Since Gage had abandoned his car at the office, we had to call a cab to take us to the hospital. It was drizzling again, and that added to the demand of a Friday night made our taxi later than we’d wanted it. Then again, he’d wanted it to appear instantaneously, with the click of his fingers. But even Uber wasn’t working that quickly.

The best I could do was to hold his hand in the back seat as he made phone call after phone call. Unfortunately, sitting at his right side meant that he had to let go in order to punch out numerous texts. So I smoothed my hand over his thigh instead in a vain attempt to calm him. He flashed me a tight but grateful smile, his square jaw clenching in the shadows.

He was still on the phone when we pulled up at the Emergency Room entrance. In his distraction he merely got his wallet out of his pocket and pushed it into my hand before bolting from the car. With a shrug, I pulled out some money and handed it to the driver, wishing him a good night.

It seemed pretty obvious that the good part of my evening was over.

Aaron was pacing in front of Gage when I walked into the triage area. His thick black hair was puffed out like a French poodle’s, and his light pink polo shirt had streaks of blood on it that looked almost like fingerprints. His dark skin was almost ashen gray, his deep chocolate eyes glittering.

What the hell had happened? Had they been in a car crash?

I was startled when Gage grabbed him and forced him down into a chair, but also relieved that he’d stopped the back and forth motion that was already making me dizzy.

“What. Happened?” Gage demanded.

“We were having dinner at home. She didn’t eat very much, said she had a stomachache. All of a sudden she said she felt sick. So we got up to clear the table, and she b-bent over.” His gaze flickered between us like a firefly—bright and unsteady. “She bent over. She bent over and I saw blood on her jeans. It was on the seat of the chair. And it kept spreading.”

“She was fine when I saw her this afternoon,” I murmured, mostly to myself until Gage whipped his narrowed gaze to me. I would have to explain that to him later.

Aaron threw his hands up, the whites of his eyes bright in his face. “I mean, what the fuck, Gage!” It was a plea, an accusation, and an unanswered question all rolled into one. He looked like he was about to throw up, and I was close to shoving his head between his legs when Gage palmed the back of his friend’s head and beat me to it.

“I didn’t even know she was coming this weekend. Is that why you bailed on the work I asked you to do?”

I put my hand on Gage’s back. “Really not the time.”

He took a deep breath in his through his nose and out through his mouth. “Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry, you’re right.”

One day I would get a recording of him saying that.

He turned to me with a grim look. “Can you get him some water? I’m going to talk to the nurse and see if I can get back there to find out what the hell is going on!” His voice rose sharply at the end, getting the desk clerk’s attention. I already felt sorry for her.

Aaron’s torso rebounded a little as Gage let go to stalk to the desk. Then he sagged again, his giant hands twisted together like pretzels before him and his elbows braced on his knees. With a jolt I realized there was dried blood around his fingernails.

“Let’s go wash your hands and get a drink, okay Aaron?”

He glanced up at me, the whites of his eyes pink but no tears spilling from them yet. I felt awful just looking at him, my stomach twisting. “What? Maddie?” He frowned, as though surprised to see me. I would have been surprised too, sort of.

I touched his shoulder gently. “Let’s go clean up a little.” As I helped him stand, which frankly was like moving a refrigerator, I saw Gage throw me a mysterious hand signal before disappearing behind some double doors that needed a keycard for access.

We shuffled to the nearest restroom, where Aaron disappeared behind the door and I waited close by to make sure I didn’t hear the thump of him fainting or something himself. When he reappeared his hands were clean and water droplets clung to his hair around his face, as though he’d splashed himself.

“Better?” I asked.

With his legs a little steadier and his nod a little firmer, he croaked, “Water would be good.” But all his energy was focused on the locked doors that Gage had gone through.

Looking around, I saw a water fountain but no paper cups. An alcove by the front door housed a small array of vending machines, though. “Okay, go sit down again. I’ll get you a bottle.”

I didn’t have any cash on me, but Gage’s wallet still burned a hole in my jacket pocket. With a mental note to repay him, I borrowed a few bucks to pay for the resounding clunk of a full water bottle falling down the inside of the machine. After the briefest of inner debates, I decided to splurge for another. He was a billio—millionaire, and he wouldn’t care.

As I passed a bottle to Aaron, the silence between us was broken by an older dark-haired woman calling out his name.

“Where is she?”

“Mother?” I confirmed with Aaron under my breath. He nodded slightly.

“She’s back there.” His hand still shook a little as he pointed to the doors. “Brian’s with her. They wouldn’t let me go because I’m not family.” He sounded like he was ready to cry.

Without another word the woman flew to the desk. She was barely five feet tall but gave off the impression of a Tasmanian devil. That poor clerk was getting her fill of Gages tonight. And I still didn’t know what was wrong with Bobbie. The way Aaron described it sounded like a girly kind of problem, and possibly one of the worst kind. My insides crumpled in sympathy at the thought.

“Okay, the nurse is going to get a doctor to come out and take us back,” Gage’s mother announced. She raked a hand through her thick dark hair in a gesture eerily similar to her children. “Both of us.”

“Thanks.” Aaron let out a long sigh, like someone had untied a balloon in his chest. He cracked open the water bottle and sipped it, which reminded me that I had one in my other hand.

I offered it to Mrs. Gage. “Um, here.”

She turned to me with a confused look in her bright blue eyes. Clearly I hadn’t been noticed in the commotion of her dramatic entrance. “Thank you, uh…”

“Maddie. This is Maddie.” As an introduction, Aaron’s left something to be desired. Not that I could blame him; I was lucky he remembered my name in his current state.

“I work with your son,” I said lamely, willing myself not to blush. With, under, over, around.

The lines around her eyes deepened with her puzzled look. “I don’t understand. Why are you here?”

That was a damn good question. I was beginning to wonder that myself. What was I to Gage? What was I to Bobbie? I felt awkward and in the way, and adrift without Gage’s hand to tether me.

“She’s cool, Mrs. G.”

Aaron’s eloquence was just blowing me away.

I shuffled my feet, acutely aware of my bare legs under my skirt—not to mention the still damp panties that I’d dragged back on at Gage’s house. Only then did I realize that I’d left my laptop bag at his house and did a mental facepalm. At least I had my phone and purse, but I couldn’t go back for my bag without him—and I had no idea when he would be coming out.

Just then an orderly came out and said he could take Mrs. Gage and Aaron back. With a determined expression Aaron popped up from the chair so fast that he scared the shit out of the orderly, who was about a foot shorter than him. As they scurried to the big doors, I remembered something.

“Here!” I shoved Gage’s wallet into Aaron’s hand. “Give this back to him.”

He just nodded absently, his mind already twenty feet down the hall ahead of him. It didn’t occur to him to invite me back with them, and I wouldn’t have gone if he’d asked. It wasn’t my place.

I was still wondering where exactly my place was when I got a cab home.