Page 43 of With Spite

He grunted. “Not exactly.”

My brows rose. “What do you mean, not exactly?”

Before he could answer, Sage, the nurse who worked with us, poked her head in. “I don’t know if you’re finished or not, but your next patient is here. Room six.”

I gave her a thumbs-up, then stood up with a groan.

I leveled my gaze on Hux’s light-brown eyes and smiled. “Thank you for lunch, Hux.”

He grunted and gathered the trash, even going as far as sweeping the crumbs off the table into the to-go container before closing it and placing it in the trash.

I loved me a clean and tidy man.

I had no clue it was possible for Hux to get cuter, but there he was, making it happen.

Loud voices forced me to wave like a dumbass and hurry out, and I came to a stop outside my patient’s door.

I paused and listened to them talk. “No, you should’ve brought him in two hours ago when you called me and asked. I told you to bring him in right then, but noooo. You always know best. You had to get your content.”

I frowned with my hand on the doorknob, listening in and not trying to be circumspect about it.

“I wasn’t trying to get content. I just wanted to make sure she actually needed to go before I took her,” a woman replied to the man.

“I’ll bet if I look on social media, you’ll have a little video up showing how sick your baby is and what are some natural healing remedies you can give her to fix a broken arm.” The man snarled. “You make me sick. I was right. You can’t heal a broken arm with a poultice, Gemma!”

No, you certainly could not.

I opened the door and found myself in a room with a miserable-looking child around the age of thirteen who was sitting on the exam table completely quiet.

The child’s mother was sitting on the lone chair in the room scrolling on her phone.

The father was standing beside his daughter, wearing grease-stained coveralls and a scowl, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Bernice Daugherty. The nurse practitioner. The check-in nurse explained that Kaylee might have a broken arm?”

“We’re fairly sure.” The man softened slightly. “Came for an x-ray to confirm.”

I nodded. “Why don’t you come back with her, Dad? We’ll go get that taken care of now.”

The dad jumped at the chance.

The mother never stopped scrolling on her phone as we left the room.

I got the x-ray all set up, then the father and I stepped out of the room while I hit the button.

“Is this normal?” I asked.

I’d meant it as the little girl being so quiet and withdrawn, but the man just unloaded on me.

“Swear to fucking god,” the man growled. “Divorced her two years ago because she wouldn’t stop making content out of our lives. It’s like she’s obsessed with her phone. Brings our poor kid into it. Like I want my kid’s face on the internet where there are such sick people in the world watching her every move.”

“Oh,” I breathed.

“I called it quits when Gemma laughed at a comment about Kaylee. Posted it on our personal social media that we had to share because she was insecure about me having one of my own. You want to know what it said?” he asked.

He didn’t wait for me to confirm, which I obviously did want to hear. Who would say no?

“This sick fuck of a man said, ‘Does she go to Jesper County in Montana? Or Jesper County in Georgia?’” He growled. “My baby, my eleven-year-old. Gemma had shared where she went to school, what sports she was in, pretty much documented Kaylee’s entire freakin’ life.”