by Lexi Lewis
“Reese,” she said, and her voice was almost pleading. “You are a patient, and I’m supposed to be helping you get better. Not…doing those things with you.”
He frowned hard. “So this is about your job? I mean, that’s kinda a relief because I thought it was about me being bad at the kissing and stuff, but still.”
“But still nothing,” she said firmly. “It’s not supposed to happen. It shouldn’t have happened, and it’s not going to happen again. You’re supposed to be concentrating on being able to leave, and whatever happened the other night is not a part of that.”
“Actually that made me feel better than I have in days,” Reese pointed out. “I get that it’s messed up to be doing stuff like that with a patient, but I’m not always going to be your patient.”
She faltered a little at that, and her eyebrow knit together. “You’re not going to be thinking about this anymore when you’re not here,” Eve mumbled, and Reese barely heard her.
“What?”
Eve shook her head and let out her breath in a messy whoosh before drawing herself up. “Mr. Abbot, your vitals are looking better. Your blood pressure is steadily increasing, and your reduced need for painkillers shows that your ribs are on the mend. You should be out of here very soon. If you need something, press the button and a nurse will be with you as soon as possible.”
She replaced the chart in its slot and then she was leaving.
“Eve,” Reese called, not wanting to see her go again. Not when he was still so confused about what was going on in the first place. “Will you just talk to me?”
“This is a hospital, Mr. Abbot,” she said softly. “I have other patients to see. If you have a question, then one of the other nurses can answer it, or you can wait until I make my way back around.”
The door closed softly behind her, and through the window he could see her standing there for a few seconds before she headed off down the hall.
Reese blinked and then covered his face with his hand. That was rejection if he’d ever experience it before, but he just didn’t know where it was coming from. They had been getting along fine before the kissing and during the kissing and for about two seconds after the kissing. And since she was apparently not going to talk about it, Reese was left wondering if he was ever going to know what was going on in Eve’s head.
He’d at least been hoping that he would be able to tell her what was going on and what Paul had found out, but now…
Now he was ready to just get out and go stay with his parents. Which was definitely saying something.
CHAPTER 10: IN THE MEANTIME
The next few days were nearly unbearable. He didn’t have Eve’s good humor or stories to distract him from just how boring the hospital was. All he knew was that he was tired of lying in bed and tired of eating the crappy food, and he was tired of her pretending like nothing had happened.
He wasn’t going to force the issue because he was well aware that wouldn’t do anything but make it all worse, but every time she came into the room, it was like a punch to the stomach. She barely met his eyes anymore, instead talking to the machines or to the chart or to the floor. It was all ‘Mr. Abbot’ this and ‘is there anything else you need’ that. Gone was the warmth and the joking air that had hovered between them for so long. Now there was staunch professionalism that he hated.
Along with that, there was the fact that Paul had yet to learn anything about whoever it was that was trying to put him out of the games. There had been footprints in the snow behind a few trees and evidence of the ground being disturbed a few feet away, probably where they had dug up the rock from under the layer of fresh powder.
So it was all but confirmed that someone had it out for him. Great. There was a threat, and even if they had been able to figure out who it was, there was nothing Reese could do about it from his hospital bed.
He wanted to tell Eve at least, to let her know what was going on, but she barely spoke to him for the next few days, and he didn’t even see the point of trying.
Instead he answered her questions woodenly and watched her fill out paperwork, wishing she’d just sit down and talk to him for a minute. He wouldn’t even bring up the kissing again if she didn’t want to talk about that.
Reese just wanted something more than this stunted silence between them.
His mood was terrible on the day his dad called him. Talking on the phone was better than having to deal with his parents in person, and at least if it got too annoying he could claim the doctors needed him for some tests or something. So when he saw the house number on his caller ID, he sighed and answered it.
“Hey, kiddo. How’re you feeling?” his dad asked.
Reese barely held in the sigh. He hadn’t told either of his parents about Paul’s findings yet because that was just going to make things worse. His mother would have that look on her face that always screamed ‘why the hell are you still doing this?’ and his father would worry. A lot.
It was just better for everyone involved if they didn’t know.
“Pretty good,” he replied. “My blood pressure’s been going up steadily, so they’re pretty sure I can leave soon.”
“Good, good. Your mother’s anxious to have you home.”
He almost snorted out loud. That meant that his mother was tired of waiting for him to show up. She was ready to have her life back and be able to devote all her energy to her job like she wanted to.
“…Yeah, okay,” was all he said, desperate to avoid more conflict. “It shouldn’t be too much longer. They just want to make sure that I’m not going to get there and then have a relapse or something.”
“I understand,” Anthony replied. “We all just want you to get better, you know. I’m sure your fans can’t wait to see you back out there doing what you do best.”
“I can’t wait to get back out there. It’s going to take a long time before I’m well enough to do that, though. Broken legs don’t heal overnight.”
His father chuckled. “No, they don’t. But I know you, son. You’ve never been one to give up on the things you want, and I can tell how much you want this. Even if you have to be away from it for a while, I know you’ll come back stronger than ever. And we’ll be rooting for you.”
That made Reese smile. Usually his dad’s overzealous cheerleading made him want to hide his face, but for the moment, it was exactly what he needed to hear. Eve had been the one who had been keeping his head up about everything for the first part of his stay here, and without her doing that, he had been sliding down under the weight of all the things that were against him.
“Thanks, Dad,” he said. “I’m gonna try. I know there’s a lot of people who’re waiting for me to get back out there, and I don’t plan on letting them down.”
“That’s my boy,” Anthony said, and Reese could practically hear the smile in his voice. “You know we’re just a phone call away until you get released, right?”
“Yeah, I know. It helps a lot to know that.”
“Good. Well, I’ll let you go. I just wanted to check in. I’ll tell your mother we can expect you soon.”
By the time the call ended, Reese felt a lot better than he had before. There was still a part of him that was probably going to be upset about Eve until he got some kind of resolution there, but the rest of it didn’t seem like so much to deal with just then.
Either they would find the person who had sabotaged him or they wouldn’t, and there was no chance that he was going to let them or his injury keep him from doing what he loved. It just wasn’t going to happen. So he smiled as he leaned back against the pillows, already planning in his head the way he was going to make his triumphant return to extreme sports when the time came.
CHAPTER 11: JUST TO SAY GOODBYE
Eve took a deep breath as she lingered outside of Reese’s hospital room. She needed to go in there and get him to sign his release papers so that he could be discharged, but she just…ugh. She had been so stupid. It had been a week and a half. Te
n days of them knowing each other and getting to a level of comfortable friendship that she had ruined by acting like such an idiot over something that hadn’t even had to be such a big deal.
She’d spent a good deal of time beating herself up over the idiotic way she had behaved and how much she found herself missing him.
And she’d wasted so much time.
Time that could have been spent getting to know him better and being friends. Even if it was pretty impossible that he would want to see her in a romantic sense after this, they could have at least been friends.
She was going to miss his wry sense of humor and the way he never seemed to take anything seriously until he would just say something insightful out of nowhere.
This is what comes from getting too close to patients, she scolded herself. She always tried to be friendly and good to her patients, but this…this had become something else entirely. Something she didn’t want to lose. But as soon as he signed his papers, he would be out the door and she’d only see him if she happened to catch one of his competitions or something on television.
“Suck it up, girl,” she muttered to herself and knocked on the door firmly before opening it.
Reese was just emerging from the bathroom, and he was wearing real clothes for the first time since he had been admitted. Eve’s eyes widened at the way the long sleeved shirt clung to his leanly muscled frame, and the way the baggy gym shorts hung low on his hips. He couldn’t wear pants because of the cast, so even though it was probably freezing outside, he was going to have to make due in the shorts, it seemed. At least he was wearing socks. Well. One sock.
“Hello,” she said after a bit when she realized with a jolt of horror that she had been staring at him.
“Hi,” he said back.
He’d seemed to be in a better mood for the last couple of days, and she could only imagine that it was because he had finally decided he’d had enough of her. It would make sense considering all the other admirers he had.
“I um…I have your discharge papers here. All you have to do is sign them and then you’re not our problem anymore.” She gave him a tentative smile.
His eyes widened and he returned it, hobbling slowly back over to the bed to sit down. “I’m sure you’ll all be glad to be rid of me.”
“Oh, I don’t know. You livened the place up a lot. I don’t think the doctors were too happy about the reporters that hung out outside for the first couple of days, but you weren’t a bad patient.”
Eve watched as he seemed to think something over and then those pale eyes flashed up to her face, holding her gaze.
“Really? Even when I crossed the line with you?”
Ah. So there it was. She’d wondered if he was going to leave without bringing it up, and she’d had a hard time trying to decide if it would be better for him to just leave it alone. Eve let out a breath and then put the papers down on the chair. “That’s not… You didn’t cross the line. I mean, I told you it was okay. It’s not like you forced yourself on me.”
“Yeah. But then you ran away and practically refused to talk to me for the next like week. That doesn’t seem to indicate you liking it.”
Eve shook her head. She had no idea how to explain this. She certainly couldn’t tell him that she had gone home that same night and got herself off in the tub thinking about him and his fingers and his kisses. But she didn’t want him to think that he had been the problem.
“No, that’s not how it was. I mean, yeah, I…I just kind of freaked out.” She tucked a twist behind her ear. “I’ve never gotten intimate with a patient before, and you’re practically famous and leaving soon, and I just…I didn’t want to wait for you to drop me or realize that this was just a little bit of fun for you to have while you didn’t have anything else to do.”
Reese frowned hard. “Is that what you think of me? That I would do that to you?”
She shrugged a shoulder.
“I wouldn’t do that. Not to anybody and definitely not to someone I like as much as you. If you had’ve said no that night, I would have just backed off and we would have gone back to the way things were. Do you have any idea how much I’ve missed the way things were?”
“But…you barely know me.”
“So? Everyone’s a stranger until you get to know them. I liked what I had gotten to know about you. The hard working woman who would do anything for her family. Your sense of humor, the way you tell stories. I like all of that a lot, and it didn’t have anything to do with me being bored or looking for a distraction. If I’d met you at Starbucks it would have been exactly the same.”
Eve blinked in surprise. “Oh. Well. Now I feel kind of silly.”
He smiled at her. “Don’t. It’s not like you knew or I ever declared my intentions or anything. I just wish we could have talked about it before now. But if you think this is the last you’re going to be seeing of me, then you are dead wrong.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh. Because I am going to give you my number, and if you want, you can give me yours. And then we can keep in touch. I’ll text you when my parents are driving me insane, and you can text me when you get weird patients or when your brother does something awesome.”
She could feel the wide smile stretching her face at that. Because it was what she wanted, what she had wanted since she’d admitted to herself that she was attracted to him, and hearing that he wanted it to was such a relief.
Eve didn’t want him to go. Not yet, anyway. There were still so many things up in the air with them, things that they hadn’t talked about, hadn’t discussed. She knew this wasn’t really the time to discuss any of it. His agent was probably around somewhere, and she knew that his parents were on their way to take him back to their house, which was only an hour away from the hospital.
He was going to be leaving, and even though they had just made plans to keep in contact, there was something in Eve that wanted to make sure that he remembered her. She thought about the last time they were alone together like this. That time had been different. The hospital had been quieter, and there was much less chance of them getting caught doing something they shouldn’t have been.
But Eve was pretty sure that Reese still got off on the chance that there could be someone just outside, preparing to come in, not knowing what was happening. Even she had found the thrill erotic and she didn’t have a danger kink or whatever it was that made Reese like that.
And now…now there were people milling around just feet away outside the room. Doctors and nurses and patients, and any one of them could hear something or mistake this room for another and come waltzing in. Anything could happen that would make the idea turning over in the back of her mind a terrible one.
But still she wanted it.
“Sign the papers,” she said, eyes going to his.
He frowned. “That eager to get rid of me?”
“No. I’m eager for you not to be my patient anymore. Sign them.”
“How is that different from what I just said?” Reese looked confused, but he took the papers and the pen she offered him, using the night stand beside the bed to scribble his signature on the paperwork.
As soon as he was done, he looked up at her expectantly, but before he could say anything, Eve was coming closer and leaning down to kiss him.
It felt as good as it had that night, even though he stiffened against her for a moment at first, making her think that this might have been a mistake. But then he made a pleased noise into her mouth and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her closer so he could kiss her more deeply.
He was much taller than her, even seated on the bed, so she only had to dip her head to meet his lips again and again, loving the way his hands felt as they splayed across her back, the warmth of his palms radiating through the fabric of her scrub top.
“Do these doors lock?” Reese asked as he lifted his head to breathe, those pale eyes going a bit darker with want that made Eve shiver.
“No.”
A smile stretched across his face. “On the one hand, I like the danger. On the other, I’m not sure I’m stupid enough to strip you naked and kiss all over your body when there’s a chance someone could come in and see it.”
Eve laughed softly, tracing her tongue over his lips. It felt good to let go for once. She was so used to having to be there for Devin and having to hold herself back from the things that she wanted, that having time to do what she wanted now was something of a blessing. It wasn’t a lot of time, but there was no chance of Devin finding out about this and asking uncomfortable questions, so she was going to take advantage of it while she could.
“Is that really what you want to do?” she asked, her own eyes bright with good humor and desire. It sounded good, to be honest. To have his lips and hands all over her. If the stuff they’d done the last time had been any indication, then Reese would definitely make her feel good.
But that wasn’t what she wanted at the moment. Right now, she wanted to focus on making him feel good. She had overreacted and treated him badly for the last few days, and she wanted to make it up to him.
With a gleam in her eye, she disengaged from his arms, stepping back and smiling at his puzzled look. It had been ages since she’d done anything like this, and her heart was hammering in her chest because she wasn’t even sure if she still remembered how to do it properly, but the look on his face when she sank down to her knees between his legs was enough to make her think that maybe she knew what she was doing after all.