SMITH, but I can’t let you leave by yourself. Hospital policy requires a patient with a suspected concussion be signed into the care of another responsible adult.” Brady glared scalpels at the officious discharge nurse at Northwestern Memorial’s ER, who was doing a really, really suckass job of discharging him. He’d like to tell her where to shove her hospital policy. Or where that stapler on her desk could find a new home. The painkillers they had dosed him with a half hour ago were finally clicking in, pretty high-grade stuff that dulled the pain in his shoulder and his head to achy throbs. In twenty years of bike riding, he’d never had an accident on the hog. This morning, heading back from the farmers’ market, he’d taken a virgin dive. Nothing too serious, but his reward for his dumbassery was a sore head, bruised ribs, flayed skin, and a dislocated right shoulder. His chopping arm, of course. As a chef, he was constantly burning himself, and he usually felt nothing.
