Thoroughly Whipped

As if feeling the weight of my confused gaze, Harry began to stir. His dark hair was mussed, a mass of waves on his head, and his full lips were slightly pursed. Cracking open his bright blue eyes, he immediately sought me out. “Faith,” he said, and something in my stomach flipped hearing him call me by my first name again. Harry sat up straighter and leaned toward the bed. “You’re awake.” I kept flicking curious glances to our hands, but he didn’t let go. I wasn’t even sure he realized they were still clasped. “Are you okay?”

“Just peachy,” I said, wincing again when I lifted my free hand to my head. Just as I hissed at the lump jutting from the side of my skull, as if I were a motherfucking lopsided unicorn, a nurse came through the curtain that wrapped around the bed.

“How are you feeling?” she asked and handed me a pill. “Take this. It’ll help with the pain.” Moving around to the other side of the bed, she tapped Harry’s shoulder. “Do you mind if I give her a quick examination?”

“No, no, not at all.” Harry dropped his hand from mine. I watched him for a reaction. Had he even realized he was holding my hand? Was it some traditional English act of chivalry I wasn’t savvy to? He groaned slightly and, as he positioned my hand back on the bed, gave my fingers a quick squeeze. His eyes flicked to me, and I saw a slight burst of red on his cheeks. What did that mean? Was he embarrassed? Damn, my head hurt too much for all this thinking. Harry ducked out of the room and shut the curtain behind him.

“Bless that man,” the middle-aged nurse said, and she started timing my pulse. “He has not left your side since you came in earlier. He was barking orders at us to be sure you were okay.”

I wasn’t sure if my pulse started racing too fast because of the head injury or because of what the nurse was telling me. “When we were sure it was just a nasty hit to the head and slight concussion, nothing worse, he sat by your side, held your hand, and never took his eyes off you as you slept.” She smiled my way, clearly oblivious to the fact that right now, fuck the head injury, I was pretty sure I was having a coronary. “You have one dedicated man there, girl.” The nurse wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my arm. “He’s British?”

“Yeah,” was all I could say. He isn’t my man should have followed, but my naughty little tongue didn’t quite fess up.

“Love that accent.” She shined a light into my eyes. I flinched. The penlight felt like a laser beam burning straight through my retina and piercing my brain with white-hot heat. “Sorry,” the nurse said. “You’re okay, just will have a headache for a while. We’ll give you medication for that.” She pressed the button on the side of the bed and raised the head of the bed so I was in a sitting position. “We will monitor you for a bit longer, then you’ll be fine to go home.”

“Thank you.” As she opened the curtain to leave, Harry was on the other side, holding two paper cups. He nodded politely at the nurse as she walked past. He ducked into the booth and placed a steaming cup on the table above my lap.

“Coffee?” I asked, knowing caffeine would be all the remedy I needed right now.

“Tea,” Harry said and sat down on the plastic chair.

“You’re shitting me, right?”

Harry’s mouth twitched, no doubt at the amount of venom in my voice. “I am not, shitting you, as you so eloquently said. It’s chamomile, caffeine free. It’s tea, Miss Parisi, don’t you know it’s the cure for everything?”

“Maybe back in the auld empire, but here in New York it’s a cup of Joe all the way.” I shuddered just looking at the light brown water that resembled dirt sitting tauntingly before me. “I may swear like a sailor off his tits on gin, but ‘it’s chamomile, caffeine free’ may just be the most offensive sentence I’ve ever heard in my fucking life.”

Harry reached over, took the tea, and switched his drink with mine. From what my coffee-trained bloodhound nose could detect, it appeared to be a double-shot grande latte. “There. Have mine. Can’t have you so affronted by Britain’s best stuff.”

“I thought tea cured everything. Why did you get coffee?”

“I wasn’t sure tea was going to be strong enough for me to face your expected wrath.”

I couldn’t help but fight a smile. “My expected wrath?”

“I feared I was about to be nailed inside a coffin for the mishap with the rugby ball.”

“Mishap? You mean the leather egg that decided to kiss my face with the force of a freight train? That mishap?”