Whatever was happening to his heart must have transferred to his lungs, because before Micah knew it, he was hyperventilating like a child. The panic that he probably should have felt hours ago while being held at gun point hit him like a tidal wave.

He was vaguely aware of his father asking Tracy for something to help take the edge off.

Micah didn’t fight it when she injected him with some kind of drug that slowed his breathing and made his eyelids heavy. He didn’t fight it either, when unconsciousness beckoned. He welcomed the dark oblivion of sleep, where he didn’t have to think or feel a thing.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“Sweet pea, you look like a coke addict who got hit by a car and decided to walk it off.”

Micah stared blankly. “Yeah, well, I feel like a homeless coke addict who got mowed down by a bus, so it must not be as bad as I thought.”

Tired, disheveled, and generally miserable as he was, Micah still must have pulled off sarcasm pretty well because Tessa at least had the decency to look apologetic. “Sorry. I brought ice cream.” She pulled two quarts of the stuff from the reusable bag hanging off her arm – one mint chip, and one double-fudge brownie.

He waved her inside.

She’d been by his apartment every day since Damon had unceremoniously dropped his ass and triggered his panic attack in the back of the ambulance.

Micah’s father hadn’t wanted him to return to his apartment at all. At first citing his “episode” in the ambulance, and then his concussion. The real reason, however, had quickly become apparent on the way back from the hospital.

“Does Romano know where you live?” Abram demanded as they pulled up to Micah’s apartment.

Micah didn’t see the point in lying. “Yes.”

Abram grimaced, his knuckles turning white where they gripped the steering wheel. “Perhaps you should consider moving back in with me for a while. Just until things blow over.”

“What ‘things’?” Micah asked listlessly. Surely his dad wasn’t referring to his pseudo-relationship with Damon – because that was done. Finished. Over. The man had made that clear when he’d walked away. “Trust me, Damon has probably already wiped my existence from his memory, as indifferent and unconcerned with me as he would be a flobberworm.”

Abram hadn’t been convinced. (Also, confused over what a flobberworm was.)

Ultimately, though, Micah was an adult, and his father didn’t have the authority nor the ability to keep him away from his own apartment. Abram had slept over that first night, however, and had insisted someone drop by once a day to check on him.

Tessa had eagerly volunteered.

It wasn’t as if Micah’s father was being unreasonable in his concern.