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As the two EMT’s examine me, I look to the side and watch as the fire burns the side of Lilah’s bakery while the firemen work to put it out. Everyone from the tattoo shop is currently talking to the police officers as they make a border to keep people safe.
“We need to get you to the hospital to make sure you don’t have any damage from smoke inhalation and to treat these burns. They are pretty bad,” Leo says solemnly.
I nod my head. I search my pockets for my phone and realize that it fell to the ground after I called the tattoo shop. Before I can tell them to wait, Leo has the gurney locked into the back of the ambulance and the young girl, whose name I didn’t catch, is flipping the lights on and taking me to the hospital.
Beeping surrounds me as I lay on an uncomfortable stretcher and stare at the fluorescent lit ceiling, waiting on the emergency room doctor to come back.
I’m surrounded by curtains pulled shut and I wince at the crying infant on the other side of me. A young girl in scrubs pushes the curtain to the side and steps through, holding a long medication tube in her hand and gauze wrap in the other. They already determined I didn’t have anything in my lungs, my only injuries being the burns I suffered to my left arm and my face.
Fuck, it hurts.
The nurse, who introduced herself earlier as Mallory, tries to make small talk with me and throws out a few corny jokes while wrapping my arm in the soft gauze. I can tell it’s in an effort to keep me calm as she bandages the burns, and I offer a few fake laughs for her efforts. I wince and hiss over the pain as she works on a particularly sensitive spot.
I once again curse myself for dropping my damn phone. Pebbles is probably wondering where the hell I am with her cupcakes. I hope her party is going well and she has a good turn out. No one, absolutely no one,deserves it more than she does.
I chuckle at another one of Mallory’s horrible jokes and watch the hustle and bustle of the ER through the open curtains. I’m glad she left them open when she came through so I have something to watch to distract me.
When she starts working on my face, the pain becomes so intense that I squeeze my eyes closed and lean my head against the paper-thin hospital pillow. I almost regret opting out of the pain meds. The pain is so intense as she lathers the medication along the burnt flesh that it feels like she’s taking a fresh blade to the already injured tissue.
I shove every happy thought I can imagine to the forefront of my mind. I immediately think of Pebbles and her laughing smile. It’s better than a normal smile. When she laughs, her smile lines wrinkle up and they make her already enchanting honey brown eyes shine.
I think at one point I fall asleep, dreaming of Pebbles and two little boys, one propped on each hip. I’m startled awake by a woman screaming. When I pry my eyes open, the first thing I notice is the slight sting to my left cheek, along with a tingling sensation covering the left side of my face. The next thing I notice is all of the people surrounding my bed.
Mallory and the doctor that’s been in and out are both to my left, smiling down at me. Ringer, Tank and Flame are on my other side. It’s then that I notice a weight on my legs. I look down and see a mass of copper colored hair sprawled out over my legs. A soft weeping is audible from underneath.
I wince as I try to move my left arm to run my fingers through her hair, so instead I drop that arm back down to the bed and settle on using my right. I tangle my fingers through her hair and shush her as soothingly as possible. A few seconds later, her bloodshot eyes meet mine. Tears tumble down her cheeks while she pushes herself up to a sitting position. Her eyes rake up and down my body, and she eventually settles on the side of my face that I’m sure isn’t fucking pretty. Everyone in the small, makeshift room watches her and waits for her reaction.
“I’m fine, Red,” I croak. They may have ruled out smoke inhalation, but fuck if my throat doesn’t burn from how long I was in there.
Pebbles ever so slowly pushes herself off the bed and comes up to stand directly next to me, plopping herself down and resting one hand on her swollen belly. She takes a deep breath and wipes her tears with her free hand. A gasp comes from our audience as the sting radiates across my right cheek from her slap that seems to echo through the tension in the air.
“Don’t you ever scare me like that again, Jamie Hart! Do you hear me? I thought you were dead!” she cries.
I chuckle, scrubbing my free hand against my jaw. “Damn, Red. Way to hit a guy while he’s down.”
A small blush creeps up her cheeks while everyone laughs.
“Let’s give these two some space,” Tank grumbles. I’m thankful as fuck as they all leave, leaving me and my girl alone.
The doctor hangs back while everyone else leaves. “You’re all set as soon as they get all of your discharge paperwork and supplies ready for you. I’m glad things weren’t any worse.”
“Thanks, doc,” I nod.
Once he leaves the small room, I bounce my eyes back to Pebbles, who continues to examine me with her own eyes. “I promise I’m fine, babe.”
“Good! Then you can listen to me.”
I raise my brows at her seriousness. She stays quiet, and I can see the wheels turning behind her eyes. Suddenly, she drops her head to my chest and I let out a grunt from the force. She starts to sob against me.
She mumbles inaudibly and I whip my head down to her when she says one specific thing. But there is absolutely no way she actually just said that she loves me?
“What did you just say?” I ask, breathlessly.
Pebbles shoves back from my chest and lightly punches my pec, not meeting my eyes. “I said, as soon as I admit to myself that I love you, and finally work up the courage to make this work, you go and almost die on me!” she shouts.
The smile that breaks across my face would take a bulldozer to wipe away. I’m faintly aware of the burn the stretch of my cheek is causing.
“You love me?” I ask.
