Patient Privilege by Allison Cassatta Read Free Book Online Page A

exhausted. "Why don't you try to get some rest and I'll do the same. The doctor is supposed to call me tomorrow when they release Angel. I'll come back to get him and we'll all ride over to West together. Sound like a plan?"
    "Yes," Jon said softly. His arms wrapped around his own body. His eyes were still swollen and red from all the tears he'd cried. "Thank you."
    "You're welcome. I'll see you both tomorrow," Erik replied before turning to leave.
    As he reached the double doors that led out to the waiting room, he thought about the kid he'd come to see in the first place. He wondered if Angel had been through the same hell little Chris had, or if Angel suffered the same self-inflicted pain Erik had put himself through.
    Poor Chris never had a chance, and now they wanted to take him away from the only thing helping him break his meth habit. They wanted to dump him into a home for problem teenagers when he only needed a healthy dose of TLC. Chris was yet another issue Erik wished he could change, but all of that drama had to wait. He had to put his work behind him for the day so he could go home and just be Erik, maybe unwind and pretend he lived a normal, healthy life.
    As soon as he hit the parking lot, his phone started to ring. He fought to get it out of his pants pocket and when he finally had the damn thing in his hand, he looked down at the caller ID. "Shit," he hissed. He'd forgotten to call Marshall.
    Erik sighed as he lifted the phone to his ear. "Hey."
    "Is everything okay? I didn't hear from you. It worried me."
    "Yeah. I got mixed up with an overdose and his boyfriend. Leaving the hospital now."
    "You've always had such a huge heart. I often wondered how you did it, how you could take in everyone's pain and try to fix it all. I wondered how you didn't go insane."
    "I drank," Erik said in a flat, matter-of-fact voice. The long silence only made an already tense situation worse. Maybe he shouldn't have spat out the answer like did, but the words fell from his lips before his brain had enough sense to stop them. The best thing he could do now was change the subject. Erik looked down at his watch. It was almost nine o'clock. Where did the time go? "I guess it's too late for dinner, huh?"
    "I've already eaten, but we could meet for coffee," Marshall offered. "I would love to see you."
    "I would love to see you too," Erik said. His voice grew heavy with desire and he could've slapped himself for getting his hopes up like he did. He leaned against the driver's side of his car, lowered his head and said, "I mean, I would love to catch up with you."
    "Then let's meet for coffee. I'm staying at the Palomar in Westwood. There's a Starbucks close by. Does that sound okay to you?"
    "Yeah, sure. I can be there in thirty, maybe forty-five minutes."
    "Great. I'll see you there."
    Erik hung up the phone and tossed it into the passenger side of his dirty old beater. Was he seriously going to Westwood looking like something puked up from the bowels of Hollywood's underbelly, in a car that most people in California would consider criminally hazardous to the environment? He sat down in the car and twisted the key in the ignition—nothing. He twisted it again and the car only groaned in protest. On the third try, the damn thing finally came to life.
    As he reached the edge of the parking lot, Erik hesitated. Slowly turning his head, he looked to the left, then to the right. He sat for almost a full minute, trying to decide if he would just go home and call Marshall or if he would actually venture off into Westwood—into a night that would probably leave him wishing he'd never taken Marshall's call in the first place.
    At forty-nine seconds, he took a left turn toward Westwood, watching the road that led to his inner peace disappear in the rearview mirror.

Chapter Ten
     
    Erik pulled into the parking lot of the Starbucks on Wilshire Boulevard and parked his rusty old beater between a gorgeous, black Mercedes and some sort of exotic