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Chapter Seven
Jasper awoke in a haze of cottony thoughts and confusing dreams that involved chimpanzees replacing his group members at his next improv show. He shifted in bed, and a strange, harsh scent filled his nose. He gripped his sheets, but a pinch of pain in his left hand had him releasing the fabric just as quickly.What the hell?
His eyelids felt too heavy to lift, and unfamiliar sounds filled his ears. Maybe he was still dreaming. Monkeys were going to show up at any moment. Or maybe he was drunk? He didn’t remember drinking. He tried to lick his lips, but his tongue was dry as sawdust. He turned his head and forced his eyes open. A pale-beige wall came into view along with some kind of machine. Confusion filled him. This wasn’t his bedroom. He squinted in the low lights, small details coming into focus. The bed rails. The IV line. The rolling table.
A hospital room. He was in a hospital.
Oh.Flashes of memories came back to him like they’d been part of his dream. Being wheeled into a busy ER. A male nurse talking to him and bringing him to a room for tests. A doctor explaining things to him in quick, firm words. Talks of getting Jasper prepped for surgery.Appendix. Could burst. Need to get him in now.
Jasper groaned quietly. He’d had surgery.Fucking hell.He glanced down at his left hand where an IV was taped to the top. A wristband with his name circled his other arm. Then a dull pain in his abdomen registered. They’d taken a piece of him out. That was going to hurt a lot more when whatever medication he was on wore off.
He closed his eyes, dread filling him. Maybe he should just go back to sleep, linger in denial for a little while longer.
But a soft sound off to his right had him lifting his eyelids again. He turned his head, every movement feeling like he was encased in Jell-O. He blinked a few times at the sight that greeted him. A woman curled up in a chair and sound asleep, snoring softly.Hollyn.The shock of seeing her there cleared some of the fuzz from his mind.
Hollyn hadstayed? She hadn’t even come in with him last night. Or had she? Last he remembered she’d dropped him off at the door, basically telling him to get lost. What was she doing sleeping in his room?
He wanted to ask her, but his voice wouldn’t work. All he could do was make hoarse, unintelligible sounds like he was some drunk coming to on Bourbon Street. He gave up trying and just watched her for a few moments. Last night flooded back to him. What he’d done onstage. Her anger. Finding out she had Tourette’s.
He winced.Jesus.He’d never felt like such a world-class asshole. Those faces she’d made at him had been out of her control. And he’d just assumed it was about him.Self-centered much?He could almost hear his sister’s voice berating him. And even after what he’d done, Hollyn had still offered to bring him to the hospital. Now she’d stayed in what looked to be the world’s most uncomfortable chair.
Who was this woman?
He’d learned some of that answer last night. She was someone who wasn’t afraid to yell at him when she was angry but who said new people made her nervous. A woman who had traded flirty texts with him but who could barely look him in the eye. A woman who seemed very guarded.
He frowned, watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she slept. He didn’t know much about Tourette’s, but in sleep, her face was smooth and relaxed. Her features were soft, her lashes long against her cheeks and lips slightly parted. He’d already known she was attractive, but in the unguarded state of slumber, her makeup a little smudged, her curly hair even wilder than normal, he realized she was a knockout.
This was what she’d look like if he woke up next to her in bed.
Annnndthat was not a thought he should be having in a hospital bed about a woman who had basically declared she’d never speak to him again. He closed his eyes. Maybe it was the drugs.
Maybe it was just that need to have everyone like him. Getting Hollyn into bed would prove that she liked him quite a lot. In fact, he would make sure she walked away very satisfied with her new friend Jasper.
Shut. Up. Pervy. Brain.
He had bigger things to deal with right now than inconvenient attraction. Like goddamned recovery from surgery and hospital bills and starting classes and figuring out this whole theater situation. No more thinking about Hollyn. Or how she’d look in his bed. Or how she’d just sighed in her sleep in a way that made him think of what she’d sound like when she—
Nope. Not going there.He turned his head away so he couldn’t watch her anymore. He just needed more sleep. He wasn’t in his right mind. She’d probably be gone by the time he woke up anyway.
* * *
Hollyn’s joints protested and popped when she woke up in the uncomfortable hospital chair. She groaned and rubbed the back of her neck, trying to work out the crick. A barrel-chested nurse was leaning over Jasper’s bed, checking on the IV bag. He smiled Hollyn’s way. “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.”
She shifted, putting her feet to the floor. “It’s fine. How is he?”
“Has he woken up again?” the nurse asked.
“Not that I know of.” She’d sat for a good while after they’d wheeled Jasper in from the recovery room, hoping that he’d wake up so he could tell her who she should call for him. He’d been semi-awake when they’d first wheeled him in but still heavily drugged. He’d called her Felicity for some reason and then had talked to her like she was another nurse. She’d given up and decided to wait until the anesthesia wore off. But she’d apparently fallen asleep at some point along the way.
She checked the clock on the wall—a little past five in the morning.
“Will you be the one taking him home when he’s discharged?” the nurse asked.
She blinked. “Um. I’m hoping when he wakes up again that he can tell me who to call. We’re just…coworkers.”
The nurse gave her a kind smile. “Well, you’re a very good friend to stay with him like this. No one likes waking up in the hospital alone.”
Hollyn rolled her lips together and nodded, feeling like a jerk because her original intentionhadbeen to leave him here solo.
