Then I was crying, just plain little-kid crying, and that was the worst thing of all.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

The doctor said, "This won't hurt much."

But he lied. It hurt a lot.

Or, correction, they hurt a lot: nine st.i.tches on the side of my head.

I sat in a small white room that smelled of medicine and pain. A nurse stayed with me for a while and then there was a knock on the door and Garrett stood in the doorway.

He just looked at me and shook his head. He waited for the nurse to leave and then he came in and closed the door and said, "You look like s.h.i.t." He was very aware of his uniform as he moved. He hadn't gotten used to the power it gave him yet. He was still at the self-conscious stage.

"Thank you."

"Your car looks like s.h.i.t, too."

"It looked like s.h.i.t, anyway."

"We're charging him with a.s.sault and battery."

"The way I feel, you should charge him with murder."

"You're not dead."

"The way I feel, I am."

He got a close glimpse of my face and skull. "He sure worked you over."

"He sure did."

"He won't talk to us. His old man's got a lawyer at the jail."

I happened to be staring right at his face when he said it. "It was about the girl, wasn't it? Cindy Brasher."

His whole face changed and something happened to his voice, too. It got a half octave higher, like a kid's.

He'd met Cindy and been properly smitten.

"You talk to her?" I said.

"Yeah. For about half an hour."

"She tell you what happened?"

"Not exactly."

"She was running from him."

"Oh?"

He seemed surprised. I wondered why Cindy hadn't told him.

"She just said you took her for a ride and he got mad and followed you."

I decided not to tell him anything more than Cindy had. "Yeah, that was pretty much what happened."

"Nothing else?"

"Nothing else. Why?"

"I don't know. I just got the feeling she wasn't telling me everything. I had a lot of questions I wanted to ask her."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Mostly about Myles."

"He in some kind of trouble?"

"Could be."

I laughed, but when I did the st.i.tches pulled and shot pain arcing across the top of my skull.

"You've had a big night," I said.

"Yeah. My first."

"Busting a football hero."

"Lot of people're going to be p.i.s.sed about that. They play their last game tomorrow."

It wasn't a good idea to bust their star the night before the game.

"I guess he should've thought of that," I said.

He smiled. "You should've seen him when he recognized me. I used to sweep out the mall at night, remember? He used to hang around the sports shop out there when he was a freshman. He always looked at me like I was something he sc.r.a.ped off his shoes. I remember one night he grabbed a paperback from my back pocket and started tossin' it back and forth like a football with this other jock. I got so mad I grabbed him by his shirt and accidentally tore it. He really beat the c.r.a.p out of me. Not like you, I mean not any st.i.tches or anything, but he really nailed me. When he was being booked tonight, he finally figured out who I was. This little computer nerd he used to push around out at the mall. He couldn't believe it."

I touched my aching head. "Maybe it was worth it."

"Maybe what was worth it?"

"Getting the c.r.a.p kicked out of me."

"Yeah?"

"She wants to start going out with me."

He was stunned. No doubt about it. "The girl?"

"Right. Cindy."

"Go out with you?"

I was grinning. "Can you believe it? But that's what she said."

"G.o.d."

I wasn't sure what I was seeing or hearing at first, but then I realized he was jealous. He really had been smitten. Apparently he had his dreams of taking her out himself. She had just turned eighteen, and was perfectly legal even if she did have a semester to go before graduating high school.

"That's great," he said, hut obviously didn't mean it.

I was still curious about something he'd said earlier. "So what kind of other trouble is Myles in?"

"I really can't talk about it. Just an idea of my own I've had. Haven't even told the Chief about it."

I felt sorry for him, then.

He was all puffed up in his uniform tonight, and he'd met the kind of girl dweebs like us always dreamed about and tried so uselessly to possess, and then I went and spoiled it for him.

"I rented the second Conan movie the other night," I said. "I think I like it better than the first one. You know, where Arnold gets drunk and loses the girl he's supposed to be guarding. It's really funny."

"Yeah," he said. But he wasn't listening. I had the sense he was thinking about Cindy.

A knock.

He went to the door and opened it. I couldn't see who was there but I saw his whole body tense and then he said, "Come in."

She'd changed into a white sweater and a blue jacket styled like a Navy pea jacket. Her hair was combed straight back, almost like a mane, and the deep red natural color of her lips made me want to kiss her.

She came right over to me and picked up my hand and gave it a squeeze and then leaned in and carefully gave me a kiss on the cheek.

"You're going to be fine," she said.

"That's what I hear."

"He's such an a.s.shole. Pardon my French."

"I guess I couldn't disagree with you there."

"It's all my fault."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"It really is, and you know it."

"G.o.d, Cindy, he just needed to explode and he picked whoever was around. It's his fault, not anybody else's."

"Well, I called your parents and apologized, anyway. Your dad said he'd come down and get you, but I said I'd give you a ride home."

I felt that old flattery again.

Girl like Cindy Brasher offering to give me a ride home. And in front of a witness.

I knew it probably made Garrett jealous and angry to hear all this but I didn't care. In a mean way, in fact, I probably enjoyed it a little bit. His uniform had made him a big man. Cindy Brasher's interest in me was making me a big man, too. That's the thing I figured out about love a long time ago. It's not how your lover feels about you that mattersa"it's how your lover makes you feel about yourself that counts.

"Sorry to spoil your fun, Miss Brasher," Garrett said, "but I'm afraid he'll have to ride home with me."

"With you?" she said, sounding genuinely disappointed.

"Afraid so."

"But why?"

"I've still got some questions to ask him. About what happened tonight, I mean."

I saw what he was doing. The pettiness of it was so pathetic it was almost laughable. Revenge of the Conan Readers.

She looked angry.

I took her hand. "I'll call you tomorrow," I said. She continued to glare at Garrett. "No, you won't," she said. "I'll call you. As soon as I get up."

She gave me another cautious kiss on the cheek, scowled again at Garrett, and left.

The squad car smelled of puke and disinfectant and cold, cold night. Cops hauled a lot of drunks.

After he pulled out of the hospital parking lot, Garrett said, "You going to press charges?"

"Sure. Why wouldn't I?"

'"For the good of the cause' as the Mayor put it to me.

"You're s.h.i.tting me. The Mayor doesn't want me to press charges?"

"That's the idea he gave me."

"Well, f.u.c.k him."

He looked over at me solemnly. "What if I told you that I was going to nail him on a couple of charges a lot worse than a.s.sault and battery?"

"A lot worse?"