken his head. No one came to tell him a damned thing.
He was sleeping. He could feel the strangeness of his body. The half-dreams he had always had. He could hear music. Words and chords and phrasing and tempo. He felt his hands twitch. Music or drugs. Music and drugs. Music was his drug. Music and Nathan. Without them, he couldn't function. He didn't want to function.
He couldn't stand the smell of blood. He needed to go home and shower and change into better clothes. They'd taken the clothes he'd been wearing. Even his boots. He'd lost Nate's hat. He smiled remembering another hat from another time. Someone was dying. He couldn't bury another person he loved. He couldn't keep burying people. He needed to find out if Nate was going to jail.
"Quinn." The voice was in his head. Deep and sensual and filled with life. The life he craved. "Quinn." The voice stroked his body. Heat trailed over his bare arms. He shivered at the touch. He heard a whimper escape his lips. Big arms wrapped around him and he melted. He grabbed on to the life-preserver with all his strength and held on.
"You're not dead," he whispered the words, unsure of why he had to. "You came back."
Soft, warm lips covered his. Nate pulled him closer and held him tight. He kissed Quinn so very gently. Quinn's brain stopped twitching.
* * * * *
His arm still stung from the antiseptic and the stitches. He tried not to scratch the new bandages. He was exhausted and starving. He just wanted to go home and sleep. He couldn't.
Natalie seemed to be holding up better than he expected when he found the right waiting room. She sat holding Mrs. Ortiz's hand. The woman looked dazed. Nathan hated putting her through this. Natalie nodded at him when he stepped into the room, her eyes cutting to the wall at the far end of the room as if she was trying to tell him something without speaking.