Chapter 13
Nick gave a sigh of relief as he
pulled the car onto the Paris/Lexington exit. He felt as if he'd been in the
car forever and his nerves were completely shot. AJ was sitting next to him,
map in hand giving directions and flicking a cigarette out the open window.
"How far is the hospital from
here?" AJ asked peering over at the gas gauge.
"It's about fifteen or twenty
minutes away depending on traffic." Nick responded.
He'd made the trip enough in the past
month that he could probably drive it with his eyes closed. He made a right on
red and eased over into the turn lane pulling into the first Shell station they
came to. He didn't want to stop for gas. For the past two hours he'd had an
overwhelming need deep within him to get to the hospital, but he also knew that
running out of gas would get them nowhere. He hopped out of his Cadillac
Escalade into the all but empty parking lot and quickly went to work filling
the tank.
AJ hopped out of the passenger side
and walked into the gas station. The man at the counter gave him an odd look
before returning to ring up the customer he'd already been waiting on. He made
his way through the small store and grabbed a couple of waters from the coolers
in the back. As he was returning to the desk to pay for his purchases his cellphone
began to ring.
"Mclean," he said answering
the phone and handing the cashier a twenty.
"AJ?" a voice on the other
end came through.
"Howie? Is that you?"
"Yeah it's me, where are you
guys?" Howie's voice sounded distant and tired.
"We just got off the interstate,
we should be there shortly. What's going on? How's Gracie?" AJ asked
sensing that Howie wasn't just calling for small talk.
"Just get here as soon as you can
Aje... okay?"
"We're on our way."
And with that AJ accepted his change,
ignoring the cashiers recognition of him being "that guy from that one boy
band that time" and hurried back out to the car to find Nick already
buckled in and ready to go.
***
