“Fuck you. Of course I can.”

“His parents flew in. They’re with him.”

Nora swore. Wesley would kill her if she turned up at his bedside with his parents sitting right there. He did everything he could to keep her a secret from them. His parents would yank him back to Kentucky so fast his head would spin if they discovered he was living with an infamous erotica writer—especially one who worked as a Dominatrix. Jaded New York parents wouldn’t let their kids near her much less these conservative Southerners.

“Forget it. Just tell me where he is.”

Nora jotted down his hospital room number.

“Thanks, King. I owe you.”

“Pas moi. Our mutual friend was the one who found where they’d taken your pet.”

“Then tell him we’re even now for him tricking me.”

Nora hung up the phone and ran to her room. She threw water on her face and changed clothes again. At 6:00 a.m. she arrived at the hospital and found Dr. Jonas. He explained that Wesley ended up in the PICU because the ICU was full. Nora told him not to tell Wesley that.

He brought her down several hallways past dozens of hospital rooms. She glanced at the figure of a priest talking quietly to a family in tears in one room. Nora lowered her eyes respectfully and kept walking. Passing through a set of double doors, they entered the pediatric ICU. Teddy bears holding balloons were painted on the walls. Oh, yes, she’d never let Wes hear the end of this. Dr. Jonas put his finger over his lips and left her by room 518. She stood outside the open door and listened intently—a woman’s voice with a heavy Southern accent, his mother’s she guessed, loudly whispered to a man with a softer accent. In hushed tones they went back and forth about how they never should have let their son move so far from home for college. Fighting was a good sign. That meant Wesley was out of the woods. But her relief was short-lived. His mother sounded determined to have him back in Kentucky again while his father argued that he was old enough to be on his own, that they couldn’t keep an eye on him forever. Nora found herself nodding her agreement with his father. But she could hear the distress in his mother’s voice, the pain and the fear and the wrought-iron determination. Wesley’s mom wanted him home with her to keep an eye on him. Nora felt the same way.

Nora didn’t know what to do. She found Dr. Jonas again and made him call Wesley’s attending physician. Wesley was in and out of consciousness after they’d brought him in, but he’d been awake and speaking a few hours ago. They’d stabilized his insulin levels and he’d be clear to go home in a day or two. Apparently Wesley wasn’t absorbing his insulin as well as he needed to. He might need to start using a bigger needle. Nora ached with sympathy. Wesley loathed needles. He always injected himself in his upper left arm where he couldn’t see the needle going in. Shoving needles into his own thighs or stomach would probably kill him before it cured him.