by Pepper Pace
“I love you, too.” She didn’t even think about what she’d said. She just did as he instructed and fell back asleep.
The next day, her glasses were indeed resting on her nose when she opened her eyes. They were her old pair, but they felt comfortable on her face; like an old worn shoe. She looked around but Lucas was no where around. One of the many nurses busily scurrying around outside of her door poked her head into the room.
“Good morning. You’re awake.”
“Where’s Lucas?” She managed to groan between dry, sore lips.
“The young man?” The nurse looked around as if he were hiding somewhere in the room. “I don’t know. He must have dashed out to get something to eat. He’s barely left this room.” The nurse busily checked monitors and her IV’s. “He said he was your assistant?”
“Yes.” She dry swallowed.
The nurse chuckled. “We thought he was a kid. We actually ID’d him thinking he was skipping out on school.” She gave Sophie a sideways look.
“Did I break my neck?” She asked, ignoring the comment. She was wearing a neck brace. She tried to reach up and touch it but she had a cast on her arm and she was too tired to lift it. The other arm had the IV’s.
“No. But you do have a herniated disc. Dr. Polotny will be in shortly to go over your chart with you. I gave you more pain medicine. You’ll feel sleepy, and when you wa…” But Sophie was already asleep.
~***~
Lucas was leading Sophie slowly up the porch stairs. She’d been in the hospital two days, mostly to give her back time to heal. She didn’t consider it healed. Every move radiated pain through her body. The two days spent in the hospital was foggy and dreamlike. She was just happy to be leaving there and getting back to her home.
Even loaded up with painkillers, it was difficult to move. It took so long to get from the car to the house that Lucas had offered to carry her.
“Like I need to fall again.”
“I would never drop you.”
“Well we don’t need the both of us with blown out backs.”
He ignored her comment and just encouraged her to continue one step at a time. By the time she was in the bedroom she was drenched in sweat. The blankets were already pulled down. She gave him an appreciative look as he helped her to sit on the bed’s edge. He knelt before her and helped remove her shoes.
“I’m going to help you lay back. Just take it slow,” he said. She winced but her back pain didn’t flare up as she had expected and she was soon relaxed against the pillows.
“Good?” He asked as he plumped them for her.
“Good.” She replied. He pulled the covers over her. She was already wearing pajamas. Good thing they made them for indoor and outdoor wear nowadays.
“I’ll be back. I’m just going to bring in your things from the car.”
“Okay.” She said tiredly.
When he returned to the room, she was already asleep. He leaned down and placed his lips on her forehead and then he stroked her hair lightly. It needed brushing, he’d do that later. Lucas sat there for a long time, just luxuriating in the ability to watch her uninterrupted. He was determined that he was going to take care of Sophie; not just as an assistant but as her man. He knew that she still saw a little boy when she looked at him. But he would have to work to change that.
He finally stood and moved across the room. He closed the blinds and then shut the door softly behind him.
Chapter 9
“Lucas?”
His eyes popped open and he leaped from the couch where he planned to sleep while Sophie healed. He dashed into the bedroom. She was struggling to get out of bed.
“Sophie! What are you doing?!”
“I need to go to the bathroom.”
He helped her. “Sweetheart, I have a bedpan for you.”
She had been groggy but at the mention of a bedpan her eyes flew open. “BEDPAN?! I’m not using a bedpan!” He helped her stand.
“You can’t keep getting in and out of bed. In the hospital you had a catheter. If you keep moving around you’ll never get better.”
“If I use a bedpan, you’ll have to CHANGE a bedpan. And that’s not happening,” she muttered. When she was standing on her feet she tried to straighten and gasped in sudden pain, leaning on him heavily. He put his arms around her body and held her upright. Suddenly there was the sound of liquid spattering against the hardwood floor and the strong smell of urine. Sophie looked down in horror. She’d just peed herself, and worse it had spattered all over Lucas’ shoes!
Tears welled up in her eyes. She felt so helpless.
“Put your arms around my neck.”
She looked at him with tear blurred eyes. “What? You’re not going to lift me-”
“Sophie, please! Just do it,” he commanded.
Her brow furrowed but she placed her arms around his neck and hung on while he swept her up into his arms.
He carried her into the bathroom and set her down gently in the bathtub. She had a handheld shower and he grabbed it with one hand, and held it pointed to the drain while adjusting the water temperature with the other.
“Sophie,” he said gently. “You’re going to have to take off those clothes.”
“I…I don’t want to.”
He gave her a patient look. “Remember when I told you that I had to help Granny? Well I helped her in the bath all of the time.”
She winced, her arms crossed in front of her. “But I’m not your Granny.”
He seemed to consider her words. “I can close the curtain and you can take off your clothes by yourself. I’ll be right on the other side of the curtain in case you need me.”
She nodded her consent and Lucas closed the curtain and waited.
It only took Sophie three minutes before she admitted that she couldn’t do it alone. Hell she couldn’t even bend down without ripping pain coursing through her spine.
Lucas pulled back the curtain and the first thing he did was to remove her brace. It was wet but luckily her cast wasn’t.
“Just keep this arm out to the side.” She was wearing a button up shirt because it was the only thing that she could put on comfortably.
“You’ll need to wear a hospital gown until your shoulder is better.” He unbuttoned her shirt, she wasn’t wearing a bra. He slipped it off her body and tossed the wet fabric into the sink for him to wash later. She nervously covered her breast with her injured arm while trying to hold on to the towel rack with the other.
“Lean in to me, not the wall.” Sophie averted her eyes as she did what he instructed. It meant that she had to uncover her breast which she did quickly, bracing herself against Lucas with her broken arm and now concealing her oversized boobs with her other.“You’re doing good,” he said gently. “I’m just going to take off these pants now.”
“I-” she began nervously.
“It’s okay. I won’t look.” He turned his head as he pulled down her wet pajama bottoms. The smell of urine assaulted both of their noses and Sophie groaned in disapproval. He grabbed the body wash and her spongy and lathered it liberally after handing her the handheld shower. She was still leaning into him, but stopped trying to hide her various body parts since she had the choice of either being modest, or being clean.
She let the warm water spray over her body which wet Lucas as well but he didn’t complain and he had kept his eyes averted as promised. He offered her the sponge and they did an efficient exchange so that he was holding the source of the water again while she began washing herself.
“You’re doing good, way better than Granny. ‘Course Granny sat in the tub, but this is easier.”
“Granny sounds like a trooper.” She tried to joke.
“She was actually too far gone to care.”
“But it couldn’t have been pleasant for you.”
She felt him shrug as he stared at the tiled wall. “It was something that had to be done, so…”
She didn’t spend a long time washing. And once she had
rinsed away the soap Lucas released her and went for a bath towel. He held it up so that he couldn’t see her body as he wrapped it around her. He was the support when she carefully lifted her leg and stepped out of the tub. She felt better, the heat must have help. She headed for the bathroom door but he stopped her at the sink.
“You might as well brush your teeth while you’re here.” Her hand flew to her mouth and she gave him a look of chagrin.
“Are you saying my breath…?”
He smiled.
“Oh my god…why didn’t you say something?!”
He chuckled. “Sophie…”
She brushed her teeth and then gargled. When she was done she nodded. “I feel so much better. Thank you. Even my back stopped throbbing. I guess the hot water helped.”
He helped her into a hospital grown that he had swiped when he was getting her bag packed. Then he removed the towel that she had a death clutch on and once she was settled in bed Lucas cleaned the floor.
She watched him feeling guilty and horrible but happy that she had him.
They developed a routine over the next few days; bedpan first thing in the morning, then breakfast. Lucas gave her medicine and then sometimes she would insist on getting up and going to the bathroom again because some things you just didn’t do in a bedpan, and other times Lucas just picked her up and carried her.
She would clean herself up and then back to bed. Sometimes she would read a book or crack open her KINDLE, sometimes Lucas would climb into bed with her and they would turn on the television and watch for a while. After dozing she would wake up to lunch and more medicine and bathroom or bedpan again. Lucas would open the window and let the summer breeze in. Then he would go off and do whatever he did. He’d bring her a snack and tell her about her messages or blog but she had no interest in writing or getting on the computer. She needed this break.
“Sophie, just yell if you need me. I’ll be outside but I’ll hear you.” Then he’d dash off and she would feel a little lonely. But she couldn’t expect him to just sit in her room with her all day. Besides, she slept all of the time, anyways.
One day he pulled the covers off her feet and she saw that he was holding toenail clippers.
“Ew, what do you think you’re doing?”
“Giving you a lobotomy,” he smirked.
“That is gross,” she said when he gripped her foot and flexed one of her toes so that he could clip the nail.
“You think everything is gross.”
“Touching my toenails isn’t gross?”
“No. You have pretty toenails.” He concentrated on his task and she watched his blues eyes as they narrowed in concentration. He looked up and caught her looking but just smiled. “Granny’s nails…now those were gross. I couldn’t even cut them with clippers. One actually flew across the room and hit Pawpaw in the eye. He thought I threw something at him.”
“Oh my god,” she laughed. “That is so nasty.”
“Do you want me to paint them?” He was giving her a hopeful look.
“Knock yourself out, Toeman.” She told him where to find the nail polish and he got a towel and placed it on his lap and then he concentrated on painting her nails. She watched the way his long hair fell into his eyes and how he ignored it. She had a sudden urge to run her hands through his silky black tendrils. His hair was bone straight and so fine that it sometimes flew around even when he was barely moving.
She looked at something else. “Lucas? Can I ask you a personal question?”
His eyes moved from his task to meet hers. “Sure. You can ask me anything, Sophie.”
She swallowed. “Tell me about being bisexual; about the men that you were with.”
He studied her.
“Was that too personal?” Her cheeks felt warm.
“No. It’s fine. I don’t mind talking about it.” He gently shook the bottle of polish and then continued to paint her nails. “What do you want to know about them?”
“How did you meet them? What was it like the first time? Did you like it?”
“The first time…I was scared. I didn’t like it so much.” He wrinkled his nose at her and he looked so innocent; not like he was telling her about his first homosexual experience. He had been sitting with his legs crossed but then he stretched out and lounged at the foot of her bed. With his blue eyes and long lanky body, he resembled some kind of feline. Her breath caught in her chest at his beauty while his expression became thoughtful.
“I guess I’d been out on my own for about two or three months. I was working at the diner and one of the guys I worked with knew about me losing my grandparent’s house. He knew I was bummed about it. He kinda took me under his wing; at first it was because he thought I was a kid. And then when he found out that I was only about two or three years younger than him, it freaked him out.
“I began noticing that he watched me all of the time. He just seemed like a regular kind of guy. I didn’t think that his watching me meant anything. But after a while I began to feel something when I knew his eyes were on me. It wasn’t really sexual…just kind of…happy.
“Sometimes after work we’d go out and have a beer and unwind and one night he kissed me.” Lucas’ eyes searched her face for her reaction. Not seeing anything there that would prevent him from continuing he shook the bottle of polish again and reached for her other foot.
“That was my first kiss. Tommy made me feel good about myself. I was really feeling like crap; no money, no family, and an over-priced, one room motel to call home. But when me and Tommy were together I didn’t feel like crap. I didn’t care if I was gay or bi, I just knew that I felt good with him. And then one day he showed me that there was more than touching and rubbing.”
Sophie studied him, appreciating his complete openness. “Did you love Tommy?”
Lucas blushed and then shrugged. “I could have, but I didn’t. Tommy was married.” He peeked at her. “We didn’t last long, just about a month, and then I got fired. He couldn’t do much to help me, he gave me some money and I think…he was probably happy to see me leave.”
“Why do you think that?” She asked with a frown.
He shrugged. “Because he was closeted. And me…I was so damn green that I didn’t even have a closet to come out of. People like Tommy…don’t really want a relationship with another guy. They just want kicks.”
“You learned that lesson young…some of us don’t learn that until it’s too late.”
“Too late?”
“Too old to apply it.”
“You’re not old, Sophie.”
It was her turn to shrug. “And what about guy number two?”
He hesitated. “Guy number two was just me burning off steam in the YMCA shower.” His eyes flashed at her. “And I used protection.”
“YMCA?” Her eye cocked upward. “Really?”
He shook his head. “Such a cliché, huh?”
She raised her hand in innocence. “I’m not saying anything.”
He looked at the ceiling and took a deep breath. “Do you…think I’m bad?”
“Damn, Lucas…?” She was frowning. “I wasn’t trying to judge you. And I don’t have a problem with homosexuality. I think that consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want with other consenting adults--as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else.”