It had been a fucking magical afternoon.
“Chase” Melissa began again, suddenly sounding like she’d gone to hell and back last night.
“Get the fuck out! I have help now so get off my goddamn case!” he snapped, forcing himself to turn over, uncaring where he vomited as long as his stomach stopped hurting.
“Chase” Melissa started again, sounding concerned and not fucking understanding how much it humiliated him for her to see him like this.
“Get out!” he yelled just as his stomach lost the battle. He continued to gag, praying for it to stop, but it wouldn’t. His stomach cramped while pain shot through his abdomen as he lost everything they’d pumped him full of, including that damn applesauce, but he never heard the telltale sounds of vomit hitting the linoleum floor.
“Shhh, it’s okay,” Sloane said as he felt a reassuring hand on his back, gently rubbing the lightly scarred tissue and trying to make this easier for him.
Since it was actually helping, Chase kept his mouth shut, deciding it wouldn’t help matters if he said something to piss off the temperamental woman rubbing his back. He’d allow her to help him only because it was too much trouble to tell her to stop right now. Normally, he’d tell her to get her fucking hands off him and leave him alone, but there was just something about the pain in the ass that soothed him when nothing else would.
It was just the exhaustion talking. He’d be fine as soon as they let him out of this fucking hospital so that he could go home and take up his life of soaps, beer, and naps once again.
When he felt her stop rubbing his back, he growled a warning that had the inconsiderate woman sighing heavily, muttering something that he chose to ignore, and once again commencing with the backrub that helped settle his stomach.
Closing his eyes, Chase bit back a groan that let her know exactly how much he was enjoying this and let himself drift off, knowing that he was in good hands.
*-*-*-*
“Beer,” the man who had given her the biggest scare of her life mumbled as she helped him in bed.
“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Sloane said, trying not to groan when she shifted his weight off her shoulders.
God, he was really freaking heavy and it didn’t help that she couldn’t stop trembling. She’d almost killed him last night. Just the thought of seeing his ashen face when she opened his bedroom door to check on him still had the power to make her heart stop.
As she pulled the blankets up and tucked in the most stubborn man that she’d ever met in her life, she tried to remind herself that it wasn’t her fault. The hospital and his sister had screwed up by not making sure that she had an up-to-date medical chart for him, but she knew that some of the blame still belonged to her. She should have picked a different battle to have it out with him and let him know that things weren’t going to get better for him until he accepted the fact that his old life was over.
It seemed cruel considering everything that he’d already gone through and it was, but that was his new reality. As much as she would love for things to work out differently for him, they never would. He would never have his old life back, get back the time he’d lost recovering from his accident, and he would never have the future that should have been his. No matter what she did, what she said, or how badly she wished that she could perform miracles, she couldn’t.
He had a new life ahead of him, one that was going to take a lot of work, tears, sweat, and pain to build and one that he probably didn’t want but was going to have to work his ass off for anyway. It was either that or accept the life that his sister expected for him and Sloane couldn’t let that happen.
He also didn’t deserve a beer, but the stubborn bastard had been asking for one ever since she got him in the car and his sister decided to take that as her cue to chew her out again. Sloane had stood there, taking it, because she had no other choice. If she thought that his sister would hire someone else to take her place to take care of him, she would have told the sister where to shove it and walked away, but she was terrified that once she was gone, his sister was going to wash her hands of him and put him in a nursing home.
“Beer,” the pain in the ass that she was determined to help mumbled with a sleepy little sigh as he turned his head and settled in for the night.
“Beer?” Sloane repeated as she stood there, rubbing her temples.
“Beer,” Chase grumbled again, earning a muttered, “Unbelievable,” as she walked away, shaking her head in disgust because she already regretted not telling his sister to take this job and shove it up her well-pampered ass.
Chapter 8
“No,” the pain the ass that he probably owed his life to said as he sat there, giving her his most intimidating glare, but she simply ignored him as she piled another pancake on his plate.
“Yes!” Chase hissed, pushing the plate filled to the brim with pancakes, home fries, eggs, bacon, and toast that had his stomach growling, away.
“It’s not happening,” Sloane said, barely paying attention to him as she pushed the plate back in front of him along with a bottle of maple syrup, butter, jam, and a large glass of orange juice that actually looked pretty good.
“It really is,” he said, somehow finding the willpower to push the plate away. “I want my usual breakfast.”
“And what’s that?” the smart-ass asked as though she didn’t know that his usual breakfast consisted of beer and Doritos.
“Anything but this,” Chase said instead, hoping to piss her off even as he swiped a piece of bacon off the plate and quickly devoured it.
“Then make it,” the little brat said with a careless shrug as she turned around just as he managed to swallow that crisp piece of bacon.
“That’s your job, not mine,” he pointed out as he stubbornly crossed his arms over his chest, mostly to stop himself from grabbing another piece of bacon.
“So, you think my job is to be your personal slave?” Sloane asked conversationally as she sat down with a large bowl of oatmeal mixed with blueberries and a cup of tea.
“Of course,” Chase said, just to piss her off as he waited for her to get up and grab a spoon so that he could steal another piece of bacon.
With a big syrupy-sweet smile and a dreamy sigh, Sloane turned around and said, “I didn’t know that you were delusional, too.”
“Not delusional,” Chase said, reaching down and releasing the locks on his wheelchair. “I just know the pecking order in life.”
“Pecking order?” Sloane repeated, sounding more amused than pissed, which of course, meant that he wasn’t doing his job.
“Mmmhmm, pecking order,” he murmured, rolling over to the refrigerator.
“And what’s this pecking order?” she asked with a curious smile as she took a small sip of tea while he opened the fridge.
“It’s nothing too complicated,” Chase said, reaching for a beer only to narrow his eyes on the rows of water that were now lined up where his precious beer had once been.
Realizing that she’d just scored a point, he grabbed a bottle of water and acted like that’s what he wanted. She simply sat at the small kitchen table, calmly eating her oatmeal as she watched him, waiting for him to react. Too bad for her, he knew how to play this game better than she did.