She sucked her teeth. “And that’s my problem, why?”
“Come on, Geo, I’ve been in an accident, there’s nothing for me to do but sleep and eat and stare at the wall. Would it kill you to entertain me for half an hour?”
He wasn’t sure if it was because he’d called her Geo or because he’d mentioned his accident, but for just a moment, that tipped-up chin of hers came down an inch and her expression softened infinitesimally. “Entertain you how?”
She took a step into the room and he felt like pointing at the sky in thanks to God. “We could… play a game?”
“What game?” Another step into the room.
He intentionally smoothed the sheets by his feet, hoping she’d take the hint and sit there. “Truth or dare?”
She smirked. “Fat lot of dares you could do laid up in bed.”
“I will only choose truth, then.”
“Pass.”
He tried to let it pass through him without cutting, that she didn’t care to know any of his secrets, but it still hurt. “All right. I Spy?”
She took two more steps into the room, close enough to reach out and brush her fingertips against his toes if she wanted, and that went a long way toward soothing his ruffled feathers. “Veto. I get carsick just thinking of that game.”
He pursed his lips and thought. Being an actor might seem like it was a very fast-paced and action-packed job, but honestly, most of it was just waiting around. Perhaps it was why Moreau’s imagination was so sharp. Either way, he knew a lot of games. “Okay… We tell each other a story. I say the first line, you say the next, and on and on.”
She sucked her teeth again and propped one knee on the edge of the bed, her arms crossed over her chest and some of her silky hair falling out of her bun. “All right. Fine. We can do that one.”
“Once there was a beautiful woman who owned a dragon as a pet.”
“Oh, Jesus,” she said into the palm of her hand. “You were serious about this.”
“Once there was a beautiful woman who owned a dragon as a pet,” he repeated, prompting her with a rolling hand to add her part to the story.
She rolled her eyes. “And the dragon was a real asshole.”
Moreau couldn’t completely restrain his smile in time, so he was sure that some of it shown through on his face. “But only because he loved the beautiful woman very much and could never have her.”
Geo pursed her lips. “Because he was a dragon and she was a Homo Sapien and freaky shit like that only happens in romance novels.”
“Which kind of romance novels are you reading?” he couldn’t resist asking, his head tipped to one side. His overactive imagination was suddenly in hyperdrive with images of Geo reading avidly in armchairs, these very glasses on the tip of her nose, her brow beading with sweat when she got to the hot parts.
“You’re not allowed to ask personal questions in this game,” she dead-panned.
“Right, right.” He furrowed his brow and tried to think back to her sentence so that he could provide the next one, but his concussion was starting to get the best of him and he lost his train of thought. He jammed his fingers into his eyes, making the glasses bounce on his knuckles. “Shit. I can’t remember.”
Out of nowhere, there was a glass of water being shoved into his hand and Geo was right beside him.
“Thanks,” he muttered, slugging back half the glass. She took it back and set it on the nightstand.
“Are you in pain?”
“Yes. No. It doesn’t matter.”
“That was not an answer.”
“Yes, I’m in pain. No, I don’t want painkillers. And it doesn’t matter because it’s not the pain that’s bothering me. It’s the confusion.”
“Why don’t you want the painkillers?”
“I do not enjoy being under the influence of anything.”
“You drink wine with dinner,” she insisted.
“I’m French,” he responded in an affronted tone that he felt should completely answer her question.
She smirked again and handed the water back to him. “I’m gonna get Leary.”
“No!” Without thinking, Moreau reached out and grabbed Geo by the back of her pants as she walked away. The backs of his fingers slid neatly along the warm, smooth fabric of her tucked in shirt. He quickly unhanded her when she whirled on him, fire in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to… Please. Don’t get the nurses. I cannot be henpecked any more today. Just—If you have to leave me, that’s fine. But don’t get the nurses.”
Geo eyed him for a long minute. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out what the hell she was thinking. She turned on her heel, sucking her teeth, and grabbed the desk chair from the far corner and set it next to his bed. She sat her ass down in the chair and—to his utter delight—propped her booted feet right on the bed next to his knees.
“Truth or dare, then?” she asked.
***
Geo only had to wonder why the hell she was indulging Moreau in this silly game for half a second. Because on the second half of that second, his eyes filled with warmth and clarity and pleased disbelief.
She was playing this dumb game because he was concussed and dimmed and she couldn’t watch him lay still in his bed another damn moment.
“Truth,” he chose solemnly, as if he really had any other option.
Great. Now she had to think of a question. She cocked her head to one side and considered. She figured, from the circles under his eyes, that he had about fifteen minutes before he was face-planting into his pillow. She could kill time for fifteen minutes. What were the kinds of questions people asked at this game? “Age of your first kiss.”
She saw a flare of joy race through his expression that she was actually playing the game with him, but then his face pulled into concentration. He was thinking so hard that she worried he might pull a muscle. Probably not the best game to play with the concussed.
“On screen or real life?” he finally asked.
“You had your first on-screen kiss before you had your first real kiss?”
He nodded.
“Okay. On screen.”
“Twelve.”
“Real life?”
“Ah, ah, ah,” he said as he wagged a finger at her. “You only get one answer per turn.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Okay, then.” He rubbed his hands together like an evil scientist about to count a pile of money. “Truth or dare, Savannah.”
“Dare.”
He was apparently locked and loaded. “I dare you to give Rook a… How do you call it when you pull the underpants up out of the pants?”
She stared at him in incredulity. “A wedgie?”
He snapped his fingers in triumph. “Yes! I dare you to give Rook a wedgie.”
Just the other week she’d told Moreau that she couldn’t imagine him being funny and she’d meant it. But suddenly she couldn’t stop the chuckle that she tried to cover with one hand.
He looked at her in complete shock.
Geo wiped the smile off her face with the palm of her hand. “Considering he’s my boss, I’m going to have to pass on that dare.”
“You cannot pass on the dare.”
“I choose truth then.”
He frowned at her for a moment before he shrugged. “Fine. Then I will find a question to ask you.”
He closed his eyes and folded his hands under his chin like he was praying. Or like he was scrolling through an internal rolodex of questions he’d been waiting to ask her.
“You’ve just been waiting for the day when you got to ask me anything you wanted, huh?” She couldn’t help but tease him a little bit. He was a little, tiny bit cute when he was concussed. So much more accessible than a fully healthy Moreau Davy.
“Quiet. I am thinking.”
She sucked her teeth.
“Okay! I have my question,” he announced. “What kind of clothing do you wear when you are not at work?”
She gaped at him.
“That’s your question? You’ve gotta be kidding me!”
“There is something wrong with this question?”
“Moreau, this is truth or dare. You’re supposed to ask me where I lost my virginity or, I don’t know, if I’ve ever had a one-night stand.”
He blinked at her. “Would you prefer to answer those questions?”
She threw her hands up in the air. “You seriously want to waste your question on my wardrobe?”
He folded his hands across his chest and solemnly nodded.
She shook her head like he was crazy. “I don’t know. Jeans. T-shirts. Boots in the winter, sneakers in the summer.”
“Do the t-shirts have words or slogans?”
“No,” she answered, still completely mystified at this line of questioning.
“Dresses?”
She just dropped her chin and raised an eyebrow. Her in dresses was as ridiculous as him not having a glass of wine with dinner.
It just wasn’t done.
He chuckled. “Okay.”
She re-crossed her feet and accidentally knocked into his leg, but it was the uninjured one and he didn’t seem to mind. “Truth or dare.”
“Truth, of course.”
“What the hell made you choose that question to ask me?” she demanded.
“Really?” he mused. “You do not want to know the age of my real first kiss?”
She shook her head.
“All right,” he responded and then tapped at one lens of the glasses he wore. “It is because of these glasses that I asked you that question.”
She furrowed her brow and he elaborated.
“You can learn very much about a person from what they wear when they are not at work. And I… have never seen you not at work. These glasses are the only thing of yours that I have seen that you do not wear as part of your uniform. And I wanted to know if they were reflective of your personal style.”
She stared at him for a good long minute before she crossed her arms across her chest and let her chin fall into one palm. “My personal style.”
He just stared back at her for a long moment until she turned her head to the side and couldn’t help but laugh again.
“Davy, I might not be a style icon, but those decade-old Clark Kent clunkers are not reflective of my personal style. Those babies never see the light of day.”
“Then why do you keep them if you think they’re so ugly?”
Because after paying off her father’s debts and funding his stay at the Ferndale center, Geo barely had milk money left over. If it weren’t for Rook Securities she’d be legit homeless and legit starving. But was she going to tell Davy that? Fat chance. “I only wear my contacts usually. I keep those glasses for the trip from the bed to the bathroom in the morning.”
“Me too,” he agreed. “Most people do not even know I wear glasses.” He pulled her glasses off his face and eyed them. “They are not so ugly.”
She scoffed. “You only say that because without them on, you can’t see them.”
He laughed and while they were off, took the opportunity to rub at the dent they’d left behind on the bridge of his nose. His shoulders sagged and she knew it was about time for him to rest again.
“Why don’t you get lasik?” she asked, tilting her head to one side. She knew exactly why she didn’t get lasik. Because that shit cost money and would require time off of work.
He cleared his throat. “I don’t like anything that has to do with—” he gulped audibly, “—eyes.”
Geo sniffed and bit her lips to keep from smiling again. She’d known this man for four years and suddenly, tonight, he’d found her funny bone. She didn’t want it going to his head considering she didn’t think he’d be able to replicate the humor once he was fully recovered from his concussion. “Sharks and eyes, huh?”
He pursed his lips. “Ah, I see. I am a wuss because I have normal fears? And I’ll bet you, tough girl, keep a shark for a pet and get acupuncture in your eyeballs for fun?”
She’d been called tough girl many times in her life. But for some reason, hearing it from a sleepy-eyed, bedridden Moreau made her stomach flip. To cover the feeling, she rolled her eyes at him. “You should be grateful I’m so tough. Nobody wants scaredy-cat personal security.”
“You are definitely no scaredy-cat,” he agreed and shoved down a little lower on his pillow. His head had begun to roll to one side and his eyelids were sagging behind the heavy glasses. “You are one tough kitty.”
She smirked. “Cookie.”
“Yes?”
She gaped at him. “I was correcting you. Tough cookie. Not tough kitty.”
“Oh. I thought you were referring to me as cookie.”
She couldn’t help but laugh again. He was ridiculous. And halfway to dream-land. His blinks were coming slowly now. He looked like he was fighting against gravity.
“All right,” she murmured, leaning forward and clicking off the lamp beside his bed. She held a hand out for the glasses and he handed them over, watching through squinted eyes as she carefully folded them and set them next to his glass of water.
“Goodnight, Kitty,” he said to her in a slurred, sleepy voice.
She strode to the door, opened it and stood for a second in the doorframe. “Goodnight, Cookie,” she said, watched the exhausted smile spread across his face, and closed the door.
***
Moreau woke up the next morning with a headache, an aching leg, dry-mouth, and a humongous grin on his face.
He’d hung out with Geo. He’d made her laugh. He’d long ago given up on the idea that she’d ever find him charming. Trying to get a smile out of her was like romancing a brick wall. But last night, as much as she’d tried to hide it, she had laughed, smiled, and played with him.
His smile slipped just a bit when there was a tentative knock on his door. Tap-tap-tap.
He knew that knock. It was Val.
There were three nurses who’d been cleared to work with him and his favorite, by far, was Leary. The other two were Rita, an older, very somber, woman. And Val.
Val was in her late twenties, cute as a button, and so freaking nervous around Moreau he was afraid she might swallow her own tongue.
Not quite what one hoped for in a nurse.
“Come in.”
Sure enough, Val stepped into the room, a healthy blush already rising on her pale skin. Her naturally blonde hair was so light that it seemed to almost blend directly into the hair on her forehead. She wore lavender scrubs and looked like she might just fade away into thin air.
“Good morning, M-Moreau.”
He’d made her call him by his first name and regretted it. She’d been much more comfortable referring to him as Mr. Davy.
“Morning, Val.”
“How are you feeling?” she asked in a voice so quiet it could have been a mouse speaking in the next room.
“Fine.” He frowned. Might as well tell her the truth. “I have a headache and I’m very thirsty.”
She stepped up next to the bed. “Can I see your hand?”
He held out a hand to her and she pinched at his fingertips. He could feel the tremble in her hands.
There was a brisk, authoritative knock on the door and Geo strode in, coffee cup in hand and a fierce look in her eye. Her gaze swept from Moreau to Val and to their linked hands.
“You didn’t alert us that you were going to do his morning round, Val.”
Val looked like she was about to keel over from anxiety. “I—I forgot. I’m sorry. I heard him rustling around in here and came in.”
“Where were you?” Moreau asked Geo.
“Atlas is supposed to be up here for his shift but he and Rook got held up talking to the detective on your case. I ran up to fill in for him.”
“Is that coffee for me?” Moreau asked hopefully.
Geo’s eyes dropped back down to where Val clutched at his hand. “No.”
Moreau too turned his eyes to his hand in Val’s. He looked up at his nu
rse expectantly and she dropped his hand like it was on fire.
“Um.” Val looked everywhere but at him. “I think you’re dehydrated. I can tell from the skin on your fingertips.”
Geo stepped into the room, glaring at the half-full glass of water that she’d left on the nightstand. “You haven’t been drinking enough water?”
Moreau bristled. For someone who was so famous he couldn’t check his mail without a security detail, he highly prized the parts of his life that could remain private. His eating, drinking, and bathroom habits were not something he enjoyed sharing with anyone. Not even his nurses. And especially not goddesses who looked down their noses and treated him like an idiot of the highest order. “I’ve been drinking a lot in the morning and afternoons. But I don’t like to drink very much water at night.”
Val filled in the blanks before Geo did. “If you need to use the restroom at night, Leary, Rita, or I would be happy to get up to assist you, M-Moreau. That’s why we’re live-in, after all.”
He refused to look at Geo to see what her expression was. He doubted it would be pity, but he didn’t want to risk seeing it anyways.
Moreau cleared his throat and didn’t say anything.
“Or. Um. I could give you a catheter?” Val suggested, looking equally hopeful and terrified at the idea.
In the corner, there was the distinct sound of someone snorting into her coffee.
“No, no,” Moreau said quickly. “That won’t be necessary. I will agree to drink more water and wake one of you if I have to.”
Val nodded. “Okay. Let’s get you to the bathroom. And after, I’m gonna hook you up to an IV to see if we can’t get you hydrated quickly.”
Moreau grunted. Great. More needles. More henpecking. More fluid. Which inevitably meant more trips to the bathroom with meant even more henpecking.
He glanced longingly at the crutches that leaned in the far corner of his bedroom. As soon as he was cleared from his concussion, he would be allowed to start using the crutches. Now, it was too risky, as he was still getting dizzy.
Moreau tossed back the sheets and slid himself to the edge of the bed. He tried not to look at his injured leg. It was covered in a large pair of sweatpants, but it stuck out at an awkward angle from his body.
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