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Mike smiled, shook his head, and went back to working on the blissfully unconscious Lo while Malcolm waved a hand toward the bathroom at the far end of the room.
I went in, put some peroxide on the cuts, put on a couple butterfly sutures, and swabbed on some antibiotic cream before washing the dirt and blood off my hands and looking up at my reflection in the mirror.
There was a tightness around my eyes that I made an effort to release before I made my way back out of the bathroom. Mike was standing, fiddling around with some kind of huge sheet of gauze, slathering something onto it, then taking the giant dressing and laying it across Lo's entire back.
“When she wakes up, we're going to need to get her up and wrap some gauze around her to keep this on,” he explained. “But there's no use trying to get her up when she's unconscious. She'll be out for hours.” With that, he snapped off his gloves and shrugged at us. “She'll be fine in a couple days. I'll take the stitches out in a week or two depending on how everything heals, but she will be up and moving in a day or two.”
We nodded and Malcolm thanked him and he walked out. Alone, Malcolm sighed loudly, looking down at Lo. “I hate to leave her, but I have some stuff I need to see to...” he paused, looking at me, “and you'll be here for her, right?”
“Of course,” I said, sitting down on the stool Mike had vacated and brushing my hand down the side of her bruised face. I couldn't wait until I could see it undamaged again, until I could touch her without having to worry about hurting her.
I heard Malcolm's feet retreat and the door open and close and we were alone. “Fucking sorry, baby,” I said quietly, my hand running down her arm.
I watched her slow, steady breathing for a long time, until my eyes got too heavy to stay open anymore and I dozed off, slumped over the side of her hospital bed.I woke up to my hair being tousled sometime later. My eyes snapped open, immediately alert. And there was Lo, laying on her stomach, her face turned to me, her lips turned up in a small smile.
“I thought it was a dream,” she said in a groggy voice.
“You thought what was a dream, gorgeous?”
“You saving me. I had a dream that you saved me the night before and I thought... I thought I had passed out from the pain and was dreaming again.”
“Wasn't a dream. Of course I came to save you. There was never any question about that, Lo.”
“Stupid fucking carpet store,” she said, getting her spirit back. “How did I miss that?”
“Who would think he would buy a place and sit on it for years, never once contacting you? Shit don't make any sense.”
“He wasn't sitting on it. He was making a replica of our old apartment, down to every last kitchen towel and the position of my perfume bottles. He's out of his mind.”
“He raised his hands to this perfect fucking face,” I said, running my pointer finger down her cheek. “I think that proved how fucked in the head he was.”
Lo offered me a small smile. “How bad is it?” she asked, waving a hand lazily around. “I can't feel anything still, but I know it can't be good.”
“It's nothing. Mike got you all taken care of.”
Lo's brow arched up and her eyes got small. “Don't talk to me like I'm a fucking child, Cash. I can handle it.”
There was my girl. I felt my lips curving up. “Fine. It's jacked. You're held together with stitches at this point. That what you want to hear?”
“Yes, actually, if that's the truth.”
“It's the truth.”
“Okay,” she nodded, taking a deep breath. “It's gonna hurt like a bitch when I wake up again, isn't it?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “But they'll just come back in here and shove a needle in your ass and it will all be better.”
She snorted, wincing a bit as her smile spread. “They'll give me pills, you idiot.”
“I like it my way better,” I laughed.
“You just want to see my ass,” she smiled.
“Hell fuckin' yeah. Nice and plump and...”
“Bite-able,” she supplied, letting out a quiet version of her tinkling laugh.
“I still haven't gotten the chance to bite it yet. You know... we're alone in here...”
“Go to sleep, Cash,” she said, shaking her head.
“Really, I could just pull your pants down real quick and...” I paused, seeing tears rise up in her eyes unexpectedly. “What?” I asked, my thumb brushing one away as it broke free of her lashes.
She shook her head a little. “You'd make a pretty good leading man, Cash,” she said oddly, closing her eyes without further explanation.
With nothing left to do, I did what I was told, I went to sleep.Twenty-threeLoI came awake suddenly in the early light of the morning, the pain a searing, awful thing that felt like it spread from my back and took over my entire body. My breath hissed out loudly as I tried to shift slightly to ease the crick in my neck.
“Fuck,” I groaned, flopping back down.
“Babe,” Cash's voice reached me, sounding annoyingly awake. I tilted my head to see him walking toward me from the bathroom, his hair wet from the shower, dressed in clothes that didn't belong to him- charcoal gray work pants and a faded green Army shirt. There were fresh butterfly sutures down the side of his face where a bruise was visible under the cuts. He was the most beautiful sight I'd ever seen. “Don't,” he said when I went to push up and fell again on a cry. “Fucking Christ, woman,” he said, attempting annoyed but it came off as concerned nonetheless, “I get it, we all get it- you're a badass and don't need nothing from no one, but you gotta let people help you out sometimes.”
“Where's Mike and Malcolm?”
“They're not helping you with this,” he said, shaking his head, a small smirk playing at his lips.
