“Whoa! Whoa, what the hell are you doing?”
“I need to show you something, Ms. Romera,” he says, finally regaining his composure. He finishes unbuttoning and shrugs his right shoulder out of his shirt, pivoting to show me a four-inch-long, jagged scar that runs across the back of his shoulder blade. It’s faded, but would have been fairly nasty once upon a time. “I received that for my troubles the last time I tried to make Zeth Mayfair recuperate in bed. I won’t be trying it again. I learn my lessons the first time around.”
“He did that to you?”
Michael lifts both shoulders, unfazed. “He told me to leave him the hell alone. I didn’t. He told me again. I still wouldn’t listen, so he proved he was well enough to get out of bed by kicking my ass.”
I feel like groaning. That definitely does sound like something Zeth would do. “Neanderthal,” I mutter.
“He’d argue that he’s actually very highly evolved, I’m sure,” Michael says, grinning. “Anyway, I’m taking Lacey to see the shrink. You wanna come with? Zee’ll be fine on his own for a couple of hours.”
Lacey’s appointment with Pippa. Oh, god, it seriously feels like I was there just yesterday. I so can not face that right now. And Pippa seeing my face? The cuts and scratches are healing really well, but they’re still visible. She’s immediately going to jump to conclusions—that Zeth is somehow responsible. Even if I told her the truth that it was one of Charlie’s men who did it, she will still see that as Zeth’s fault. My involvement with him putting me in harm’s way. I just can’t bear the thought of arguing with her right now, and I certainly can’t bear the thought of her chewing me out for not telling her sooner that I was in a serious car crash.
“No, you know what, that’s fine, Michael. I’m just gonna wait here in case he even thinks about climbing out of that bed.”
“I’d just let it go if I were you, Ms. Romera. It’s not worth the headache. Can I bring you anything back?”
“No, I’m fine. Thanks, Michael.”
His fingers work quickly, doing up his shirt again. “Okay. I have my cell if you change your mind.”
“Thanks. Oh, and Michael?”
He pauses mid-stride, turning back to face me. “Yes, Ms. Romera?”
“Please…call me Sloane.”
******
It’s getting dark by the time I decide it’s probably time Zeth tried to eat something. I fix him some food and a glass of water and creep into his room, ready to wake him up carefully in case he freaks out, but I immediately see that he’s already awake and sitting on top of the covers. He must have gotten out of bed to do that.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I growl.
“I am not pissing in this,” he advises me, waving one of the bedpans I ‘borrowed’ from work in my general direction.
“You didn’t need to piss in that! You had a freaking catheter!”
Zeth looks murderous. “About that. Whose idea was it to shove something into my dick?”
“Uh, that would have been mine, considering you would have urinated all over your bed otherwise.” This seems to stump him. The indignity of a catheter is far less than the indignity of throwing out what looks to be a fairly expensive mattress ruined by pee. God knows how the hell he took the thing out, too; he would have had to deflate the balloon and catch the fluid. Second year med students struggle to do that without screwing it up.
“Never again,” he says firmly.
“How about you try harder at not getting stabbed? That will negate the need for anything remotely catheter-like going anywhere near your dick in the future.”
More grumbling ensues. I shove the plate of food at him—ham and cheese sandwich and sliced fruit—and I sit there and glare at him until he begins to eat. It’s the most basic food you can make, and yet I feel a weird sense of warmth inside me. This is the first time I’ve ever made anything for him. He manages to get halfway through and then refuses to eat any more. I decide against pushing him, primarily because it’s more than I would have thought he’d get through anyway, but also because I don’t have the energy to argue over something so small. I need to pick my battles. And Zeth giving himself enough time to recover properly is definitely the battle I need to win.
As though he can tell exactly what I’m thinking and he’s ready to test some boundaries, he winces as he tries to sit up straighter in the bed, the bandages pulling tight across his abdomen. If he keeps on like this, he’s going to open all of his stitches.
“Freeze, mister.” I place my palm against the flat, toned skin of his stomach. The heat pouring off him makes my hand burn. He looks down at himself, studying the point where our bodies touch.