Just One Thing (The Alexanders 6)

Grant had been busy unraveling the gauze covering Bennett’s arm and when he finally got all the layers off, the sight of the ragged bloody skin had him hissing in dismay.

“Hmm. This doesn’t look good. Are you sure you don’t want to go–”

“Just stitch me up, Grant.”

Katie put a hand against her stomach. The gash looked even worse on second glance. “I have to go. The kids will be home soon.”

Bennett nodded. “Of course. Sorry to keep you late.”

She hesitated but before she thought it through, she leaned over and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Listen to what the doctor tells you. Even if he is kind of a jerk.”

Then she left before she couldn’t get the strength to do it.

?

After the door shut behind Katie, there was complete silence. Bennett figured it probably wasn’t a good idea to rip into the guy who was about to shove a needle through your skin so he mentally recited the periodic table. Then he made the mistake of looking up and into his cousin’s smug face.

“If my arm wasn’t throbbing like a bitch right now you’d be missing some teeth.”

Grant continued setting out his supplies on the sterile pad he’d unfolded on the table. He didn’t say anything just raised one elegant eyebrow. Somehow that damn eyebrow just ticked Bennett off even more.

“And what the hell was that ‘every woman fantasizes about being between two guys’ thing? Do you even hear yourself sometimes?”

Grant shrugged and the fact that he couldn’t be bothered to defend himself only made it worse. Bennett could feel himself getting more and more worked up and it annoyed him that his cousin could get under his skin so easily. Especially since he knew that

annoying people was the reason Grant acted the way he did. He’d always been a troublemaker, even when they were kids.

“You don’t have to try to seduce every woman you come across, you know?” Bennett huffed, finally running out of steam.

“Now where’s the fun in that?” Grant drawled, right before he injected Bennett with something.

“Oh shit.”

All his anger drained out at the sharp prick. Luckily the sharp pain was followed by a blissful numbness. He let out a sigh of relief.

He hadn’t been lying to Katie when he told her that he’d had worse. But having your arm throbbing angrily for an hour wasn’t an experience he was keen to repeat any time soon.

“You enjoy torturing people. That’s the real reason you went to med school. Don’t pretend. You can’t fool me.”

“Oh no. You’ve found me out,” Grant deadpanned.

Bennett looked in the other direction but he could still see the up and down motion of his cousin’s arm as he stitched the wound, along with feeling the slight tug and pull on the numbed area.

“You’re going to need help for a few days. It’s better if you don’t move this arm too much in the beginning or you’ll pull the stitches out. This is a bad cut. You really should have gone to the hospital right away.”

Bennett ignored his cousin’s stern stare. “Your serious doctor face doesn’t work on me. I’ve seen you pee on yourself, remember.”

Grant grunted. “Treating family is the fucking worst. I’m serious, Ben. I know you wanted to look tough for your girlfriend but the next time you open a vein on a piece of rusty metal, get your ass to the hospital.”

Too shocked to even address his cousin’s bossy directive, Bennett just shook his head. “I wasn’t trying to be tough for Katie. You know I hate hospitals.”

“I know that. But even you usually aren’t this stubborn about it. Plus, you're in control now. It's not like when you were little and having all those tests.”

Bennett grunted. As a child, he was non-verbal for quite a while which of course had concerned his parents. He’d been subjected to so many different medical tests and had blood drawn so many times that just the sight of a hospital made him nervous, even now. It hadn't even been worth it. After all those tests, the doctors never found anything abnormal. He was just different.

Grant tied off the last stitch and swabbed the stitches with something wet and cold. “I don’t blame you for wanting to stab my eyes out earlier. She’s beautiful and obviously cares about you. I’d be jealous if my better looking cousin was hitting on my girl, too.”

Bennett scowled. “I wasn’t jealous. And you wish you were better looking.”