by Tasha Fawkes
I half-walked, half-ran through the quad and toward the nearest corner along University Avenue. Traffic was steady, but after a few moments, I spotted a yellow cab and lifted my arm and waved. The cab merged with traffic on the street and pulled to the curb.
I opened the door and clambered inside. “Dallas University Hospital!”
I barely sat down before the taxi took off, meter running. Keeping one eye on the meter and the other on the street, I couldn’t help but imagine the worst. What happened? Had Charlie been hit by a car? How bad was he hurt? And, although I was ashamed to admit it, how much was this going to cost?
Heart pounding in dread, I prayed that Charlie wasn’t hurt badly. That he didn’t need surgery. That he wouldn’t die. I had dealt with enough heartbreak in my life. Charlie might have his problems, but he was my brother. I’d do anything for him.
By the time the taxi pulled up in front of the entrance doors of the five-story hospital complex, I trembled with anxiety, so much so that when I glanced at the meter and dug into my pocket for the twenty I always carried on me, I nearly ripped the bill. I told the cabbie to keep the change. Five dollars wasn’t going to make or break me, and I knew that like me, cabbies relied on tips to make it by. I barely heard the cabby’s mumbled thanks—was that sarcasm or appreciation—before I scrambled out, slammed the door, and trotted toward the front doors. They swished open as a middle-aged couple exited, and I hurried through. Directly across from the entrance stood a reception desk manned by two older women wearing pink tops.
“May I help you, dear?” one of the ladies asked with a smile.
“Emergency room!”
“To the left, follow the corridor.”
“Thanks.” I quickly turned left. I’d never been inside this hospital before, although next semester, I might be enduring my summer practicum hours here. It looked like a nice place—floor-to-ceiling windows on the left, real potted plants, low-pile carpeting with a modern abstract design in colorful red, yellow, and blue.
After I rounded the curve of the building, I saw the waiting room of the emergency department at the far end of the hall. I quickly made my way to yet another reception desk, this one situated behind a half wall of stucco and wood paneling on the bottom, glass on top. The nurse behind the glass focused on her computer screen, fingers flying over the keys. I tapped on the glass. The nurse looked up and leaned forward to open the small sliding glass window over the desk.
“I got a text. My brother was brought here a little while ago—”
“Name?”
“My name is Dana Sommer. My brother’s name is Charlie Sommer. S-o-m-m-e-r.”
The nurse picked up a clipboard beside her computer, thumbed through several papers, and then nodded. “Come on back,” she said, pressing a round red button on the wall beside her desk. A low buzz followed, and I turned toward the two automatically locking doors that slowly opened. The sign on one of them read: No admittance. Emergency Room Personnel Only!
I quickly stepped through as the nurse on the other side gestured. “Follow me please.”
Mouth dry and pulse racing, I followed quickly taking in the scene. Large floor space separated into trauma bays, and light blue fabric curtains divided the spaces neatly. Carts with drawers containing numerous ER supplies, and portable x-ray and digital scanning machines, wheelchairs, and several gurneys lined the walls. Two of the bays were occupied, their curtains pulled completely around on tracks screwed into the ceiling, hiding the patients from view. The sound of a woman weeping came from one, the voice of a male doctor discussing test results with his patient from the other.
I followed the nurse as I took a hard right and then proceeded through another set of double doors. A smaller space equipped with four additional bays, each with another set of curtains hanging from their ceiling tracks.
“He’s over there, last one on the left. The doctor will come talk to you shortly.”
Before I could ask any questions, the nurse turned and left. It was quiet in here, barely any activity; was this a room where non-emergent cases waited to be seen or transferred to a room on the upper floors? A young nurse stood at a high-waisted mobile desk that served as a nursing station, tapping information into a tablet, a stethoscope resting beside it. She looked over at me, offered a small smile and a nod, and then returned to her charting or whatever it was she was doing.
My tennis shoes made no sound on the linoleum floor as I stepped toward the last bay. I grasped the curtain and slowly pulled it aside, afraid of what I might see on the other side. When I saw my brother, I clapped a hand over my mouth to stifle my gasp.
“Does it look that bad?”
“Oh my God, Charlie, what happened?” Relieved that my brother was conscious, I swept my gaze over his usually handsome face. A two-inch cut on his forehead. It looked deep. A puffy right eye nearly swollen shut, the skin around it already starting to turn a deep purple. A horizontal gash over the bridge of his nose, probably broken. It too had started to swell, as had the right side of his jaw. Along with his bottom lip, dried blood congealing on it.
“Don’t freak, Dana,” he said. “A few stitches, a cracked rib, and a busted nose, but other than that, I’m going to be all right.”
“What happened?” I stared aghast at him, reaching for his hand. I noted his scraped and bloodied knuckles and frowned. A fight?
“Don’t get pissed, I—”
“A little late for that, don’t you think? Another fight?” He looked away, shoulders slumped. I felt bad. Why did I always feel sorry for him? No matter how frustrated I got with him, I couldn’t stand the thought of him thinking I was disappointed in him. He just couldn’t seem to catch a break. Bad luck followed him, some of it his own doing, some of it merely that—bad luck.
“I owe some money… to a bookie—”
I barely stifled a groan. We had talked about this before. Or rather, I had talked, trying to get him to understand that his on-again and off-again penchant for gambling wasn’t going to get him anywhere but into trouble. I struggled to hide my disappointment. His eyes looked so… so sad. He wasn’t trying to play me. That’s the way he always looked. Most of the time, anyway. I didn’t know how to take that sadness away.
“Your bookie…” I didn’t pursue that, at least not for the moment. “And he did that to you?” I felt sick to my stomach.
Charlie nodded. “Slim Pete. He said he was tired of waiting for me to pay up.”
How long had this been going on? I swallowed and struggled to hide my emotions. “Tired of waiting… how much do you owe him, Charlie?”
“Fifty grand.”
At first I thought I had misheard, but when I saw the look on his face, his ashen skin and the damage that had been done to his face, I realized I hadn’t. Oh God. Fifty thousand dollars? The air left my lungs as if I’d just been punched in the gut. Never in my life would I have imagined that he would be so reckless as to dig himself a hole this deep. The worst had been two years ago. A two-thousand-dollar debt. I had worked hard to pay it off, as had Charlie, taking any construction job he could find. I thought he had learned his lesson. I thought my brother had been doing good lately, fighting his demons without throwing caution to the wind. Obviously not.
I stared at him, mouth open but no words coming out. His eyes filled, and he gently shook his head, ashamed. He spoke, his voice subdued.
“He said if I don’t pay up within a week, the goons will pay me another visit.”
His good eye turned toward me.
“I got the impression that they wouldn’t go so easy on me next time.”
Oh God, oh God, oh God. I shook my head and said the first thing that came into my head. “You’ve got to get out of town, Charlie!” Panic bubbled up inside me. “You can’t stay here… you need to find a place to hide. Maybe you can go to Uncle Greg’s.”
“No way!” he refused. “I’d sooner risk my life here than ask that lush for any favors.”
While I had little affection for
my fifty-two-year-old alcoholic uncle on our dad’s side, he was about the only family we had left. Our parents’ had died in a plane crash seven years ago. After the tragedy, Charlie and I had moved in with Uncle Greg, but he was always drunk and paid little attention to us. He demanded that I take care of all the cooking, the cleaning, and the laundry.
At fifteen, with a fourteen-year-old brother, I had basically become Charlie’s parent, but I took the responsibility seriously. Even at such a young age, Charlie had realized that Greg Sommer was worthless. Our uncle had only agreed to take us in because my father’s life insurance policy provided him with an allowance that would enable him to support us.
Problem was, he didn’t use the money to support me or my brother. He spent it on booze and women. How many nights had I relied on boxed macaroni and cheese to feed us? More often than not there was no milk for breakfast, and supper usually consisted of Campbell’s tomato soup with saltine crackers. During the three years that we had lived with him, I had rarely tasted real meat. Everything came from boxes or cans.
“Dana?”
His voice pulled me from the awful memories, and I gazed down at him, torn between anger and compassion.
“I’m sorry, I. Really I am. I just got… got carried away. Thought that the next hand would be the winner…”
I said nothing, disbelief the strongest emotion I felt at the moment. Now was not the time for a severe tongue lashing. I fought back the growing lump in my throat. How the hell were we going to get out of this mess? He squeezed my hand.
“I can make a payment plan. A friend owes me some money. As soon as I get it, I can make the first payment.”
I didn’t believe a word of it. How many times had I been through this with him? Where he got the money to gamble was beyond me. Charlie was a handsome young man with lots of potential that he failed to recognize, either through a lack of self-confidence or just plain laziness. At seventeen, Charlie had dropped out of school and refused to return to complete his senior year.
Thinking that a change of scenery and getting away from Uncle Greg would help, I had started putting out feelers. The moment Charlie turned eighteen, Charlie and I had left Uncle Greg’s and headed for Dallas, where I had a job lined up at a local diner and a college scholarship. I encouraged Charlie to find a steady job, to take night classes at the local junior college to get his GED, to make some goals for his life.
Most of my scholarship went toward my tuition and my books. I had found a small studio off campus. While part of the scholarship money helped with that expense, the rest: utilities, food, and clothes, was generated from my job at the diner. I worked long hours and picked up every extra shift I could, even on holidays.
Charlie had worked various jobs after we arrived in Dallas, and I had never approved of many of them. The people he worked for were shady, perhaps into drugs and God knew what else. Honestly, I didn’t really want to know. He shared a small apartment downtown with his best friend, Eric, who was two years older than Charlie. Shiftless, also hopping from job to job, fond of alcohol, prostitutes, and drugs. He was a bad influence on Charlie, but I couldn’t do anything about that.
Charlie was an adult, by age anyway, and I couldn’t make him do anything he didn’t want to do. But I tried. I was all he had. I would always fight for him, no matter what.
“Oh, Charlie…” I sighed, wishing... wondering what I could have done differently to help him along in life. The death of our parents’, the years spent living with my alcoholic uncle, devoid of affection with barely enough food to subsist on, had turned Charlie inward. He was an angry, bitter young man. I knew he loved me as much as I loved him, but he was dissatisfied with what life had offered. While I worked hard and focused on making my life better, for the both of us, Charlie had turned into a prisoner of his own bitterness. He never touched alcohol, but I suspected that at times he dabbled in prescription drugs to dull his pain. To escape. My heart ached for him.
“It’ll be all right, I—”
I heard footsteps and turned to watch a nurse approach with a suture tray. In the not so distant future, that would be me, perhaps approaching another young man who’d gotten himself beat up over God knew what. Stitching up the superficial damage, though not healing the wound.
“The doctor recommends your brother stay overnight for observation. He might have a concussion.”
My heart sank. I glanced at Charlie and then turned my shoulders slightly so he couldn’t see my face. I looked at the nurse and gently shook my head. “We don’t have insurance, and little money to pay for a hospital stay. But I’m a nursing student—almost done—and I’m familiar with the signs of a concussion. I can take him home with me and watch him,” I said. “If I even think he’s experiencing symptoms, I’ll bring him back. I promise.”
The nurse looked as if she would disagree, but she seemed to understand. “I’ll let the doctor know. You’ll have to sign the AMA statement—”
“What’s that?” Charlie asked.
“Against medical advice, Charlie,” I told him. “It just states that we know you’re leaving against medical advice.”
He nodded. “Fine with me.”
“You can go talk to the finance department while I get him stitched up,” the nurse said. “Then we’ll see about getting him discharged, okay?”
“Thank you,” I said, turning to Charlie. “I’ll go take care of this.” I then turned to the nurse. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Don’t discharge him until I come back.”
The nurse nodded, and I quickly left the room. The moment I passed through the emergency room doors and headed for the front desk to ask the way to the billing office, I slumped against the wall. Out of Charlie’s line of vision and hearing, I allowed myself a brief moment to succumb to my emotions. I buried my face in my hands. Don’t cry. You don’t have time to cry! God, when was this going to end? When would life start going my way? Charlie’s way?
Chapter Three
Brady
I woke with a pounding headache. It took several moments of staring up at the ceiling to remember where I was. Another luxury hotel room, but oddly enough, they had all begun to look much the same. Wincing, I glanced away from the brightness of the window and saw one of the twins; her long black hair spread out on the pillow and lying along her gorgeous back. I loved the feeling of that silky hair sliding through my fingers. My gaze dipped downward to the slope of her back and the rise of her ass, causing a renewed aching deep inside. I reached my hand toward her, placing it gently on that ass, smiling.
The two had exhausted me last night. I’d lost count of how many times I’d dipped into their slits, how many times I’d suckled identical tits, and even how many times one or the other, I couldn’t remember which, had sucked my dick. Unbelievably, just looking at that ass made me horny again.
A soft, breathy sigh on my other side prompted me to turn and find the other twin lying on her side, facing me, the gorgeous, up-close and personal view of her luscious breasts prompting my balls to tighten with desire. I tucked my other hand between her warm thighs, cradling the edge of it against her pussy. The burning flame of desire deep in my groin came to life despite my pounding headache, my dry mouth, and my slight sense of nausea from overindulging last night.
What the hell? Maybe a morning fuck was just what I needed to start my day. I gently squeezed the ass with my hand while I slowly stroked the cleft in the other one’s pussy, eliciting a sleepy, soft groan of pleasure from her lips. I glanced down at my dick, at half-mast now and beginning to throb with desire. I closed my eyes and just focused on the sensations surging through me—
My cell phone rang, jarring me from my wayward thoughts. The dial tone was low and barely audible, but was accompanied by a vibration that caused the phone to move ever so slightly on the bedside table. I scowled at it and then, releasing Marta’s ass… or was it the other one, Maria? With a sigh, I removed my hand from that ass and half-rose over the other twin, my hand sliding down to her thigh as
I reached for the phone, intending to allow it to go to voicemail.
Until I recognized the number. Shit. My father, the oh-so-mighty oil tycoon and billionaire, Clint Shaw. I frowned. This was highly unusual. Normally, it was Frederick, my father’s lawyer, or another one of his henchmen who typically called me. What did my father want so badly that he’d call me personally?
As much as I wanted to, I didn’t dare ignore the call, knowing that doing so would bring all sorts of hell down on my head. Mumbling under my breath, I quickly scrambled from the bed and walked out of the bedroom and into the living area of the luxuriously appointed suite, my hard-on now shrinking as I quickly made my way to the wet bar.
I answered the call and put the phone on speaker as I reached for a bottle of Scotch, unscrewed the lid, and splashed half an inch into a glass. “Hey, Dad,” I said, then lifted the glass to my lips and swallowed, my throat burning with the aftermath. “What’s up?” I glanced down at my dick, which wasn’t. My father’s gruff voice and terse manner of speaking, despite traveling thousands of miles, sounded eerily close.
“We need to talk. I want you home. Tomorrow.”
I scowled. He didn’t know I was out of the country, but it didn’t really matter. I had no intention of jumping on a plane to head back to Dallas, at least not yet. “What’s going on, Dad?”
“I’m not going to discuss it over the phone. You’ll come home. Tomorrow. We’ll talk then.”
I was about to reply when I heard the patter of feet and glanced over my shoulder to see one of the twins—not sure which one was it, they both looked the same—walking toward me, as naked as I was. Her breasts bounced softly as she walked, her nipples hard and erect, her areolas incredibly large. I stared at those rosy red tips for several seconds before glancing down at her bare pussy—
“Brady.”
“Sure… sure, Dad—”
