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hospital, running up bil s we can’t afford.”
    Her lips trembled. “Baby, how could I be mad at you for something like this? I just wish I made enough money that you didn’t have to work too. If you’d been at home—”
    “Don’t, Mom, please.” The guilt of it was kil ing him.
    She lifted his hand to her lips and kissed his bruised knuckles. “Al right, sweetie. You just rest. Don’t you worry or think about nothing except getting better.” She pul ed one of her black hair bands from her pocket and slicked her hair back into a sedate ponytail.
    Nick smiled, knowing she did that for him so he wouldn’t be embarrassed by her over-teased hair. Then she went to the sink to wash off her makeup and pul off the fake glitter eyelashes. She was so much prettier without al that goop on her face that he didn’t understand why they made her wear it.
    Once she looked like his mom again, she slid into the bed beside him and held him close.
    Normal y, he’d be pushing her away ’cause it felt like she was stifling him. But tonight, while he ached and hurt, he was glad to have her hold him close.
    It’d always been just the two of them in this world. Team Fabulous. That’s what she’d cal ed them as far back as he could remember. Together they could make it through anything.
    She brushed his hair back from his temple and gave him a light kiss there. “You are my little man, Nickyboo. And I’m so grateful I have you. You’re the only thing I’ve ever done right in my entire life and if anything ever happened to you, they’d have to dig two graves ’cause I couldn’t live a single day without my baby beside me.”

    Her words almost succeeded in making his eyes tear up, but he was too tough for that. Nothing could make him cry.
    Nothing. “I love you, Mom.”
    “I love you too, baby. Now go to sleep. You need to get better so I can beat your butt for getting hurt.” Smiling at her empty threat, Nick closed his eyes, but he couldn’t sleep. His mind kept replaying the look on Alan’s face as he’d pul ed the trigger. The creep had tried to kil him. …
    And if it was the last thing he did, he was going to get even.
    As his dad would say, Our blood don’t run. Sometimes we want to. Sometimes we ought to. But we don’t ever run from anyone or anything.
    Next time he met up with Alan’s “crew” they were going to feel the ful wrath of Nick Gautier. …

CHAPTER 3
    Nick learned a new lesson in misery as he lay in bed, alone, in the hospital for days on end, bored out of his mind. His mom stayed with him as much as she could, as did Menyara, but they couldn’t be here constantly. Kyrian would stop in and visit at night and some of the dancers from his mom’s club in the daytime. Stil , he spent most of the time by himself.
    Scariest part?
    School was starting to look good. He shivered in revulsion of that awful thought.
    “Hi … um, Nick, wasn’t it?”
    He opened his eye to find Nekoda of al people standing in the doorway. With her hair pul ed back into a thick ponytail and dressed in a volunteer’s uniform, she came deeper into the room.
    Heat stung his cheeks as she looked at his ragged state of ick. Nick cleared his throat. “Yeah, it’s me, but I like to think I looked better when we met. ’Cause right now, I’m pretty much hogging al the ugly.”
    She laughed. “No offense, but yeah, you did look a bit better. But I have to say you real y rock the crazy headgear you have going right now. Not an easy thing to do to make that look good.” She winked at him.
    He could only imagine how foul he appeared. His head was stil wrapped up, his exposed eye bruised and swol en. One shoulder was in a sling to keep it stil and the other arm attached to monitors and an IV. He had a faded-out hospital gown that was freckled with the oh-so-manly-looking flower things al over it. Gah, at this point, he’d rather be back in his orange Hawaiian shirt.
    Al he needed to look like a bigger goober was to drool on