A/N: I know, I know, major cliffhanger on the previous chapter, but here I am again with the next part and y'all get to find out what happened to Wade. Thanks to all those who reviewed on the previous update. Hope everybody is staying safe, staying indoors as much as possible, and keeping their chin up. We can do this, people! :)

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 6

"Oh my God!" Zoe gasped, staring wide-eyed at Wade. "What are you doing here?"

He was maybe the last person she expected to see when she walked into the cubicle, and certainly, she wasn't expecting the pale face and copious amounts of blood. It also occurred to her way too late that she just asked the most stupid question imaginable.

"Fancy seein' you here, doc," said Wade, trying for a smile and failing badly as Zoe reached to tug at what appeared to be a T-shirt wrapped haphazardly around his hand. "'S been a helluva a day, all things considered."

"I can see that," Zoe agreed, wincing on his behalf as she finally revealed the nasty gash on the edge of his hand and wrist. "What have you been doing?" she asked worriedly.

"Is it that bad?" he checked, swallowing hard. "I mean, it feels pretty bad, but I was hopin' I was wrong."

"I have to clean it up to know for sure," she admitted, looking up to meet his eyes.

He looked a little freaked out, which was understandable, she supposed. Also kind of sick, which was probably the fear and the blood loss combined. One thing was for sure, he had made it impossible for Zoe to be mad at him for not showing up for their date tonight.

"Doc?" he said, reminding her all too fast of what her job was here, what she was actually supposed to be doing.

"It's okay. You're going to be fine, I'm sure," she said, finding him a smile. "I just need to... Um, hold this over it a little bit longer," she advised, helping him press the fabric of the already soaked T-shirt firmly to the wound.

Quickly gathering what she needed to clean and disinfect the cut, Zoe returned to Wade, forcing herself to focus on nothing but the job at hand. Everything else had to wait, his reasons for not showing up to their date, her anger at him for that very same thing. Certainly, he couldn't have had this injury two and three hours ago when he was meant to be picking her up, but something awful clearly happened at some point tonight.

"This is probably going to sting," she said as she began to clean up all the blood.

"I'm a big boy, doc, I can take it," Wade assured her, though she noticed he winced some as she worked. "Guess what my momma always told me was true. Fightin' never helps anybody, just makes more problems."

"You were in a fight?" asked Zoe, figuring that she was still being professional rather than personal - how the injury was caused could have a bearing on how she dealt with it. "Where?"

"Recording studio," he explained, hissing out a breath and letting Zoe know she hit the part of his wound that clearly hurt most and probably went deepest. "Actually, the parking lot outside of the studio, if you want the whole story."

"That explains the debris in here," she said absently, continuing to clean the wound as thoroughly as possible while being as gentle as possible too. "Who did you fight with?"

Wade sighed. "That's the part where I was kinda stupid," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. "My manager."

"Your band's manager?" Zoe asked, momentarily taking her eyes off his hand and looking at his face. "Wade, why would you...?"

"'Cause he was bein' an ass!" he said definitely and perhaps a little too loudly, which he seemed to notice and therefore lowered his voice again when he continued. "He was gettin' on my last nerve, he'd been doin' it all day long, and finally, when it looked like we were done and ready to leave, he tried sayin' it wasn't happening. Since I knew you'd be waitin' on me, I got kinda mad about it."

Zoe was really, really trying to be professional, she honestly was, but hearing Wade say he got into a fight with his band manager over her? That gave her a special warm glow inside that made her feel very much like a woman and not at all like a doctor. She lost concentration, her hand slipped, pushing the cotton swap into Wade's injured hand and making him yell.

"Oh God, I'm sorry!" she said fast, going back to the important task of getting him fixed up. "Um, this definitely needs stitches."

"Stitches, huh?" Wade echoed, peering down at the cut with distaste. "I guess it could be in a worse place. I mean, my fingers are fine, I can still play, right?"

"Tough to say," Zoe considered, frowning as she threaded up her needle to begin sewing. "I mean, I know you don't actually use the outside edge of your hand and wrist to make the chords on a guitar, but the movement of that, stretching the muscles and skin there, it might not be a good idea for a while."

Close as she was, by the necessity of sewing up Wade's hand, she very clearly heard what she suspected were supposed to be muttered curses to himself.

"If your mother doesn't like it when you fight, I'm guessing she wouldn't appreciate knowing you just said some really bad words either," she said, smiling as she glanced at him, hoping to lighten the mood a little.

"Yeah, well." Wade sighed. "Good thing she ain't around to hear it then. Momma passed on when I was ten."

Zoe felt sick when she heard that. "Oh, Wade, I didn't-"

"Don't worry about it," he told her easily. "You didn't know. Hell, I guess we don't exactly know much of anythin' about each other yet, do we, doc?"

"We might have got to know each other," she said, making her final stitch in his hand and tying off the end of the thread. "You know, on our date?"

She figured now she was done with the most important part of her job here, she was allowed to bring up their personal connection in a more real way. Zoe wished she hadn't when Wade started to look so awkward. He looked away from her face to his own hand and made an impressed whistling sound.

"You do good work, doc," he said, looking over his stitches. "Fast too."

"I'm the best in the business," she said modestly, pulling off her gloves. "I need to put a dressing on that, keep the dirt out. You'll need to try to keep it as dry and clean as possible, and be careful not to disturb it too much. I cleaned the wound thoroughly before I sewed it, but sometimes stiches can come loose, even mine," she said with a look. "You need to be careful, Wade."

"Almost sounds like you really care, doc," he said, meeting her eyes. "You know, I'm sorry about the whole date thing going south. Like I said, I had a mind to be there. I tried, it was just-"

"Now is so not the time," she said regretfully, highly aware of where she was and just how many people were waiting to see a doctor. "Wade, the ER is packed and we're understaffed, which is why I got a call in the first place. Maybe it's a good thing our date didn't work out or there are a lot of patients that wouldn't be getting seen on time tonight," she said, backing up towards the opening in the curtain. "I have a lot of work to do here, I'm sorry."

"I get that," he told her, nodding his head. "But I would like the chance to talk to you, explain things better, when you have the time?"

"Tomorrow night?" she suggested.

"Ah, I'm supposed to be playin'... but I guess that's out," said Wade, looking down at his bandaged hand. "Tomorrow night then."

"Seven o'clock," said Zoe pointedly. "My place."

"I promise to show up this time," said Wade definitely.

Zoe smiled. "I believe you."

True to his word, Wade was outside of Zoe's door the following evening at seven o'clock sharp. After the night before, he could understand why she might be mad at him, but at the same time, he did have very good reasons for not showing up like he should have. Frankly, it was a relief when she buzzed him up to her apartment and an even bigger one when she actually opened the door to his knocking.

"Hey," she said, even going so far as to smile as she let him inside. "How's your hand?"

"Kinda sore, I guess," he admitted, flexing his fingers and wincing a little, as if to prove the point, though he wasn't sure why he felt the need to bother.

"And you're staring," said Zoe then, frowning a little. "What?"

"Nothin'," Wade assured her, shaking his head. "I was, uh... You look great."

"Really? In this?" she checked, looking down at herself in sweatpants and a plain T-shirt.

"In everything, doc," he told her honestly. "I mean, I only saw you dressed up the first couple o' time we met, and last night in the hospital, well, between the pain in my hand and the shock o' seeing you, I'll admit, I'm not sure exactly how you looked, but right now? You're still somethin' to see."

"Oh. Well, thank you," she told him, ducking her face behind her hair as her cheeks turned a pretty pink.

Wade didn't know too many women who blushed at compliments, not in New York anyway. Not that he had a problem with the boldness of some of the girls he came across at the clubs, but Zoe was different, special somehow. Sure enough, she could hold her own and be bold in her own way, but she wasn't brash with it, not too forward or too into herself or her looks or anything. It was one of many things he liked about her.

"Sit down," she told him, alerting Wade to the fact he had been standing there like a fool too long just watching her.

He joined her on the couch, her at one end, him at the other, and both just about as awkward as each other it seemed. It was a long time since Wade was in a woman's apartment for something other than sex or any of the surrounding activities that went with that. He wondered what Zoe was thinking exactly, but for once in his life didn't dare ask.

"So," she said then, "you were going to tell me exactly what happened last night," she reminded him. "I mean, I get that you had way bigger things to worry about than picking me up for a date, what with the bleeding and all," she said, gesturing to his wounded hand, "but that was a while after you were supposed to be here. You didn't call or text or anything, Wade. How do you explain that?" she asked, just a little anger creeping into her tone.

"You got every right to be mad, Zoe," he assured her, "and I am sorry you were left sat here thinking I just didn't care enough to show up, but that ain't how it was at all," he said definitely. "Like I told you, Alan was being a real ass all day. He was gettin' on everybody's last nerve, but especially mine. He just... he seems to think he's the only guy in the world who knows a damn thing about music and..."

"Alan?" Zoe echoed, frowning some. "Alan, who?"

"McKenzie," Wade told her. "That's our manager, or was, I don't know anymore. Why'd you ask?"

"Huh. Well, he is an ass," she said easily. "Like a really, really big ass. My mother can't stand him, and even though I only met him once, he did not make a good impression."

Wade felt like his head was spinning. "Hold on a second here," he said, waving his good hand at her. "You know my band manager? And your mother knows him too?"

"Sure." Zoe shrugged like it was nothing. "I told you my mom works in PR, right?"

"Nope," Wade told her, shaking his head.

"Oh, okay. Well, she does and she knows a lot of music industry people," Zoe explained. "Also, movie people, TV people, magazine people, sports people. Basically, anybody who has anything to do with media, money, that kind of thing."

Wade let that sink in for a moment and before he could figure out what to say next, Zoe started up again.

"So, you got into a fight with the guy because he's an ass, I get that, but the timing is still off, Wade," she insisted. "You were in the ER three hours after you were supposed to be here picking me up for our date. You can't have got that injury so early, you'd have bled out by the time I saw you at the hospital."

Wade sighed. "This happened maybe a half hour or so before you saw me," he admitted, gesturing with his injured hand. "When I took a swing at good ol' Alan the Ass and put my hand clean through a car window 'cause he moved outta the way. Next thing I know, I'm on the ground 'cause the a-hole shoved me over before he ran away like a girl," he grumbled, "but before that, long before, a while after I should've been here, he was tryin' to say we had to stay longer at the studio. We had been there since the sun came up and he was workin' us too hard. I told him I was leaving, took out my phone to text you and let you know I was sorry, that obviously I was gonna be late but I was definitely gonna be here," he explained. "You gotta believe that Zoe."

"Maybe I would, if I got that text you're talking about, but I didn't."

"'Cause I never got a chance to write it, much less send it," he told her desperately, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out evidence to present to her. "That damn fool got it out of my hand, pushed it right into his coffee cup and fried the whole damn thing. I can't even get it to turn on."

Zoe nodded like she understood, eyes moving from the dead phone to his face again. "You couldn't borrow someone else's phone?"

"Hell, Zoe, I never really got a chance," Wade told her honestly, hoping she believed it, because it really was the truth. "The real fightin' didn't happen until later, but there was a lot said before that, a lot o' yellin' and... and things I prob'ly shouldn't've said, to more than just Alan," he said sadly. "The whole band got stirred up and I reckon just about every bad thing anybody ever thought of each other came out, until finally the security at the studio kicked us out. I know I started yelling at Alan again in the parking lot, lettin' him know how pissed I was, for a lot of things, but right then, mostly about making me mess up with you. You know, if you don't believe me, you can ask any of the guys from the band, they'll tell you it's true."

He looked to Zoe to see if she was buying what he was telling her. It was the truth, so she ought to, but Wade was well aware it might sound like a crazy tale being spun to someone who didn't know better. Like he said last night, they really didn't know each other all that well yet, and it'd be a damn shame if they never got the chance because of all this mess.

"So, there was a verbal fight," she summarised for him, "a big one, apparently. Your phone got trashed, your band all-but broke up, and you took a swing at your manager for making you work late?"

"I took a swing at him because..." Wade paused for a second and considered his words carefully before going on, "because when he found out I was mad at being late going out on a date, he said some stuff about the woman I was meetin' that made me see red."

He watched Zoe's expression shifting, still not sure yet that she believed him. Wade hoped she would, but she had every reason not to, he supposed.

"Okay," she said eventually, nodding her head.

"Okay?" he echoed uncertainly.

"Okay, I believe you," Zoe confirmed. "I mean, clearly, your phone is broken, I know Alan McKenzie is a prize idiot that nobody with taste or good sense can stand to be around for longer than ten minutes without wanting to punch him in the face, and honestly? I don't think anybody could make up a story like that, not unless you've written a couple of bestsellers that I don't know about yet," she said with a smile.

Wade grinned back at her. "No, ma'am," he assured her. "Everything I told you tonight is the truth, Zoe, I swear."

"And I told you, I believe you," she assured him.

"That's good." Wade sighed with relief. "'Cause for a while there, I really thought I'd blown this whole thing."

"No, you didn't." Zoe smiled. "But I am wondering how badly you've blown things with the band and your manager," she said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, well, that's for me to figure out," he told her, not wanting to think much about it himself, truth be told.

"Maybe," said Zoe then, getting his attention back in a second as the grin returned to her lips. "Or maybe the daughter of Candice Hart, PR consultant extraordinaire, could help you out a little..."

To Be Continued...