“Okay, thanks.” I fell in step behind him. “Is she…?”
Glancing over his shoulder, Dee replied, “Going to bitch slap you the minute she sees you?”
Damn, he was good. Or maybe it was that he knew Mia so well. “Yeah, something like that.”
Dee spun around, causing me to skid to a stop. “I’m gonna shoot straight with you, pretty boy. I wanted your balls on a skewer for a long time for what you did to Mimi.”
“Dude, I tried to tell her I was sorry a million times. She wouldn’t talk to me. I swear, I—”
He held up a hand to silence me, and surprisingly, I shut the fuck up. “Yeah, I didn’t know that then, but she finally admitted it to me about three months ago.” He took a step closer to me. “I don’t really know you that well, but what I do know seems intrinsically decent despite you being a famous rock-star. I’m hoping that you’ve shown up here today because you miss Mia, and you want to fight for her—despite what you might have going on in your personal life.”
My brows furrowed in confusion. “Wait a minute. You lost me on the personal life stuff.”
He rolled his eyes. “Fine, if you wanna play coy, whatever.”
“But I—”
“Look, just get in there and fight for our girl, okay?”
I resisted the urge to salute him. Instead, I nodded. “I will. I swear.”
“Good.” He then produced a key card from his pocket, which unlocked a door behind the nurse’s station. “Go get her, tiger,” he said, before smacking me on the ass.
Already on edge, I jumped out of my skin. At the same time, it felt good having Dee on my side—like I had passed some test. But like an absolute *, my hand shook as I opened the door. Mia stood in front of large cart filled with different medical supplies. My heart thudded against my breast bone at the sight of her. Four months later and she was even more beautiful and sexy than I remembered—even outfitted in her standard green scrubs. Her long, dark hair was swept away from her face in a twist, although a few wispy strands had escaped. She was eyeing a label on a bottle. “Dee, we’re getting low on Heparin. You should call the pharmacy and order up some more units.”
“It’s not Dee,” I said softly.
The sound of my voice caused her to jerk her head up. The bottle she was inventorying fell from her hand and smashed onto the floor.
“W-What are you doing here?” she questioned.
“I was in the neighborhood and thought I would come see you.” When her brows rose in suspicion, I replied, “Oka, so maybe I was over at Scottish Rite meeting with some fans.”
“Oh,” she murmured.
I nervously raked my hand through my hair before taking a few tentative steps closer to Mia. “I’m just going to shoot straight with you, okay? When I was over there and saw St. Joe’s, I realized how much I missed you and wanted to see you.”
“You did?” she asked, her voice vibrating with emotion.
“Yeah.”
The closer I got to her, the more panicked Mia appeared. “AJ, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“That you’ve missed me?” I teased, hoping to ease the tension in the air that you couldn’t have sawed through with a chainsaw.
“Yes,” she whispered. “But…something else.”
“That you’re sorry for not answering my calls and texts?” She nodded. “But most of all, you’re sorry you left me naked and handcuffed to a shower.”