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Sean blanched. “Four weeks?”
“All things considered, you were pretty lucky tonight, Mr. Riddick. But your injuries are going to take some time to heal.” Dr. Mitchell rose. “We’re going to keep you overnight to see how your eye progresses, so they’ll be moving you upstairs soon.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Sean managed as she left. He dropped his head back against the bed.
Dani took up the doc’s seat on the stool. “I know it’s a lot, but it’s good news, Sean.”
He blew out a breath that sent him into a coughing fit. He curled into himself trying to avoid the pain of it.
“I’m going to get you another pillow. If you hug it when you need to cough, it makes it hurt less.” She put a hand on his knee. “Be right back, okay?”
“Yeah,” he managed.
She went to retrieve the pillow, and several of the other nurses stopped her along the way.
“Hope your friend’s okay, Dani,” one said.
“I’m praying for your friend,” said another.
“I was sorry to hear about your friend, Dani,” a third called. Friend. In that moment, she had no problem thinking of Sean Riddick that way.
“Thanks,” Dani said each time. She returned to his room to find his eyes closed, so she eased the pillow down next to him and returned to the waiting room to fill the others in and tell them they might as well head home since Sean was being admitted.
Not that Dani was going anywhere. No, this time she wasn’t missing a chance to be there.
Sometimes, atonement was all you had, even if you could never truly atone for the things you did wrong.
* * *
Fuuuuuck.
That was Sean’s first thought upon waking to the gray light of morning spilling through the window of his hospital room. Every fucking thing hurt.
His face. His head. His chest. His back. His hands.
The mental calculus went on long enough that he decided he should catalog what didn’t hurt… His feet, thanks to the pair of shitkickers he’d been wearing. And his dick, thanks to God.
Bleary eyed, he lifted his head, then blinked twice. Because the pain was making him hallucinate. Either that or he was actually seeing Daniela curled up asleep in a chair across the room. Her expression relaxed, her hair like a shawl of black silk all around her shoulders, her face so damn pretty.
Why was she here?
Swallowing made him feel like he’d spent the night walking through a desert, so he reached for the Styrofoam cup with a bendy straw sticking up through its lid that was sitting on the rolling table next to his bed. But the fucking bandages on his hand made it so that he couldn’t grab the damn thing. Worse, he knocked it over trying.
“Damnit,” he said, instinctively lurching to catch it.
Which, holy shit, was the wrooooong goddamned thing to do. He grunted against the pain, which threw him into a coughing fit that made his chest feel like he’d been recently body-slammed by a box truck. A scorching hot pain exploded through his lungs until he was clutching his pecs and balling up.
A hand on his shoulder. Soothing words in his ear he couldn’t quite make out over the roar in his head. A pillow pushed into his arms that provided an easing counterpressure.
“Jesus,” Sean finally rasped, struggling to breathe and trying to avoid breathing deeply all at the same time. “What the fuck.”
“Chest wall injuries are a bitch,” Dani said, standing right behind him.
He peered up at her with his one good eye. “No shit.”
She smirked. “I won’t bother asking how you’re feeling.”
Hugging the pillow, he slowly rolled back against the bed. The effort it took made him swallow hard, but his throat was so dry it hurt.
Dani didn’t have to be asked. She brought the straw of the cup to his mouth. He moaned at the cool relief it brought. Even though, Jesus, he was fucking useless. And what that meant for his life—and his job—for the immediate future was a blow that had yet to fully kick his ass. But he knew it was going to. Sooner rather than later. Because idle time was not his friend.
He drank so long that he was nearly panting by the time he let go of the straw and came up for air. “Thanks,” he managed.
She nodded, then made quick work of wiping up the water he’d spilled. “Most of WFC was here until about two A.M. I finally had to kick everyone out of the hospital or else they’d have racked out in the waiting room. They all wanted you to know they were here though.”
He studied her as she busied herself with the spill and straightening up his tray and looking over his flashing vitals on the machines that sat off to the side. “So why are you here?”
Her gaze snapped to his, and he immediately regretted the question, especially as her usual guardedness replaced the softness he’d seen in her eyes just a moment before. She retreated a step from the edge of his bed and nailed him with a stare. “You asked me to stay.”
