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I gave up on my so-called ‘breakfast’ about ten minutes later and told the nurse that they ought to be ashamed of themselves for calling that food. She’d laughed, then told me that if I were lucky, they might let me go home this afternoon and I wouldn’t have to suffer through it come dinnertime.
That didn’t make me any less hungry, though.
When Taavi showed up a half-hour after that carrying a bag with the Early Bird Biscuit logo, I could just about have cried with relief. I did grab his face and pull him in for a kiss that he accepted with a laugh before telling me to be careful so I didn’t rip any stitches.
“You brought me biscuits.”
“I did.” He handed over the bag, and I took out one of the giant biscuits, broke it in half and slathered it in butter, then bit off about a quarter of it. Taavi looked amused. “Hungry?”
“Aff oo er a asital oog?”
He looked at me, one dimple forming on his cheek. “I have no idea what you just said.”
I swallowed. “Have you ever had hospital food?”
He shook his head, the half-smile still in place.
“It’s not food,” I told him before taking another huge bite. I love biscuits, and Early Bird makes some of the best I’ve ever had. I could live on these things. I might try, if not for the whole scurvy thing. Maybe you could stave off scurvy with marmalade.
I took another bite, slightly smaller.
“Nurff faid I might go ome t’day.”
“Did she?” He perked up. “Really?”
I nodded. “Juff now.”
As though summoned by my conversation—or the smell of the biscuits—my surprisingly tolerant doctor breezed through the door, raising her eyebrows at the sight of me stuffing my face.
“Well, I suppose that means your appetite has returned, Mr. Hart.” Thankfully, she sounded amused.
I swallowed, deciding it might be rude to keep eating while she was here. “Er. Yes.”
“Any pain swallowing?”
“No.”
“No nausea, I assume?”
“Nope.”
“Pain?”
I wanted to say no so that she’d let me go. But that was just stupid, given the state of me. “Um. Yes?”
She looked at me over the top of her tablet, then smiled, the expression crinkling her eyes behind purple-rimmed cat’s-eye glasses. “Good. You’re not lying to me.”
I snorted.
“Pain scale?”
I sighed. I fuckinghatethe pain scale. “Which body part?” I asked.
“Run me down the list.”
“Okay. Face… three unless I move too much. Ribs, six-ish? Hands, two if I hold them still, three if I move them too much.”
She nodded. “We’ll be sending you home with pain meds, but I want you to limit their use. Take two when you go to bed, but only one if you feel like you need it during the day. I do want you to take aspirin regularly for the next week—you’re not going to be doing a lot of moving around, and I don’t want you developing any clots. Two of them, every eight hours.”
