Damn. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” It’s not her words as much as her body language—the stiff posture and the space she puts between us—that informs me I’ve been firmly shoved back to my side of the friendship line she’s drawn between us.

“Hey.” I want to chase after her, to drag her into the light somewhere so I can see her face and have a clue what she might be thinking. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. We should probably find Jake and explain before he tells Ava and the rumors start flying.”

Teagan

Present day . . .

“Okay, mister, how’s the pain level this morning?” I ask as I head into my latest admit’s room.

Isaiah Goldright turns his sleepy eyes on me and gives me a wide grin. “Better now that I’m looking at you.”

Shaking my head, I check his vitals and IV fluids. “I’m sure.”

This kid has been charming the pants off the pediatric nurses since he came in through the ER. I know what brought him here—the blood-alcohol level of point-one-two that made him steer his car right down the side of the hill and into a tree at sixty miles per hour. Still, the social worker and ER both gave him lectures already. It’s not my place to pile on, even if that means biting my tongue every time I walk in the room.

“Your vitals look good.” I step over to my laptop to add details to his chart, but when I turn, I see he has a visitor I didn’t notice before. “Oh. Hi.”

“Good morning,” Carter says. I haven’t seen him since I left Jackson Brews last night, after he agreed to be my fake boyfriend for my sister’s wedding. It was harder to leave than I want to admit. I was worried that the second I left, Myla would be all over him, but if we’re going to do this, I have to trust him.

“What are you doing here?” I ask softly, looking back and forth between him and my patient.

“Just checking in on Isaiah and making sure he’s not giving you all too much trouble up here.”

This must be the friend he visited yesterday morning. How do they know each other? “He’s pretty damn lucky.”

“If you can call a guy who had to be cut out of his car ‘lucky,’” Isaiah grumbles.

“You are,” Carter says.

“My football season is over.”

Carter shrugs. “Now maybe you’ll know what I mean when I warn you that actions have consequences.”

“I only had a couple of beers.”

Carter grunts. “Five is not a couple.”

“I thought . . .” Isaiah scowls at the ceiling. “I thought I could drive fine.”

“You’re fucking lucky your car and the tree took the worst of the damage.”

“My car is totaled,” the teen says.

Carter folds his arms. “Would you rather you’d killed off some innocent family? You want a few deaths on your conscience for the rest of your life?”