Not Quite Dating (Not Quite #1)(36)
Author: Catherine Bybee

She wished her sister were there helping her.

Jessie ran to her bedroom, grabbed a cordless phone, and dashed back to Danny’s side.

Her mother was too far away.

Her fingers flew over the numbers, never hesitating.

Jack answered on the first ring.

“Jack, thank God you’re there.”

“Jessie? What’s wrong? Are you OK?” There was panic in Jack’s voice, and her own heightened in response.

“It’s Danny.” Danny started to cough again. “He’s sick and my car’s in the shop. He needs a—”

“Stay calm. I’ll be right there.”

“Hurry.” But he’d already hung up the phone.

Jessie tossed a T-shirt over Danny’s head and propped him up on a few pillows on the couch. In her room, she stepped into the clothes she’d worn the day before and grabbed her purse from her dresser.

Back in the living room, she unlocked the door and then had to wait. Danny’s eyes kept drifting shut between his fits of coughing. Jessie had never felt more helpless in her entire life.

She rocked her son back and forth while he clutched Tex to his side. Jessie did her best to ignore his shaking body. This part of parenthood really sucked. Why couldn’t she be the one to get sick? Why Danny?

She heard Jack’s footsteps running down the hall before her door swung open. He was there, thank God. Jessie wanted to cry in relief.

Jack slowed his steps and reached down to take Danny from her arms. “Hey, partner.” He greeted her son first.

Danny tried to smile, but he coughed instead.

“See, that cough is bad,” Jessie said in alarm.

Jack shook his head. “Shh, I got him. Grab your purse and lock the door.”

“OK,” she said, following his instructions and taking her place at his side.

The cool air outside hit her hard. Jack opened the passenger door and buckled Danny in the center seat. Jessie stepped in beside him and Jack ran around the truck to the driver’s side door.

“Where is the nearest ER?” he asked.

Jessie gave him directions and Jack drove. There was no small talk, no smiling. Jack looked just as concerned as she felt.

At the hospital, Jack carried Danny inside. The lobby was a quarter full with mostly slumbering people who looked like they were waiting on family members.

“Hello,” the lady behind the bulletproof glass said with a smile as she pushed a sign-in sheet in front of them.

Jessie wrote down Danny’s name on autopilot. “He has a fever over 104, and his cough is making it hard for him to breathe.”

The lady gave a sympathetic look and said, “I’ll get the triage nurse.”

Jessie glanced up at Jack, who hadn’t sat down. Danny coughed on his shoulder.

“What’s taking so long?” he asked, though the woman hadn’t been gone but a minute. When she walked back to the window, another, older lady stood there with a stethoscope around her neck and a pen in her hand. She looked through the window at Danny and motioned with her hand. “Come on back.”

Around the corner, Jessie and Jack were led into the busy ER and placed in a small room. Jack sat next to the desk and placed Danny in his lap. Jessie grabbed a chair and moved it closer.

“I’m Teresa, one of the nurses here. How long has Danny been sick?”

“Only a few hours. He didn’t feel well before he went to bed, but he wasn’t coughing like this.”

Teresa placed a sensor with tape on Danny’s finger. “How high was his fever at home?”

“104.2. I gave him Tylenol right before we left.”

“Good. Most parents just rush in and don’t think.”

Teresa asked a series of other questions. Danny’s weight, previous illnesses, immunization status. Allergies to medicine. Jessie answered everything while the nurse wrote feverishly.

She unplugged the sensor attached to Danny’s finger from the machine but kept it dangling on him. “His pulse ox is low; it’s a good thing you came in.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Jack asked.

“If left alone,” she confirmed. “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of your little boy.”

Neither Jessie nor Jack corrected the nurse.

“His temperature is still high, 102.5. I’m going to give him some ibuprofen.”

“Is that OK after he had the Tylenol?”

“It’s perfectly fine. Both medications have the same goal, but they work differently. Lots of kids have high fevers, and we bring them down with both medications all the time.” Teresa stood and waved her hand. “Come on, Dad, follow me.” Jack followed the nurse with Danny while Jessie followed Jack.

Chapter Eleven

The nurse led them into a room where she turned on a monitor and plugged in the oxygen sensor Danny wore on his finger. Jack saw the number—ninety-four—but didn’t understand the significance of it. When the number dipped to ninety-two, the machine started beeping, which he didn’t think was a good thing. At some point, the nurse left the room to find a doctor, and Danny reached for his mother.

Jessie pulled him into her lap and sat on the gurney with him. She swayed back and forth and spoke softly to Danny, who was more awake now and anxious about where he was and what was going to happen to him.

“Are they going to give me a shot? I don’t want a shot.”

Jack paced the room.

“Let’s not worry about that, buddy,” Jessie told her son. She glanced over at Jack. “Hey, did you notice that Jack gave us a ride in his truck? Cool, huh?”

Danny looked up at him. “I like your truck,” he said, glossy eyes and all.

Jack knew Jessie was trying to distract her son. “When you’re all fixed up, we should go mud wampum in my truck,” he said. “That’s lots of fun.”

“W-what’s that?” Danny asked through a cough.

“It’s when we go out in the dirt after it rains and splash the truck in the mud puddles. In Texas, mud puddles get really big.”

“I’d”—cough, cough—“like that.”

The nurse returned with a doctor at her side. “Hi, folks, I’m Dr. Shields. This must be Danny.”

Dr. Shields asked a bunch of questions while he listened to Danny’s lungs and examined his ears and throat. He glanced at the nurse and said, “Let’s get some Albuterol treatments going. When he’s finished with the first one, we’ll send him to X-ray to have a look.”

Teresa left the room and Dr. Shields started to explain what was happening.