Seth clears his throat. “I’m hungry. Anything?” He stands and points at us.
“Nah,” I say.
Rian doesn’t answer.
“How was your date?” I ask once we’re alone so that no one is a witness to me losing my balls.
She puts down the paper. “Failure to yield? The bike is so dangerous.”
I wait because I know she heard me and we’re not going to play this game.
She sighs. “It was good. We went bowling.”
That explains the shoe thing. I’m relieved it wasn’t what I was envisioning.
“I’m not sure why you had to put on all that makeup or dress like that.” My gaze falls over her body. She’s so damn hot, my dick is already on board with banging her. Her tits practically beg for me to grab them, her hard nipples poking out through her bra. “It’s way too much.”
She stands and heaves a breath. “Thanks for the advice. Next time you can do my makeup.”
Of course she takes it wrong.
I grab her hand, my thumb running along her inner wrist. She doesn’t pull away, which has to be a good sign. “I’ve been a bastard.”
“Yeah, you have.” She doesn’t look at me.
“Okay, you ready to ride the MRI train?” A woman I haven’t seen before comes in. She smiles sweetly at both of us. “He’ll be right back.” She unlocks the wheels on the bed, and before I have time to say anything or stop her, I’m being taken out of the room. “You can wait here or go down to vending. We’ll be about thirty or forty minutes.”
Rian says nothing, and I can’t see anything since the bed is already rolling.
On my way down the hall, I get a glimpse of the waiting room. I see Knox and Jax in deep conversation by a vending machine. Seth is with Ethan and Blanca. Adrian and Sierra are just walking in, both with just fucked heads of hair.
It all reconfirms not to fuck with this. It wasn’t that long ago when I was laid up in the emergency room with a horrible case of the flu and there was no one to call. I waited for discharge and I left the hospital all by myself. Back when my in case of emergency was an empty box.
Chapter Fourteen
Rian
I sit in the chair in Dylan’s hospital room. I’d never admit to anyone how scared I was when I saw that message from Knox. How does a police officer not tell you exactly what’s wrong? If he would’ve said Dylan’s conscious, I wouldn’t have been nearly as worried that something horrible had happened.
“Oh, did they take him for his MRI?” A nurse comes in, sanitizes her hands, and stops by the door.
“Yeah.”
Her smile dims into a sympathetic look. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure he’s fine. He’s one of the smart ones who wears a helmet. But he’ll need some help until that cast comes off.”
“Of course.”
“My husband slipped on the ice at his job last winter and had to have surgery on his shoulder. As you know, men can’t handle things like this quite like us women can. He whined and complained his whole recovery. I chalked it up to him having the ‘man flu.’” She puts man flu in quotations. “But turns out he got so depressed, we had to get antidepressants. It’s hard for men like them to sit back and allow their loved ones to care for them.”
She talks as though she knows Dylan. My gut twists when the question pops in my head, and I’m not even prepared to hear the answer. She’s only a few years older than us and I spotted a tattoo on the inside of her wrist when she raised her hands to sanitize them. “Do you know Dylan?”
“No. I just know his type. A replica of my husband.” She picks up the papers on the tray. “Mind if I go over the care instructions with you?”
I sit up straighter. Should I tell her we’re not a couple? Then the haunting thought that might be going through Dylan’s mind right now triggers in my own. Who will help him? He doesn’t have a girlfriend to see him back to health. He’s definitely too proud to ask.
“Sure,” I say, knowing that Dylan’s rehabilitation is up to me.
“My husband loved the sponge baths.” She laughs. “But just wrap his arm in plastic and use a scrunchie to secure it at the top of the arm. If you need to, a bigger rubber band will help. He obviously can’t swim in a pool. No scratching by sticking a pen or ruler or anything down there. He’ll probably go through some itching as it heals, so keep an eye out for that.” She shrugs. “Other than that, it’s just a broken arm. He did say it’s his dominant though, which means he’ll have to relearn to do stuff with his right, I suppose.”
She stands and tucks the doctor’s chair under a table with a computer on it. She scans her badge and types away.
Seth walks in with a Snickers bar in hand. “What’s up, buttercup?” The nurse looks at him and he raises his hand. “In case of emergency contact.” He points at himself with a big grin then sits next to me and holds the Snickers bar in front of my face.
“No thanks.”
“Oh, you look sour like Knox did earlier. All these people vying to be Dylan’s in case of emergency. I know. I was shocked too.”
I stare blankly at him, and even the nurse is eyeing him from the corner of her eye.
“Should I go over the care instructions with him?” she asks, closing up the computer.
“Care instructions?” he asks.
“No, I’m Dylan’s roommate,” I say.
“What kind of care instructions?” Seth asks again.
“Sponge bath techniques,” the nurse says, picking up the papers and handing them to him.
The Snickers bar drops to his lap and he holds up his hands in front of him like a ten-year-old boy.
The nurse laughs. “I think you need to have a conversation about that in case of emergency thing. As soon as his MRI comes back clean, the doctor will be in and you guys can get home.”
“Thank you,” I say.
She smiles and walks out of the room.
Seth picks up his Snickers bar and blows on it. “What’re your thoughts on the Bachelor?”
An hour later, Dylan is released and being wheeled out in a wheelchair by an orderly. Seth is on one side and I’m on the other. All our friends stand as we push through the doors of the waiting room. Each of them hugs Dylan or shakes his hand. Jax is even there, having stuck around, and the two do a handshake thing I’ve never seen Dylan do with anyone.
A few minutes later, we’re all outside and Adrian’s car pulls into the circle.
We shuffle Dylan into the car and the orderly goes back into the hospital. We all split up between Ethan, Adrian, and Seth’s cars. Somehow, I end up with Blanca and Ethan.
“This is a nice car, Ethan.”
“Thanks. It’s nothing like Adrian’s, but it gets us from A to B,” he says with a big smile. It’s not a brand new car, but it’s his first. I know how proud he was when he purchased it last month.
We aren’t even out of the circle driveway of the hospital before Blanca peers at me between the seats. “So?”
“So what?” I ask.
“How was the date?”