"I imagine it does," Violet whispered close to my ear. "That bitch shoved you over when you were trying to walk by her."
"Gonna ‘av ta file report," I started to slur, and the throbbing ache in my head turned into a full-blown migraine.
With a yawn, I decided now was as good a time as any to take a nap. At least I thought it was until Violet grabbed my cheeks with one hand and squeezed.
"Nope. No sleeping. You’re bleeding from your head and showing clear signs of a concussion."
"Fuck," I groaned. "It hurts."
"Ambulance is on the way." Violet sniffed, feigning indifference. "You’re just gonna have to deal with it."
I opened one of my eyes to make sure I gave her the evil eye with sufficient enough poison. "I’ll get revenge."
She smiled impishly at my side and shrugged. "Yeah, but you’ll be alive."
"I guess," I muttered. "Will you make sure that Nox gets off the bus okay? You can call Emma or Rose to come get him."
"That’s okay," Kennedy Townsend, one of my best friends, said as she popped up out of nowhere. "Not nowhere." She laughed as I realized that I must have said what I was thinking. "I was eating lunch with Mom when I saw the crazy lady try to kill you. If Vi hadn’t stepped in, I would have."
Damn, I really hadn’t been paying attention to where I was going during my escape from the uncomfortable conversation with Artie.
"Thank you." I blinked at Kennedy, trying to figure out why I was thanking her. "Oh, Nox." How could I forget my son?
The sharp pain coming from the back of my head gave me my answer, and I groaned against the onslaught. I really wanted to go home and snuggle with my blanket.
"What the fuck happened to her? Is she okay?"
I turned around to see Remy standing in his uniform, tattoos snaking down his arm from under the sleeve, and a familiar-looking bracelet on his wrist, standing out against his tan skin. I really must have gotten hurt, because the image of Remy naked in my bed just flashed through my mind like it belonged there. Staring at me with his stupid and beautiful eyes and the beard rubbing against my thighs.
Damn. I wonder what he tastes like.
My face flamed, and I froze as I realized I said it out loud.
"Definitely a concussion," Violet murmured at my side. "Don’t worry, he couldn’t hear you."
Either I was hallucinating on top of the concussion, or the look Remy shot in my direction said that he had. For a second, I swear it looked like he didn’t hate me.
Just a second, though, and then the asshole I’d come to know since high school popped back up. "She probably deserved it." There were several gasps around us as the women present took offense to his poor excuse for a joke, but I knew Remy.
Yep. Still an asshole.
6
Remy
Daisy pushed her way into the hospital room the nurse pointed me in the direction of, growling under her breath before I could even open the door all the way.
“Hold, Daisy.” She immediately sat back on her haunches and waited, but the irate look in her eyes made it very clear she was not pleased with me.
Yeah, my pillow was definitely gonna end up her chew toy again. There wasn’t much I could do about it, either.
“Parker?” I knocked on the door before stepping inside, putting on the professional mask I’d mastered as a police officer.
“Go away.” she moaned in the dark without rolling over to see that I was there.
I thought about doing just that. After all, I’d shown up at the hospital in the middle of the night after my shift ended. With her concussion, there had to have been nurses checking on her every few hours. But I’d been a dick for no reason to her earlier, and I was selfish enough to admit that I needed her to know why. I didn’t want Parker to hate me; I never had.
I closed her door after I made sure that we were alone, more to give myself a little bit of privacy while I apologized than anything else. “Parker.” Saying her name caused her to stir once more. This time she rolled over to face me with a grimace on her face and her eyes barely open.
“What?” Her voice was hoarse, cracked, and broken. Hurt, in a way that I couldn’t fix.
She’s yours to fix. You promised.
Danny’s face flashed into my mind, and for a brief moment, I thought I saw him standing there by her side.
“I’m sorry I was a dick.” The words fell from my lips as I stepped closer to her hospital bed in the dim lighting offered by the machines that flashed in the darkness. “You didn’t deserve that after being injured.”
Silence, awkward silence, filled the air between us as she stared at me with one eye open and the other squeezed tightly shut.
“Go away, Remington Vance.” The acid in her voice would have scared me, if she wasn’t so pitiful-looking.
“Not even close.” I grabbed the ridiculously heavy chair that sat on one side of the room and pushed it until it sat directly next to her. Daisy curled herself up right at the foot of Parker’s bed and grunted as she started to snore.
I had to adjust my utility belt as I sat down, but the shocked expression on Parker’s face when I plopped down finally was priceless.
“You know,” I told her when I’d made myself as comfortable as possible. “I honestly don’t think we’ve been alone together since… And you know my name is Jeremy Vale Townsend, Parker Jane.” Trying to tease her turned out to be the very worst thing I could say.
“You mean the night you left me in the woods to find my own way home and Danny ended up rescuing me?”
I shouldn’t have said it. I shouldn’t have brought up the only time I had ever questioned the choices I’d made. I sure as shit shouldn’t have done it while Parker was sitting in front of me looking like I’d driven a knife into her heart.
With my throat suddenly so dry that I could have lit a match by swallowing it, I somehow found the wherewithal to nod. “Yeah. That night.”
Parker sighed, from the very tips of her toes to the ends of her hair. It was a deep sigh that filled her body and showed the world how exhausted she truly was.
“I’m trying to rest, Remington.” The insulting nickname that I’d asked her a hundred times as kids not to use fell so easily from her lips. “Just go away.”
“Sorry.” I rubbed my hands together and leaned back in my chair. “I can’t do that. Not until you tell me you forgive me for being a dick.”
“No.” She shook her head stubbornly and then groaned in pain when it became clear that the small movement aggravated her concussion.
In a flash, I was up off the chair, tucking the loose strand of dirty-blond hair that hung in her face behind her ear before I could stop myself.
Unfortunately, that only made things worse, because Parker pulled herself back from my touch only to gasp from the pain.
“Nooo.” Her eyes were clenched shut, with tears starting to leak out from beneath her eyelashes.
The mistake I’d made was painfully clear.
“I shouldn’t have come, Parker.” The admission hurt, and the idiocy of my decision to apologize after my shift hit me like a ton of bricks. Swallowing my pride, I took a step back without ever taking my eyes off her. “I … thought I needed to apologize.”