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“Jerk,” Talia laughed. “Nowyou decide to make jokes?”
“Well you just accused me of being the undead, so…duh.” His face fell and he hesitated for a moment before giving voice to his trepidation “But Talia. What if they find…bad shit when they open me up again tomorrow?”
Ahh.Now they’d gotten to the crux of things.
“Listen,” she bent to reassure him, dropping a spontaneous kiss on the un-plated side of his head where the stubble was just beginning to grow back because,yeah.They’d shaved his head for the whole aneurysm clusterfuck. “You—”
“Time for meds,” came a sullen voice from the doorway. Talia’s least favorite nurse, an enormous bruiser of a woman, appeared. She was a real sourpuss, and looked even more lemon-sucky tonight as she addressed Talia. “And you shouldn’t be on his bed,” she stated nastily before looking at her watch. “There’s only ten minutes left of visiting hours. I’d pack it up right now if I were you.”
“Well you aren’t me,” Talia snarked back. She wasn’t going to take this battle-ax’s shit. “I’ll be enjoying every one of my last ten minutes.”
Nurse stick-up-her-ass sniffed arrogantly, then plunked a cup of pills on Fleet’s side table while barely glancing at him to continue with Talia. “I’ll be in later to hook Mr. Eggers up for a new IV and administer some pre-surgery meds for tomorrow, sodo nothang around. This patient needs his sleep.” She turned sharply on her squeaky-soft heel and strode out.
Talia stuck out her tongue at the woman’s retreating back.
“Very grown up of you,” Fleet teased with a chuckle.
“Well, she’s a bitch,” Talia grumbled, happy that Fleet’s good mood had shown up again. “And she interrupted a very important conversation.”
Talia picked up the pill cup and waggled it at him. Fleet obediently picked up his water and downed the fistful he’d been given.
“You were saying, before we were sidetracked?” Talia prompted.
He sighed. “I’m…less than excited about tomorrow’s surgery,” he grumbled.
“Is there a reason?” Talia questioned, stroking his leg gently through the sheet.
“My…” He took a deep breath and began again. “My uncles, two of them had brain aneurysms.”
Talia managed to hold back her gasp.
“Yeah. It’s something genetic. One uncle…died. And the other…? He was left with motor skill problems. But his disability didn’t occur with the initial aneurysm. It was something that happened when they were removing his hardware. What if…?”
Talia leaned down and rested her cheek against him and spoke softly. “Listen. I don’t pretend to know all about this shit, but I’m thinking that must be kind of rare. Besides. If something like that happens, we’ll find a way to deal with it.”
“We?” he asked, nuzzling her ear, sending goosebumps up her spine.
“Yeah. We,” she assured him. “In case you haven’t figured it out, I’m still interested in hanging around to see if there’s something between us.” She leaned into his touch, relishing the breath that wafted warmly into her sensitive whorls.
“You are?” he whispered, sounding so uncertain that Talia could have wept.
“Yeah. I’m not messing with you, Fleet. I feel something for you, and I want to explore it.Ifyou’re game.You’rethe one who acted hesitant and backed off after that fucking amazing earthquake of a kiss we shared.” Was she being selfish, wanting him to talk about his feelings for her before she left?Yes.Was she going to let him off the hook?Not a chance.
He huffed as their heads moved apart. “It was a damned fine kiss, wasn’t it,” he admitted, looking her right in the eyes. His were warm, and dark, and she wanted to fall right into them and never leave.
“The best,” Talia assured him with a catch in her voice, waiting to see if he’d continue letting her in.
“Fine,” he sighed. “You must remember that I tried to tell you there are some very fucked up things in my past, right?”
“Yeah. I remember. But Fleet. Nothing is too fucked up for me to hear. I have skeletons of my own to share. But…maybe we should wait to get all that crap out into the open when we have more than ten minutes.”
Fleet glanced at the wall clock. “Seven minutes,” he corrected.
“Yeah. See what I mean? Time’s ticking. And we shouldn’t rush, opening up our baggage. We’ll unpack all our shit soon, of that I’m sure,” she told him. She sat up straighter. “Now. Any other caveats I need to know about?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed. “I’m a freaking wild card in the health department, and…now you know it’s genetic.”
Talia threw back her head and gave an enormous laugh. She couldn’t help it. “Are you actually intimating you want to have kids with me someday? Because Fleet, that might be a little premature. We’ve only had one date.” Not that the thought bothered her. Being honest, she’d already pondered what kind of babies they’d make together.
