“I-I had to go to work.” I find myself stuttering as I answer a question he has no right to ask. “And I—I need to change out this bandage before my shift."
“Go right ahead.” He folds his free hand behind his head, like a magnanimous king permitting his servant to do her thing. And only winces a little.
His biker king act supersedes the pain of lifting his arm to strike a cool pose.
I studiously avert my eyes, concentrating on laying a new bandage over his wound.
“So your breakfast date with the doctor boyfriend ended early, huh?”
I freeze. And though I probably shouldn’t, I have to ask, “How did you know I had a date?”
The smile disappears under a scowl. “Your brother and his crew were trying to get me out of there before you came back. Heard them talking about it in Spanish outside my room before they busted in—the original plan was to tell you I wasn’t there when Ant came to check on me.”
His words send a flash of disappointment through me. But zero surprise. Tupac once said, “I didn’t choose thug life, the thug life chose me.” Ant wasn’t like Tupac.
He made a calculated decision to start his own street gang after he got out of juvie, and he knows I don’t approve of that choice. He doesn’t tell me most of the stuff he gets up to with the Reyes. And when he knows I particularly won’t approve of something he’s done or is about to do, he doesn’t hesitate to straight-up lie.
“Guess they knew you’d have something to say about them kicking me out.”
I’m concentrating on redressing his wound, but the MC’s eyes burn my skin. I don’t have to look up to tell he’s staring.
“Yes, I would have had something to say about them dumping a patient out in the middle of nowhere,” I answer, glancing up at him. “And if it makes you feel any better, I wouldn’t have just believed him. I would’ve asked what direction you went in and badgered Ant until he told me the truth. He thinks I don’t know when he’s lying, but I always do.”
I’m just trying to give him a little reassurance. But the biker grins like I’ve made a whole confession. “Thanks for looking out for me, angel.”
My cheeks burn, and I turn my eyes back to the bandage, even though I could do this blindfolded.
“I would have done the same thing for any one of my patients. Walking around after getting shot isn’t safe.”
“So I’m just another patient. Got it.” I’m no longer looking at him, but I hear the smirk in his voice.
I grit my teeth and concentrate on redressing his wound as quickly and efficiently as I would if he was an inpatient at Wilmington St. Joseph.
Actually, I probably would have shared friendly banter with an official patient. Asked them about their pain levels and made sure they were comfortable.
But we’re not in the hospital. And this guy shouldn’t be my patient. I mean, I had to handcuff him to the bed for Ant to agree to him staying in my apartment with me.
What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? I ask myself—not for the first time since I rode up in the elevator with him and O-Blood to my efficiency apartment.
The biker immediately fell into the bed and passed out like he’d run a marathon as soon as we arrived. Leaving me to redress his wound, then handcuff him without protest before he slept for nearly twelve hours straight.
Real talk, though. His restraint doesn’t make me feel any safer. Even lying prone with his arm crooked behind his head, he emanates danger and violence.
Like a tiger who could escape his cuff anytime he wanted.
And eat me alive.
“Thanks for letting me stay here with you in your bed,” he drawls when I’m done re-patching his wound. “Just wish I was awake to enjoy sleeping beside you for the first time.”
“If you were awake, you wouldn’t be sleeping,” I answer.
“You got that right. Sleeping’s the last thing I’d be doing with you in my bed.” He deliberately misses my point with another lazy tiger grin…and way more innuendo than I’m comfortable with.
I clear my throat. “Anyway, I slept on the couch.”
He looks past me and frowns at the old pleather loveseat Sierra helped me drag in off the curb. “Don’t look too comfortable.”
It wasn’t. Between Jonathan dumping me and me somehow ending up with a dangerous criminal chained to my bed and the loveseat’s squeaky plastic cushions, I barely got any sleep. And now it was already time for me to report to the hospital for another shift.
But I keep those thoughts to myself.
“It was fine,” I tell the grizzled MC. “It will be fine until it’s time for you to go.”