“What the hell, Annie?”

“Don’t say hell, Brad.” After Annie had parked her car in the physician’s parking lot, she headed back into the emergency department to find that Brian had gone with Baylee to x-ray. She joined Brad at the nurse’s station to wait for the films to upload to his computer.

“Excuse me. What the heck, Annie? When Casey said you’d called and told her you were bringing a little boy who was kind of high profile, I thought it was going to be the mayor’s grandson or something, not the son of a freakin’ Backstreet Boy! You should at least give a guy a little heads up. I’ve been here since seven o’clock last night. You could have at least given me a chance to freshen up before you brought Brian Littrell himself into my ER!”

“Your ER?” Annie crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at her colleague.

“Oh, it stopped being our ER when you had Drew and cut back your hours.”

“Okay, fine. But anyway, he’s married....and straight.”

“Five Backstreet Boys, and not a single one of them is gay. It’s such a waste of beautiful male specimens.”

Annie giggled. “Well, at least you’ve got Lance.”

“Eh-- the Backstreet Boys were always so much better, and besides, how would I ever run into Lance here in Podunk, Kentucky? At least two of the Boys are from here. Which brings me back to how in the world did you manage to find a Backstreet Boy and break his kid’s arm?”

She rolled her eyes. “I did not break Baylee’s arm. He did that one all on his own. So, you know Brian and Kevin are cousins, right?” Brad nodded his head. “You know the pastor of my church, Tim Richardson?”

“Yeah...”

“Kevin’s brother.”

“No way! Are you shittin’ me?” He twirled around in his desk chair and looked up at her.

“Brad...” she scolded.

“Sorry. I mean, are you kidding me?”

“Crazy, right?”

“Now, that is a fine male specimen,” Brad declared.

“Who? Tim?”

“Well, he’s good looking man, but I was talking about his Backstreet brother.”

“He quit the Backstreet Boys five years ago,” Annie reminded him.

“Yeah, I know, and it knocked down their sexy factor quite a bit when he left....”

“I don’t disagree, but anyway, Brian and Baylee are in town for a visit, and Baylee took up with Drew at the dinner we had after church.”

“You Baptists and your after church dinners,” Brad laughed.

“Hey! That Baptist after church dinner helped me meet a Backstreet Boy. Of course, it also helped his kid break him arm....”

“True.”

“Oh, get this! I sang a song from his Christian album during the service this morning. I was mortified!”

Brad shook his head and laughed. “Annie, you have the strangest luck. Well, what did he think?”

She shrugged. “He seemed impressed, but I’m sure he was just being nice.”

“Honey, I’ve heard you sing, and believe me, he wasn’t just being nice.” An image of an x-ray appeared on Brad’s computer screen and the two of them leaned forward to study it. “Oh wow, that’s a nasty break.”
_________________________________________________________________________

“Leighanne, honey, he’s fine. Every little boy is going to break his arm at some point. He’s lucky it took him almost nine years to do it.” Brian was standing in the corner of Baylee’s room in the ER talking as quietly as he could. “I was watching him. It just happened so fast that there wasn’t anything we could do. A lady at Tim’s church happens to be a doctor and she brought us to the ER and got him taken care of immediately........ Sweetie, I don’t think you need to do that.....No, he can’t talk to you right now. The pain medication they gave him knocked him out pretty good.” He sighed. “He was in a lot of pain, Leigh. Believe me, he needed it. I’ll call you if I find out anything else. Just stay put for right now, okay?....I love you.” He hung up and turned to find Annie standing in the doorway.

“Mom’s pretty upset, I take it?”

Brian nodded. “Yeah.”

“Well, I can’t say I blame her.” Annie walked in and picked up Baylee’s chart, glancing over it quickly. “It’s really hard to know your child’s hurting and there’s nothing you can do about it. One time a few months ago, Drew was sick with this nasty stomach bug that I had no doubt brought home from work with me, and Tim and Tracy ended up bringing him here for IV fluids while I was working. I was the only doctor on call, so I had to let the nurses and Tracy take care of him while I took care of all my other patients. It was just the worst feeling ever to not be able to comfort him while he was sick.”

“She’s ready to hop on an airplane and fly up here, but I told her she might as well stay put. They’ll put a cast on him, give him a prescription for pain meds and send him on this way. We should be able to get back home by tomorrow and she can dote on him all she wants, right?” He looked to Annie for confirmation.

“Well...” She looked back down at Baylee’s chart again.

“Well, what? I don’t like that ‘well’!” Brian started to panic.

“You may be right Brian, but Dr. Francis and I have both looked at the x-rays, and we agree that we’d like the orthopedic surgeon to come and take a look at him.”

“What?! A surgeon? You’re telling me my baby boy might have to have surgery?!” The color had drained from Brian’s face again. “I think I need to sit down.”

“Calm down, Brian.” Annie eased him into a chair and patted him on the shoulder. “It’s just a precaution. Fractures in children are tricky because depending on their location they can interfere with future bone growth. It looks like Baylee missed the growth plate by a few millimeters, but....”

“What?! Are you telling me that my kid’s arm may never grow any longer than it is now and he’s going to walk around with lop-sided arms???” He was staring to hyperventilate.

“Brian, chill out! Do you need a Xanax?”

“That would be great.” He bent forward and put his head in between his knees.

“I was kidding.”

“Oh.” Brian straightened up and blushed.

“Oh, good. You’re getting your color back,” Annie teased.

Just as Baylee started to stir, Brad and another doctor appeared at the door. “Hey, Baylee. This is doctor Tony, and he’s going to take a look at your arm, okay?” Baylee nodded and his eyes fluttered shut again.

The orthopedist introduced himself to Brian with a firm handshake and lifted the ice pack off of Baylee’s arm, which was propped up on a couple of pillows. It was still incredibly swollen and turning a lovely shade of purple. Brian blanched again, and Annie gave him a strong pat on the back. “The dads are always the worst.” She and Brad shared a quick laugh.

“Really? You haven’t met my wife, then.”

Baylee hissed as Dr. Tony lifted his arm and examined it and Brian gripped the bed rail until his knuckles were white and looked away. “Oh, the moms do their fair share of freaking out, but always manage to stay calm when in the presence of their children. When Baylee throws up, who cleans it up? Who cleans the skinned knees and kisses the boo-boos?” Annie asked.

“Leighanne,” he replied quietly. “Well, I’m a good boo-boo kisser, but when it comes to the other stuff...yeah, I tend to tuck tail and leave until the mess is cleaned up.” He gave her a weak smile.

“I rest my case.” She smirked.

“Let’s see those x-rays.” Dr. Tony said, holding his hand out. Brad handed the films to him and he put them up on the light board on the opposite side of the room, motioning for Brian to come stand by him. “This is Baylee’s distal radius, and this is his ulna,” he said, pointing to a film. “As you can see, they are both broken.” Brian nodded silently. “Luckily, the break does appear to have missed his growth plate, so I don’t think he’ll have any problems with bone growth.”

Brian breathed a sigh of relief and placed a hand over his heart. “That’s good news.”

“Now here’s the tricky part.” Brian paled, and Annie couldn’t help but stifle a laugh. She was starting to wonder what his natural skin tone actually was. Dr. Tony went on. “You see how the parts of the bones closest to his wrist are shifted a little to the right?”

“Yeah...” Brian whispered.

“That’s what we call a displaced fracture, and ordinarily the standard of care is to do surgery and put some screws in to hold the bones in place until they heal, but...”

Annie placed her hand on Brian’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “I don’t really like the sound of that,” he admitted, glancing back to Baylee, who was obliviously sleeping in his bed.

“But,” the surgeon went on. “I think there’s a good chance that we might be able to avoid surgery if we put him in traction for a few days and give the bones to set before we put a cast on.”

Brian crossed his arms and nodded. “Is that something you need to do here, or..?”

“Mr. Littrell, I understand that you are from out of town, and this is a very small hospital, but I feel like traveling with Baylee and jostling the bones around right after injury will almost guarantee that he’ll need surgery.”

“Okay then. Let’s put him in traction.” Brian nodded affirmatively.

“I’ll go get his admission set up,” Brad said as he and Dr. Tony walked out of the room. Annie started to follow them out, but Brian reached out and grabbed her hand.

She twirled around and stared at him quizzically. “Thank you,” he said firmly. “I don’t know what I would have done without you today.”