Page 30 of Keeping Secrets

"He fell and hit his head. I don’t know how long he had been there before I found him. He was alive but unresponsive. An ambulance took him to the hospital, and I’m headed there now."

Nick let out a breath. "Thank God you found him."

"Yeah." Again, his voice came out hollow and detached.

"Is there anything I can do?"

"No," Travis said, suddenly exhausted. "Just thought you should know."

He disconnected the call and pocketed his phone, then climbed into his car and drove to the nearest hospital.

It wasn’t until he was on the road and passed a sign for Half Moon Bay that he realized he was going to miss his meeting with Rachel. He didn’t even have her phone number to tell her that he wouldn’t be able to make it.

He felt a jolt of remorse followed by a stab of fear at the thought of what might happen if he didn’t make contact with her again, but he didn’t even consider driving to the restaurant to meet her while Scot lay unconscious in the hospital. Scot had no one else. Travis was going to show up for him, come what may.

The hospital was inland from the tiny peninsula that held the town of Pelican Point. It was a small hospital, and quiet today. It didn’t take too long for a nurse to tell him which room Scot was in.

Travis made his way up the stairs and down the white hallway. (Why were prisons always so similar to jails? Or asylums?) When he peeked in the door and saw that Scot’s eyes were open, he felt a full-body wave of relief.

"I figured it was you that found me," Scot grumbled as Travis sank into a chair next to the hospital bed.

"What happened?"

"I tripped," Scot said irritably. Travis knew that his gruff responses masked his shame at needing anything from anyone and a deep fear regarding how his body seemed to be failing him at such a young age.

"And you’re okay? You don’t have like a fractured skull or anything? Or a concussion?"

Scot laughed darkly. "I definitely have a concussion. And I twisted my leg pretty good when I fell."

"Right."

Of course he had a concussion. He had been unconscious and unresponsive when Travis got there. Travis shook his head and rubbed a hand over his eyes. He desperately needed some sleep.

Scot’s ankle was bandaged and elevated on a pile of pillows. How long until he would be able to get around on his own?

“Do you know what time you fell? You must’ve been down there a long time.”

He waved off the concern. “Only a short while before you got there. I wasn’t at the bar because I was already feeling a bit off before it happened.”

"How long will you be here?" Travis asked.

"They want to keep me overnight for some tests. With luck, I can leave tomorrow."

"Is there anything that you need from me?"

"I need you to go man the ship."

"Okay," Travis said reluctantly. He had called Nick for no real reason, but hadn’t thought to call the bar. He would do that from his car before he started driving again.

No need to tell Scot, but he thought that he might ask some of the other bartenders to cover for him so that he could try to catch up on his sleep and be thinking straight the next day.

Maybe he could still catch Rachel. He pulled out his phone to glance at the time and saw that it was much later than he had realized. A parking lot street light shone brightly outside the window, but beyond that, the sky was dim. She’d be long gone by the time he could get there. Waiting with Scot, cleaning up and packing, driving to the hospital, it had all taken longer than he had realized.

"I brought you a bag," he said. "I forgot it in the car. I’ll run and grab it."

"What kind of bag?" Scot asked as Travis walked to the door. "Did you touch my stuff?"

Travis laughed weakly and shook his head as he walked out of the room. He jogged out to his car, grabbed the bag that he had packed for Scot, and came back. As he neared the door to Scot’s hospital room, he heard his boss saying, "What are you doing here?"