Congratulations (Part 1)

https://youtu.be/lHvBrTciA84

Nick's eye's open, slowly. He just lays there a moment, trying to figure out where he is. He looks around at all the wires and the IV in his arm. He is confused. His whole body would have been in pain if he hadn't been on so many pain medications, they also kept him calm.

"Congratulations!" A young energetic hospital orderly was changing the garbage bag in his room. "Dude, you're alive! I'll let someone know you're awake." Nick nods.

A few moments later, a doctor and two nurses come into the room. They ask him the basic questions to check his responses. He knew his name, and what day it was, but they had to tell him which hospital he was in. In the end, they say he will be fine, but for some cuts and bruises, yet they want to keep him the night for observation, because of his concussion.

"What happened?" Nick asks. He didn't remember anything after listening to some music on his drive home. The doctor informs him it was a car accident. An intoxicated driver had hit him. They had fallen asleep at the wheel.

*Gut-punch.....* He didn't expect it to hit him here, but there she was. His ex wife and him! The dishonor he felt in their presence was strong. The emotions were surprisingly powerful through the drugs. She actually looks worried about him.

Why, now, when he didn't even want to be near her. He thought, "What is she doing here? Why even care now? Why fucking bother?" Nick whispers to the nurses and explains that this woman was his cheating ex wife and he wants to know what she was there for and could the hospital staff get rid of her?

The nurse informs her she is a disruptive element to Nick's healing process, and requests she leave, before security is called. She walks out in a huff, and the nurse comes back in to commiserate with Nick.

She says, "Hope you don't mind me saying so, but your ex is a..." Nick interjecs, "A truly terrible person. Yeah I know!"

"Exactly, we can leave it at that....." the nurses agree, they then add, ".....that said, she's also your emergency contact in your phone, still. Unless you want this to happen again, you'll want to change that when you get a chance."

"Noted. Thank you...." he looks at her ID, "Nurse Carrigan." Nick says, and before she leaves, says, "You can call me, Rose."

***

Dinah blankly stares in lesbian at Nick's new green Bentley Continental Convertible. The cringe at her cishet brother from another mother, was real. She didn't believe how he tricked it out. The rims that make the wheels look stationary, are a welcome back to the 90's, to when he couldn't afford this kind of cool stuff and wished he had it.

"Holy, Dudley Moore's Jaguar, Batman!" Steve shouts out like Robin, as Dinah gets the reference and rolls her eye's again. Steve is proud of his boy finally making it and enjoying it. Steve, like most, thought Nick deserved it after all he's been through.

"Yeah scrub, get on the passenger side of your best friend's ride," as he looks at Steve. Then he turns to Dinah, "Get in loser, we're going shopping!" Nick smiles as she retorts, "Nice midlife crisis-mobile you decided to purchase."

"Thanks! I always wanted one of these, class and style." He looks at Steve with a knowing grin, "She's jealous." Steve grins. The boys laugh from the front seat as Dinah climbs into the back seat.

"Laugh it up Fuzzball, you're the one living in a cliche. All that's missing is a 19 year old in the back seat with me, calling you 'daddy', and all your caviar wishes and patriarchy dreams would be coming true." Dinah lays on her mocking Robin Leach voice as thick as possible.

Steve and Nick look at each other. Then they look back at Dinah. Then at each other, again. Steve then says what they were both thinking, "Yo, this woman is a genius! You listen to Dinah, Nick, she has the plan!"

Nick looks in the rear view and sees Dinah's eye's roll, "She's going inter-dimensional , ladies and gentlemen." mocking his good friend. Steve then takes it too far, "Naw man, she cum'n hard! That long dick of yours tickling her from the front seat." This didn't make Dinah feel uncomfortable, like he hoped it would, but any excuse to slap Steve, she was going to take glee in doing. *Crack* She slaps the back of his neck when he's not looking.

Nick laughs, "Damn girl, his neck isn't red enough for you?" she tries hard not to smile at that one, and fails for a second. "That's enough now kids, any more outbursts, and I'll turn this car right around."

"Promise?" Begged Dinah from the back seat. Nick just took it in stride. "You can't rain on my parade today, Sis. Have fun trying though."

"Dude, I'm not trying to burst your bubble. I'm trying to help a friend realize how boring he is, so he can make a positive change in his life." Dinah debated.

Nick, feigning offense, "Excuse me? Boring? I can pull over any time you want?"

Dinah relents to the point, "My bad, not boring, so much as male pattern basic." He looks at her in the mirror, and she softens when she hears his response. "Honestly, I could use a little basic in my life right now after the chaos of the last few years. There may be nothing more I need in my life than basic. So much so, that I might just hit on the next woman I see wearing a pair of Uggs, or Blundstones." Steve loses it and cracks up laughing, knowing on the floor of the backseat, were a pair of Blundstones. "I think Nick just called you a basic cliche Dinah."

She responds with the oldest trick in the book. "Is that mustard on your shirt Steve?"

As he looks down, she slaps him in the back of the neck again. "What the hell!? I didn't deserve that one." Steve yells out.

Dinah replies, "Yeah, but Nick is driving, and I didn't want us to crash."

Nick smiles, "Good call, Dinah! Feel free to slap Steve any time I piss you off." Dinah and Nick have a small giggle at Steve's expense.