by Lexi Lewis
He felt like his hospital gown was sticking to his body, and his throat was so dry. Reese looked over to the table to see if there was any water left over from breakfast, and his hand trembled when he reached out to pick up the cup.
The water was cool and relieving on his tongue, and he sipped slowly, trying to figure out what was wrong with him. He felt hot and shaky all over, and that usually a symptom he had when he was sick. But he’d felt perfectly fine just a minute ago. Something had to be wrong. Reese chugged the rest of the water and set the cup back down.
Apparently that was a bad idea. His stomach gave a lurch, and he groaned loudly, resting his good hand over it. “Forget this,” he mumbled and reached over for the call button to summon a nurse. They’d told him to let them know if anything changed, and he was pretty sure that wanting to throw up his oatmeal and water counted as a change. If they’d poisoned him with that horrible slop, he was going to sue.
When his fingers found the button, he mashed it hard, listening for the beep that indicated it went through.
“Yes?”
It sounded like Eve’s voice, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he registered hoping that it was her. “Hi. Yeah. I’m pretty sure I’m about to lose my breakfast all over your pretty clean floor and these flowers, so maybe—”
That was as far as he got before the threat of throwing up became a reality. Reese barely managed to lean over the bed in time before the oatmeal and water and whatever else was coming back up and he was puking all over the floor.
God, he hated throwing up. Hated it, hated it, hated it.
He heaved once, twice, and then threw up again, gagging when there wasn’t much left in him to come up. His chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath, and the taste in his mouth was foul. The door opened, but he didn’t have the energy to lift his head to see who it was.
Soothing hands pulled him back upright on the bed, and smoothed his hair out of his face. “You’re okay, you’re alright,” a warm voice said, and Reese found himself succumbing to the darkness that pulled at him.
CHAPTER 6: SETBACK
“It looks like it’s an infection,” Dr. Smith said, standing at the foot of Reese’s hospital bed. “The cause is still unknown, but it’s clear that the injury only aggravated things.”
Eve could see the blank, bleak look on Reese’s face, pale as it was from him being sick multiple times throughout the day. They’d had to eventually give him something to keep him from throwing up and getting even more dehydrated than he already was.
“Do you have any questions?” the doctor asked.
“How much longer am I going to have to stay here because of this?” Reese wanted to know.
“At least another couple of days. We just want to run a few more tests, and I don’t like the look of your blood pressure. You’re probably feeling light headed at the moment, and I’d like to get you a bit more stabilized before we let you go.”
Reese nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”
“I’ll let you know as soon as we know more,” Dr. Smith promised, and then withdrew from the room, leaving Eve standing there. She leaned against the door when he closed it, her eyes on Reese.
She had been the one to rush in when he’d hit the call button, and she remembered the look on his face when he had been leaning over the bed, groaning in pain and losing whatever had been left of his breakfast. He was hardly the first person she’d seen throw up in her time working in the hospital, and he wasn’t even the only one to take a set-back badly. But there was something about him that made her feel sorry for him.
“How do you feel?” she asked, pushing off from the door and moving closer to the bed.
Reese startled like he’d forgotten that she was there. “How do you think I feel?” he muttered. “I hate being sick more than anything.”
“More than having broken bones?” Eve joked weakly, making a face when Reese didn’t even react to it. “Look, you’re going to be okay. Dr. Smith doesn’t think it’s a bad infection, so you’ll probably be out of here in just a few more days.”
He snorted. “That’s not even… I’d rather stay here, honestly.”
“What? Why? I thought you were moping because you didn’t want to be bedridden. Don’t you have somewhere better to be than in the hospital?”
“Okay, first of all, I wasn’t moping. Second of all, I have to go stay with my parents when they let me out of here. And like I said, I’d rather stay.”
“Ah.” Eve knew that a lot of her patients weren’t on good terms with their parents and that sometimes those terms got even worse when injuries and sickness were brought into the picture. Some of the parents she had met through this job were overbearing at best and smothering at worse, and Reese wasn’t the first person to prefer staying in the hospital to going to live with their parents again. “I’m guessing you and your parents don’t get along very well?”
It was none of her business, but the look on Reese’s face compelled her to keep him company.
“Not…well, I mean, we do sometimes. My dad I and I do, anyway. But my mom is this…workaholic perfectionist, and no matter how good I am at what I love doing, it doesn’t matter because it’s not what she wants me to be doing. So I could go to the Olympics tomorrow and bring home the gold in every event, and she’d just be disappointed that I dropped out of school to pursue something that could end up killing me in the end.”
“Oh.”
He sighed and dragged his hand through his mess of curls. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to unload that on you. I’m pretty sure you have better things to do than stand around and listen to me complain about having two parents who probably both love me.”
Eve smiled at him and shook her head. “Nah, I’m on break for the moment. And anyway, you think you’re the first patient I’ve ever had to complain about their parents? I’ve treated a lot of teenagers since I started working here.”
He laughed dryly and stuck his tongue out at her.
“Charming,” she teased.
“May as well act the part if you’re gonna compare me to a teenager. But yeah, the idea of being stuck in my parents’ house, barely able to move for however long it takes me to heal is really not very comforting. If it wasn’t for the stupid nausea, I’d be glad for this infection.”
“Don’t say that,” Eve chided him. “It could get worse, and then you’ll be here longer. Less time with your parents, but also less time on your bikes or boards or whatever.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. All of this just feels like going backwards. I haven’t spent more than a night in my parents’ house since I moved out of it. You know that feeling? That amazing feeling when you move out and can do whatever you want?”
Eve considered for a moment. When she’d gone to college, it had been a good feeling, but not because she was getting away from her family. Because it had been one step closer to her dreams. “Sorry,” she said, shrugging. “I’m one of those weird people who actually like their parents. Well, my mom anyway. I liked her.”
“Past tense?”
And this would have been the perfect time to tell Reese to mind his own business. She had known him for less than a day, and he was one of her patients. Eve liked to get to know the people she helped heal, but she usually kept a professional distance. It was the way things were supposed to be done, after all. But there was something so compelling about Reese, and Eve hadn’t talked about her mother in a long time.
“She died,” she said softly. “A few years ago.”
“Oh. I’m…that sucks. I’m really sorry. And here’s me going on about what a pain in the ass my mom is when you don’t even have one anymore. That’s pretty crappy of me, huh?”
Eve laughed softly, going to sit down in the chair against the wall facing the bed. “No, no. Just because I lost my mom doesn’t mean I suddenly expect everyone to like theirs. That’s not how things work. And my mom seems like she would have been kind of the opposite of yours anyway.”
“What do you m
ean?”
And so Eve told him all about her mother. About how she woke up in the morning singing, roping Eve into dancing around the kitchen with her while she made breakfast. It had always been like that. She told him about how her mother had been like her best friend. How they went shopping together and how they had both cried in each other’s arms when Eve had gone off to college. Her mother had always supported her goals and dreams, and Eve had never had to worry about telling her mom what she wanted out of life, because she’d known that her mother was her biggest supporter. She didn’t go into too much depth about how she had felt when her mother had died because he didn’t need to hear about that, really.
“But you should know that even if you don’t like your mom, if something happened to her, it would leave a hole in your life. You’d be affected one way or another.”
Reese was quiet for a while, clearly thinking about that. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I mean, I’m used to her being stern with me by now. She’s hardly ever anything else, and it’s... My dad says it’s her way of letting me know she loves me.”
“Maybe it is. At least she cares and wants what’s best for you. Even if it’s just what she thinks is best for you.”
“Yeah.” He sighed and looked at her. “You’re really smart, you know that?”
That got a bright grin from her. “Charmer. Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“I’ll be sure to tell my agent that, then.”
“What?” Eve furrowed her brow, not sure what he was talking about.
“Paul, my agent saw you yesterday when I was first admitted, and he was very impressed with what he saw, let’s just say.”
Her eyes went wide, and she flushed. “That’s…I can tell if I’m flattered or disgusted.”
Reese laughed. “Go with disgusted. He’s not a bad guy, but you’re way too good for him.”
“Oh, really? And how do you know what I’m like?”
“I can just tell. I mean, he wasn’t wrong when he said you were beautiful, but there’s a lot more to you than that, and Paul likes to skim the surface pretty much.”
Eve smiled, taken aback. He wasn’t the first patient to hit on her, but it was a surprise either way. Especially considering he was one of those men who could probably get anyone he wanted with very little effort.
“Well. Thank you,” she said, flashing a smile at him. “Do you act like this with all the nurses who’ve helped treat you?”
“Nah. Some of them have been really old, and none of them were like you.”
Her face was definitely red now, and she glanced up at the clock, stuck between being relieved and being disappointed that her break was over and she had to get back to work. She got to her feet quickly and wiped suddenly sweaty hands on her scrubs. “I’ve got to get back to my rounds,” she said, offering him a somewhat shaky smile. “I’ll be sure to stop in and see you before I leave for the night, though.”
“Sure. I’d like that. Somehow…you make this place more interesting. And you tell good stories.”
Eve laughed at that. “Comes from having to tell my little brother stories all the time. I’ll tell you about him later.” And she knew that she actually would, too. Because she liked talking to him, and she didn’t see the harm in it.
That was the beginning of it.
Reese ended up being in the hospital for longer than even the doctors had anticipated. His blood pressure kept dropping, and his infection wasn’t getting any better, and they couldn’t in good conscience let him leave like that.
Eve could see that it was bothering him to be cooped up in the hospital no matter how much he insisted that it was better than the alternative, and she made a point to stop in and see him whenever she could, telling him about other patients, herself, the things she liked, and occasionally about her brother to help him keep his mind off of the fact that no one had any idea when he would be released.
She took her breaks in his room, laughing at his jokes and his wry sense of humor, and he always managed to catch her off guard with some flirty comment, seemingly from out of nowhere.
Eventually, she learned to shake it off, though. Reese was probably just kidding around with her, and she didn’t want to assume otherwise. Besides, she barely had time for her job and taking care of Devin. She definitely didn’t have time to be mooning after some extreme sports junkie, no matter how good looking he was.
Patty teased her about it all the time, though. She smirked when she caught Eve grinning as she let herself out of Reese’s room on the fourth day of his stay in the hospital.
“Well, well. For someone who wasn’t even interested in him in the first place, you sure are spending a lot of time in there,” she teased.
Eve blushed and cursed herself for not being able to hide her emotions better. “I’m just trying to cheer him up, Patty. It’s part of the job.”
“Sure it is,” Patty replied. “Except you and I both know that this falls under the heading of ‘above and beyond’ don’t we?”
She huffed and folded her arms. “Are you scolding me about doing my job poorly?”
Patty rolled her eyes. “Of course I’m not. You’re an excellent nurse, and you would never let having a crush on a cute patient distract you from your job. That’s not even sarcasm. If this helps, and it seems like it does, then I don’t see why it would be a problem.”
“I guess so,” Eve replied, relaxing. “I just…”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I know what he looks like.” Patty winked and then turned to head back down the hall, presumably to tend to her own patients.
Eve sighed. She was usually so good at not seeing the patients as more than temporary people she was going to be friendly towards. She sought to make their stays as comfortable as possible, and then they were gone from her life, probably forever. So what was the deal with her urge to spend as much time with Reese as she could?
CHAPTER 7: MISTAKE
The hospital was driving him stir crazy, he was pretty sure.
In the back of his mind, he kept reminding himself that it was better than being stuck at his parents’ house. That it was better than having to deal with his mother’s nitpicking and his father’s constant attempts to get closer to him. At least here he didn’t have to do much other than eat what they brought him, surrender to their daily tests, and watch TV.
It was so boring.
And his broken leg was making him miserable with how much it itched in its massive plaster cast. It was a walking cast, so he’d been able to get up and go to the bathroom, though he hadn’t had a proper shower in days because getting the cast wet was a bad idea. So he was making due with a weird combination of half showers and sponge baths.
They weren’t even the fun sponge baths like he saw on TV where the pretty nurse would come in and do it for him. Because that would definitely have livened this whole thing up.
His mind supplied him with an image of Eve coming in, dressed in the traditional nurse’s outfit, armed with a bucket of warm, soapy water and a sponge.
It was late at night, and he hadn’t seen her that day, assuming that she either had the day off or had taken another shift, so he let his fantasy run unchecked for a bit, admiring the way the white of the outfit seemed to glow against her dark skin and the way her twists tumbled down over her shoulders.
She would put the bucket down, but the sponge would already be dripping, and the way she held it would allow the drops to fall on her chest, soaking through the white fabric of her top and turning it sheer.
The soft swells of her breasts would be so clear to see, and Reese licked his lips at the thought, his body reacting to the image in his head.
For all he was probably considered some kind of playboy because of his fame, however limited it was, Reese actually didn’t spend a lot of time pursuing women. That was more Paul’s thing than his. He was interested in his sports and perfecting his techniques, not trying to impress some woman that he barely knew.
It had alway
s been like that, really. All the girlfriends he’d had through high school and his brief foray into college had complained that he loved his bikes and boards more than he loved them, and it really hadn’t been an exaggeration.
He’d gone on a few dates with women since he’d gotten big in the extreme sports world, but they hadn’t really gone anywhere. With the added fame, now he had to be on the lookout for women who only wanted to be with him because his name was on billboards and he was being considered for sponsorships. Reese just didn’t have time for that.
So it surprised him how much he liked Eve. She wasn’t even the type of woman he thought that he would go for. She didn’t like sports, and she spent most of her time making fun of him, but there was something about that that he couldn’t help but like. Eve had a beautiful smile and a way about her that made him feel so comfortable and relaxed in her presence, and he always looked forward to the mornings when she would come through the door and tease him about whatever had been brought for breakfast that morning.
He was sure that he wasn’t her only patient, but she spent more time in the room with him than she did with any of the others, and there was a silly little thrill of pleasure at that thought.
Maybe she liked him. If she did, Reese knew it wouldn’t be because of his skill at biking or boarding or whatever because she had never seen him compete. She had literally barely ever heard of him before this, and there was something about it that was so compelling.