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“Did you just fucking laugh at my sister’s condition? She’sfucking sick!” he shouts as he backs the nurse into the corner of the room. I nearly fall out of my bed trying to stop him.
“Stop it! I was joking and he laughed, it’s not his fault,” I plead with my brother.
James fists the nurse’s scrubs and looks at his name tag. “Well, I’ll be submitting a complaint first thing in the morning,Nurse Hull.” He releases Nurse Hull and gives me a quick apology and goodbye before storming out, heading toward the reception desk instead of the exit.
Great. Now I feel like an asshole.
Nurse Hull chuckles quietly as he replaces my IV bag and I dare a glance up at him. The bedside lamp lights his face from beneath and his blue eyes flick down to me as he finishes up. I take a deep breath as our eyes connect. He’s fucking beautiful. It’s hard to believe he’s actually a nurse. He looks anything but the intelligent and all-helping type.
He wears black Under Armour beneath his scrubs—to cover his tattoos, I’m guessing by the small thorns that are inked on his wrist. A black cuff crests his ear and behind it is a small tattoo of the Roman numeral II.
“Sorry about my brother, I shouldn’t have made that joke. I’m unwell and he’s traveled a long way to be here for me.” I let my eyes drift to my bandaged wrists. I feel guilty, but not once have I felt like crying about it. It doesn’t seem sad to me. My illness makes me yearn for dark things, which is precisely why James is trying to put me in rehab. Ishouldbe sad about it. But the emotions aren’t there.
Not anymore.
What kind of sickness takes your fucking emotions? It’s not fair.
Nurse Hull focuses back on the IV and gives me a cruel grin. “Well,Ithought it was funny—you know, as a bystander who isn’t foreign to beingunwell.Brothers are just overprotective assholes you’re stuck with. We’ll do anything for our siblings.”
I raise a brow and watch him as he circles my bed to the other side, grabbing the towels from the coffee table on the way over. “You’re a weird nurse,” I mumble, scooting myself back so I can lie down. The drugs are making me really tired, dizzy too. Maybe I can put some makeup on tomorrow and feel like a person again.
He laughs. The sound of his deep voice gives me goosebumps. “Am I? Noted. Miss Coldfox, right? Wynn Coldfox?” He leans over and stares down at me with hooded eyes; darkness lurks there and a piercing, unsettling feeling coils in my stomach. God, he’s absolute murder.
“Shouldn’t you know who the patient isbeforecoming into the room?” I ask, scrunching my brows at him warily. He doesn’t fit this role well. I wonder how many complaints he’s gotten since working here.
Add my brother to that growing list.
He sets the towels in the cupboard and pushes his dark hair back. His tan skin is a little darker than my own, but not by much. I bite my lower lip to quell the horrible thoughts that my drug-induced mind is trying to think about his taut chest and arms.
“I knew it was you. I’m just trying to make small talk,” he says indifferently before clicking off the TV that’s been playing the same boring nineties show all day.
I nod and don’t bother trying to give him a fake a smile. “You suck at small talk, Nurse Hull.”
He eyes me with a grimace, calculating something before he leans in close, his face mere inches from mine. He whispers, “Can you keep a secret?”
I take a quick breath of surprise. He’s insanely gorgeous, but there’s an air of crueltyabout him that makes my heart beat faster.
“Sure, I guess.”
He smiles and tugs on the name tag pinned to his scrubs. “I’m not Nurse Hull. I borrowed these scrubs.”
His amusement is disturbing. I narrow my eyes at him. “What the fuck—why?”
He shrugs and walks toward the door. He flips the light switch and my bedside lamp goes out. “So I don’t get complaints from people like your brother.” He laughs as the door shuts quietly behind him.
I’m left in the darkness of my room, staring at the tacky tiled ceiling with a stupid grin, wondering who the hell that was.
And if, perhaps, I’ll see him again.
2
Wynn
James setsa cup of generic coffee down on the white plastic tray connected to the side of my bed. I don’t even care that it’s not a fancy blend, I just want the bitter liquid down my throat right this second.
“Careful, you’re going to burn your hand if you spill,” he grumbles. It’s eight a.m. and no one asked him to be here this early. Still, it means a lot that he’s set aside this time for me. Even if he did wake me up and throw the curtains open without warning, nearly blinding me.
He pulls out his laptop and starts clicking away on it. His boss lets him work from home most days anyway, so leaving Colorado and flying out to Montana wasn’t such a stretch for him. Sometimes I think James truly thrives on working, traveling, and being dressed in a suit, even though the only people he will see today are me and the hospital staff.
