The Thrashers(34)

She nodded and lay back, feeling winded. “Julian?”

“Two broken ribs. Dislocated shoulder.”

Taking a deep breath, Jodi pinched her eyes closed. “Water polo?”

“It’ll take six weeks,” he said.

Her lips pressed together. She didn’t know why she was fucking crying about Julian Hollister not getting to play water polo.

“Lucy and Paige?” She opened her eyes and blinked back the tears.

“Paige’s ankle is getting looked at now. Probably just a sprain, but they’re making sure. Lucy has a concussion. She said her head hit the truck bed in the crash. Nicked her temple open.”

Zack’s hand was still on her arm, just above the IV She focused on the warmth of him. “Did you see it?”

His thumb rubbed her wrist, and her skin broke out in goosebumps. She hoped he didn’t notice.

“I heard the screaming, and I turned from the concession stand just in time to see the crash.”

“Was anyone else hurt? The other people in the cars?”

Zack shook his head, and Jodi looked at him in disbelief. “Remember how Julian parked?” Zack said.

She winced. “Like a dick?”

“A few other cars got debris damage and had their bumpers scraped, but because he was so far up, his truck was the only thing hit.”

Jodi stared at him. “That’s insane.”

He nodded. “They’re calling it a freak accident. My dad’s already looking into what kind of lawsuit can be filed against the drive-in.”

Frowning, Jodi shifted in the bed. She didn’t like the idea of the drive-in getting sued because they were too poor to pay for upgrades. Jodi herself had contributed to the less-than-great profits by hiding in a trunk once or twice. But she supposed if the drive-in was negligent, then maybe hospital bills should be covered or something.

The idea of hospital bills and who would be paying them forced Jodi to jerk upright. “My dad.”

“He knows. He’s in Utah. The best option was to keep driving, because there wasn’t going to be a flight out of Salt Lake until tomorrow morning.”

She winced—at the pain in her thigh and the thought of another money conversation with her dad. He’d already been so frustrated about the lawyer’s retainer, barely talking to her when he was home, and when he was, he made comments about them not being able to go out to eat or pay to play golf together. Jodi closed her eyes and rubbed her face with her free hand.

“But he called your aunt. She’s on her way.”

“Oh.”

Rosa and Jodi got along, but Rosa thought her sister, Jodi’s mom, had made a huge mistake by marrying her dad, and she made that known whenever she could.

“Julian’s kinda in shock, by the way.”

She snapped her gaze to him. “Shock?”

“Yeah. I heard him asking the nurses how you wouldn’t have felt the glass, why you would have been so mobile.” Zack laughed. “I think he’s really impressed. He may owe you a life debt or something.”

Jodi scrunched her nose. “Hardly. He could have just laid there for a few hours until the Jaws of Life came.”

Zack swallowed and looked down. “Uh … Well, Paige was the last one loaded in an ambulance. She said that right after Julian’s ambulance left, a few more beams snapped. The screen collapsed, like, more.” He looked up at her. “If he’d still been under there, he might be dead.”

Jodi stared up at the ceiling. “Tell him to buy me a gift card and be done with it.”

Zack laughed. He sat back in his chair, pulling his hand away, and her arm felt colder.

“Is it weird?” he said. “That we were supposed to stay away from each other, and then the one time we all get together, we almost die?”

Jodi chuckled. “I mean, you’re not wrong.” She grinned and turned her head to him.

He was staring off, in serious contemplation.

“It was a freak accident,” she repeated.

He jerked his head and ran a hand through his hair. “Or karma.”

She blinked. Before she could ask him when he began to believe in that, the click of heels on linoleum announced Aunt Rosa’s presence. She threw back the curtains, gasped about how pale Jodi was, and started the discharge process while Zack waved goodbye.



* * *



Rosa Rodriguez was an intimidating creature. She wore heels, rain or shine, and with her black curls and pristine eyebrows, she often drew every eye in the room at thirty-nine. Every year on her birthday, Jodi received makeup and perfume bottles that made Paige scream in envy.

“That drive-in is so dangerous. I remember how rickety those screens were when I was going to them.”

Jodi sat in the front seat of Rosa’s car, her bloody clothes in a bag on the floor and hospital sweatpants from the gift shop on her lower half. The stitches on her thigh would leave a scar, nasty and crooked, six inches long.

Rosa was ranting, and Jodi caught “your father” and settled back in her seat.

“Have you heard from him?” she asked.

“He texted from Reno,” Rosa said, answer short, just like her temper when it came to Jodi’s dad.

She watched Howe and Fair Oaks pass and realized Rosa was taking her to her grandma’s house. Of course. Why would she get to just go home alone? Jodi breathed deep as they navigated through the construction on the J Street bridge.