All Consuming

by Burton, Jaci

  “You need the extra carbs and sugar after that morning cardio workout.”

  She laughed, then slipped a piece of her frittata onto his plate. He scooped it up and ate it.

  “That’s good. I’m gonna have to make one.”

  “Always experimenting, aren’t you?”

  He shrugged. “I like food. Experimenting with new recipes is fun.”

  “Maybe I should have you come over and make me dinner on your days off.”

  He took a sip of his juice. “I’d love to.”

  “I was joking.”

  “I wasn’t. I’d be happy to cook for you and your family anytime. Just say the word.”

  She stared at him across the table while she ate.

  “What?”

  “You’re just . . . unique, Kal.”

  He grinned. “Yeah? That’s good. I like being unique. I mean, besides my incredible good looks and all.”

  Now she rolled her eyes at him. “Never mind. I take it all back.”

  He laughed, and they went back to eating. But he couldn’t deny her compliment felt good.

  After their server cleared their plates, she asked, “So what’s on the agenda today?”

  “What would you like to do? I’m game for anything.”

  “Actually, there’s an exhibit at one of the museums I’ve been meaning to catch. I know it might not be something you’re interested in.”

  He shrugged. “What kind of exhibit?”

  Her phone buzzed, so she held up her hand and looked down at her phone, then frowned. “It’s Oliver’s school. I need to take this.”

  He waited while she answered the call.

  “Okay, what happened?” she asked. “How badly is he hurt?”

  Kal’s stomach tightened. He motioned for their server and got up to pay the bill.

  When he came back, Hannah was by the door. She looked pale and really worried, which meant he needed to get in his firefighter head and keep her calm.

  “Oliver fell playing ball on the playground. They think his arm might be broken. Can you take me home so I can go get him?”

  “It’ll be faster if I take you right to the school.”

  She nodded. “Thanks.”

  They got in his truck, and Hannah gave him directions to Oliver’s school. Fortunately, they weren’t far away. He pulled into the parking lot, and Hannah shot out of the truck, but Kal caught up with her.

  “Hannah.” He took her arm. “Before we go in, take a few deep breaths. The last thing Oliver needs to see is you panicking right now.”

  She breathed in, then out. “You’re right. Thanks.”

  They walked down the sidewalk toward the front entrance.

  “I broke my arm when I was six,” he said.

  She looked over at him and frowned. “You did? I don’t think you ever told me that.”

  He shrugged. “It’s because I was stupid. Who tells their girlfriend they did something dumb? Anyway, I was fine. And Oliver will be fine, too. Don’t worry.”

  She nodded, and they went to the front office, then were directed to the nurse’s office, where Oliver was sitting with his left arm cradled against his chest. The nurse had made a sling for him. When Oliver saw Hannah, he started crying.

  “It hurts, Momma.”

  Hannah came over and sat next to him, cradling him against her. Kal knew from his experiences with his own mom after she’d adopted him that motherly love was the best medicine when you were hurt.

  “Are you his father?” the nurse asked.

  “No, I’m Mrs. Clark’s—” He looked over at Oliver. “Friend. But I’m a firefighter and a paramedic.”

  She nodded. “It’s definitely broken. I can tell from the angle of his arm.”

  “Got it. We’ll take him straight to the ER.”

  Kal went over and crouched down in front of Oliver. “Roughing it up on the playground, huh, buddy?”

  “We were playing kickball, and me and Jose were fighting over the ball. I slipped and held out my hand and then something snapped in my arm. It really hurts, Kal.”

  Kal ruffled Oliver’s hair, then framed his face between his hands. “I know it does. We’ll get you to the hospital, and they’ll fix it right up.”

  After thanking the nurse, Kal didn’t even bother trying to walk Oliver to the truck. He picked him up, and Hannah walked next to them. Oliver laid his head on Kal’s shoulder, and Kal felt such a tug of emotion he didn’t know what to do with all these feelings. What he did know was he didn’t want Oliver to hurt.

  He buckled Oliver in the back seat, and Hannah sat back there with him while they drove to the hospital. They checked into the ER and waited for someone to call them. Fortunately, they didn’t have to wait long, and they were put into a room. He was surprised when he saw Carmen come into their room, looking efficient and totally in charge in her nurse’s scrubs. Even Hannah’s face brightened.

  “Oh, hey, Carmen,” Hannah said.

  “Hey, Hannah. I saw you two when they brought you in, so I thought I’d take your case. This must be Oliver. I’m Carmen Donovan, and I’m going to help take care of you today.”

  “Nurse Carmen is a friend of ours, Oliver,” Kal said. “And she’s a very good nurse.”

  “I fell in the playground and hurt my arm.”

  “Poor baby. Let’s take a look.” Carmen untied the sling and examined Oliver’s arm. When Oliver winced, Hannah did, too, but Kal kept a smile on his face and nodded at Oliver, letting him know it was all going to be all right.

  Kal could tell from the first look at Oliver’s awkwardly angled arm that it was broken.

  A doctor came in as well and introduced himself as Dr. Lance before examining Oliver’s arm.

  “Looks like you broke your arm, Oliver,” Dr. Lance said. “But we’ll need to get some pictures to be sure.”

  “It hurts,” Oliver said.

  “I’m sure it does.” He said a few things to Carmen, who nodded.

  “I’ll be back soon to get you fixed up.”

  After he stepped out, Carmen said, “We’ll need to get some pictures of your arm with our X-ray machine.”

  Oliver looked up at his mom, his eyes wide with delight and pain momentarily forgotten. “I get to have an X-ray!”

  “That’s very exciting, baby.”

  Carmen rewrapped Oliver’s arm and kept the sling close to his chest. “I’ll be right back to get you some medicine for the pain.” She handed Oliver the TV remote. “Watch some TV. Would you like something to drink?”

  “Can I have a soda?”

  Carmen looked at Hannah, who nodded. Oliver took the remote and turned the TV on.

  “I’ll bring one to you. Hannah, can I talk to you?”

  “Sure.” She stepped out, and Kal said, “I’ll wait in here with Oliver.”

  She gave him a grateful smile, then walked outside with Carmen.

  “So, buddy,” Kal said. “Did you know I broke my arm when I was a kid?”

  “Nuh-uh. You did? Did it hurt like mine hurts?”

  “It hurt bad. I had to get it reset, then had a cast on for two whole months.”

  “No way. Did all your friends sign your cast?”

  “They did. It was pretty cool.” Back when he still went to school, when he still lived at home with his mom and stepdad. He could still remember how pissed-off his stepdad had been that day. As if he’d fallen off the top of the slide on purpose. His mother hadn’t even stepped in to defend him when, tired and crying after coming home from the hospital, he’d been forced to sit up in bed and listen to his drunken stepfather rail at him for an hour about how now he’d have to pay the hospital bill because Kal had been stupid and careless. Then his stepdad threatened to break his other arm so he couldn’t wipe his own ass.

  He’d never been happier to get the hell out of that house. Being homeless had been better than living in fear of being beaten all the time. Because those threats of beatings had turned to real beatings. And his mother had done nothing to he
lp him, too afraid of taking her own beatings to defend her little boy.

  As he looked at Oliver, who wasn’t much older than he’d been when the hitting had started, Kal couldn’t comprehend anyone wanting to hurt an innocent child. He’d sworn that one day he’d have kids of his own, and he’d shower them with unconditional love to make up for the painful childhood he’d endured.

  He had his adoptive parents to thank for turning around his mindset, for giving him all the love he’d never had during the first decade or so of his life. Because Josh and Laurel Donovan were the best, and he’d been damned lucky to have them as his parents.

  And Oliver? He might not have had the best dad, but he sure as hell had a fantastic mom.

  Carmen came back in with a soda for Oliver and some liquid meds, which Carmen said was for his pain.

  “Where’s my mom?” Oliver asked.

  “She told me to tell you she was going to go outside to call your grandma and let her know what happened.”

  “Okay. Thanks for the soda, Nurse Carmen.”

  Carmen smiled. “You’re welcome. And that medicine should make your pain feel better. They should be coming in to take you to X-ray soon.”

  Not long after Carmen left the room, Hannah came back. “Grandma says to tell you she’s really sorry you got hurt, and she’s going to fix macaroni and cheese for dinner.”

  Oliver grinned. “That’s my favorite.”

  “I know,” Hannah said with a smile.

  “Carmen gave him pain meds. It should dial down his pain pretty quickly, but might make him drowsy,” Kal told her.

  She nodded. “Thanks.”

  The techs came in to take Oliver off to X-ray, and Hannah went with him, so Kal had a minute to step out. Carmen was working the desk right near the room. He didn’t want to bother her, but she looked up and motioned with her head for him to come over.

  “How was the honeymoon?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Amazing. I don’t think I’ve been that relaxed in years. Rafe and I laid on the beach, sipped cocktails and napped a lot. We did some water sports and ate so much food I’m going to need to walk miles every day to lose all the weight I gained.”

  “Bullshit. You look great. I’m glad you had a good time.”

  “Thanks. Sorry about Oliver. That must have been so scary for Hannah.”

  “Yeah, it was. But she’s handling it.”

  Carmen tapped her pen on the desk. “She’s handling it like a champion. Trust me, I see parents fall apart all the time when they bring their injured kids in here. And it just makes the kid even more scared. Hannah’s doing fine.”

  “I’ll let you get back to it because I know you’re busy.”

  “Thanks. We need to all get together and catch up. We’ll make plans.”

  “Okay.”

  He went back to the room and waited. It wasn’t long before Hannah and Oliver came back from the X-ray room. Oliver climbed back into the bed and started watching TV again, but he fell asleep within a few minutes.

  “Obviously, the pain meds worked on him,” Kal said.

  “I’m so glad,” Hannah said. “It hurts me to see him in pain.”

  Kal laid his hand over hers. “He’s gonna be okay, Hannah. This is almost a rite of passage for kids.”

  She laughed. “That’s true. It’s hard to go through childhood unscathed, without getting a bone broken or having to get stitches.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Yeah? What was yours?”

  “Bonked my head on the edge of a counter. Concussion. Slid off a teeter-totter, five stitches on the back of my head. Broke my toe tripping over a curb while barefoot.”

  That one made him cringe. “Ouch.”

  “Yes, surprisingly, a broken toe hurts a lot.”

  Despite having a past with her, and all the years in high school they knew each other, Kal was surprised they still had things to learn about each other.

  He liked that.

  The doctor came in with Carmen after a few minutes.

  “His wrist is broken, and I’ll need to reset it,” Dr. Lance said to Hannah. “We can do a local anesthetic so he won’t feel anything.”

  Hannah exhaled. “That’s good. And I can be with him while you do that?”

  “Of course. I’ll have the staff gather the materials, and I’ll be in shortly.”

  Oliver stirred awake, so Hannah and Carmen helped explain to him what would happen.

  “It won’t hurt?” Oliver asked.

  “We’ll give you an injection, and that’ll sting a little,” Carmen said. “But after that, you won’t feel a thing.”

  “Can I watch?”

  Carmen smiled. “Sure.”

  They had to wait awhile before someone came in, but Oliver fell back asleep, and Kal went up to the dining hall and got Hannah and him something to drink. They watched TV for a while and waited. It wasn’t his first trip to an ER, so he was used to waiting it out.

  Finally, one of the techs came in with a tray filled with equipment and set it next to Oliver’s bed. Kal made sure to stay in the corner of the room, out of the way, while Dr. Lance and Carmen got to work on Oliver. Hannah held Oliver’s hand while they numbed the area, and the doctor got to work resetting the bone and splinting it.

  Oliver handled everything so well. He didn’t even wince when they numbed his wrist area. He seemed more interested in what the doctor was doing, asking a lot of questions through each step. Fortunately, this doc seemed to be a really good guy, patient in answering all of Oliver’s questions.

  Once the splint was on, the doctor told Oliver how brave he’d been and that he was his favorite patient of the day.

  Oliver grinned widely with pride.

  After Dr. Lance left the room, Carmen pulled out paperwork and went over it with Hannah. “Here’s your at-home care instructions. Minimal activity for Oliver here. No sports, mister,” she said to him.

  “Aww, really? I can’t play soccer?”

  “No, I’m sorry, buddy.”

  Oliver looked crestfallen. Kal felt a lot of sympathy for him. He knew what it was like to have his activities restricted, and it sucked.

  “He’ll need to see an orthopedist in a week to put a cast on after the swelling goes down,” Carmen said. “That information is in the packet, and someone will contact you tomorrow. There’s detail on pain management as well. And I’ve written down my cell, so if you have any questions, call me.”

  Hannah hugged Carmen. “Thank you.”

  “Plus, you have an EMT here,” she said, looking at Kal, “and he knows how things work, too. He’s not entirely useless.”

  “Hey,” Kal said.

  Carmen and Hannah grinned at each other.

  They gathered the paperwork together, and Kal helped Oliver off the bed. He was still a little out of it from the pain medication, so Kal made sure to keep him close as they headed to the truck.

  “Sorry about this,” Hannah said as they drove to her house.

  “About what?”

  “We had a day planned.”

  “Hey, you have a kid. Life happens. We roll with it, right?”

  She reached over and squeezed his arm. “Thank you for understanding.”

  When they got to the house, Hannah’s mom came outside and helped Oliver out of the truck. She kissed Oliver on the top of his head.

  “My poor baby boy. What happened to you?”

  Oliver filled her in on his day while they walked into the house.

  “Well, I should go,” Kal said. “I know you want to get him settled in.”

  She frowned. “Wait. You don’t want to stay for macaroni and cheese?”

  Kal laughed. “As tempting as that sounds, I think you have enough to handle.”

  She laced her arm with his. “You don’t get away that easily. Come with me.”

  He thought he’d be in the way, but he had to admit, he was worried about Oliver and wanted to make sure he’d be all right. He was relieved when Hannah dragged him into the h
ouse.

  When he walked in, Oliver was sitting on the sofa, feet up, his slinged arm propped up on a pillow.

  “Grandma made lemonade, Kal,” he said.

  Kal went to sit next to Oliver. “That’s awesome. And I hear you’re having mac and cheese for dinner. That’s one of my favorites.”

  “Mine, too.”

  “I think I’ll go get some lemonade, buddy. I’ll be back.” He went into the kitchen to find Paige and Hannah talking.

  “When you called I was so worried,” Paige said. “He’s okay, then?”

  Hannah reached out and smoothed her hand over Paige’s arm. “He’s going to be fine, Mom. In a week he’ll get a cast on. Paperwork with instructions are on the table, so you can read everything.”

  “Thanks.” Paige looked out into the living room where Oliver’s feet were rocking back and forth to an action scene on the movie he was watching on TV.

  “He seems fine, Paige,” Kal said. “Kids break bones. They’re pretty resilient, ya know.”

  “Oh, I know. I went through it with Hannah.”

  “Yeah, she told me.” He reached up into the cabinet to pull out a glass. Paige filled it with ice and lemonade. “I heard all about the stitches and the concussion, and the broken toe.”

  “Did you tell him about the time you nearly cut your finger off when you decided you wanted to ‘help me’ in the kitchen?”

  “She did not tell me that.”

  Hannah wiggled all ten of her fingers. “As you can see, I have all my digits, and it wasn’t as bad as my mother is about to make it out to be.”

  “There was blood everywhere. She sliced her finger cutting a tomato. I couldn’t tell where the tomato was because of all the blood.”

  Kal could well imagine, since finger cuts, especially deep ones, tended to bleed a lot.

  “Did you get stitches?”

  “Two, which were hardly necessary, but Mom panicked.”

  Paige lifted her chin. “I never panic. It was a deep cut that needed to be closed.”

  Hannah looked over at Kal and shrugged. “I lived.”

  He laughed. “Obviously. Were you allowed in the kitchen after that?”

  “Not for a very long time,” Paige said.

  “Whatever. It was a minor slip, and I’m very good with knives now.”