I try to sit up and a bolt of lightning descends from the heavens and strikes me on the dick. Horror pools in my gut as the fear creeps in. Why the fuck does my dick hurt? Whythefuckdoesmydickhurt! Something went wrong. They injured my junk somehow. I’m broken. They fucking maimed me. I tear back the bedsheet, bracing for the worst. And there it is: a thin tube coming out of the end of my dick. It leads to a clear plastic bag, attached to an IV pole next to the bed.
They gave me a catheter. A fucking catheter. No way. I’m not lying here with a hose jammed down my dickhole. I look around, trying to find a call-button that I can use to get someone’s attention. Eventually, I see the buttons on the inside arm of the gurney. I hit the red button five times and the door crashes open moments later, banging loudly against the wall. Who should charge in, looking frantic and ready for anything? Well, well, well, if it isn’t my old buddy Remy. The bruise I gave him on his jaw looks terrible.
He runs to the bed. Runs. “What? What’s wrong? Can you breathe?”
I swat his hands away. “Yes, I can fucking breathe. Get this tube out of my dick right now, or I’m ripping it out with my bare hands.”
Remy’s expression darkens. “That button is for emergencies only. Do you have any idea how many alarms you just set off?”
“Eleven.”
“Don’t get smart, asshole.” He slaps a green panel on the wall above the bed, and out in the hallways, a polite Ding Ding! Ding Ding! Ding Ding! stops. “The catheter isn’t coming out until you’ve filled that bag.” Remy points to the gross plastic bag on the IV pole. “You aren’t even a fifth of the way yet. Sip on some water. I might be able to take it out in the morning.”
“You’re insane. I’m not having this thing in me over night. It’ll stretch out my fucking urethra.”
Remy rolls his eyes. “For someone who can take a punch so well, you sure are a big baby.”
“I’m not fucking around. Take it out, or I swear to God, I’ll rip it out.”
He laughs. “Go ahead. See what happens to your urethra then. Let me take a look at your back.”
I seethe as he peels back the covers and stands there, waiting for me to roll over. “I’m actually getting paid for this,” he points out. “Not very well, admittedly, but I’ve made my peace with my paycheck. I can waste my entire afternoon here and I’ll still make rent at the end of the month. It’s no skin off my nose.”
“You’re the fucking worst, you know that?”
Remy grins. “And you’re a miserable sack of shit. You’re lucky Pete told me you went to visit Presley, or I’d be manhandling you so hard right now. You might normally wanna throw fists at me, but trust. You don’t wanna tussle five minutes after waking up from a bone marrow donation.”
I groan, biting back some very colorful language as I roll over just enough for him to open my gown and check on my incision site. I don’t know if I should feel smug that he has to stare at my bare ass, or if I’m supposed to feel ashamed that I have to expose myself to him. He pokes and prods at me, gentle enough, grunts, then replaces my dressing and tells me I can lie back down again. “Very neat. Very clean. Doctor London’s the best.” Remy scribbles aggressively onto my chart.
“Where’s my bag? My clothes? My shoes?”
He doesn’t look up from the clipboard. “In a locked cabinet in the staff changing rooms,” he says. “You’ll get it back in a couple of days, once Doctor London says you’re well enough to leave.”
“Uhh. I don’t think so. I’m going home.”
Remy sighs, lowering the clipboard. “How did I know that you were gonna cause trouble, huh? I must be fucking psychic.”
“Give me back my shit, Remy.”
“Nope.”
“I swear to fucking God—”
“Swear to whoever you like. It ain’t gonna make a difference. Your body just went through trauma. You’re weak and vulnerable to infection. You need to rest and heal.”
“So, you’re keeping me prisoner?”
He huffs, adopting a tone that suggests I might be an imbecile. “I’m doing my job and caring for my patient. Trust me, I enjoy your company a lot less than you enjoy mine. If it were up to me, I’d let you hobble on out of here this second.”
15
PAX
* * *
They want to keep me at the hospital for three days. Three. Fucking. Days. I’ve been on shorter psych holds. I wait until they remove the catheter—Remy takes great pleasure in making me wait until midday the next day—and then I’m fucking out of there. Doesn’t take long to charm one of the nurses into grabbing my shit for me. I flirt with her a bit and the next thing I know, my cell, my keys, and my clothes have been returned to me.
I bail without signing anything or telling anyone what I’m doing, and I don’t fucking care. My throat hurts, which is super weird. And, of course, my hip and back hurt. Like, really fucking hurt. My pain threshold’s high, but the sharp, stabbing knife of pain that hits me with every beat of my heart makes the breath catch in my throat.
I jump in the Charger and peel out. Ten short minutes later, I pull up in front of Riot House, and my entire back and left side is on fire, and my head is pounding. I grab my cell and my keys, leave all of my other shit in the car, then stagger up the steps toward the front door. It’s locked—the boys are out somewhere.
I walk through the foyer and hit the stairs without bothering to scope out the ground floor. I need to be vertical, STAT. It’s all I can think about. My synapses strobe. A flight of stairs stands between me and my bed, but I can handle that. What’s one flight of stairs, anyway?
Step.
Step.
Step.
One foot in front of the other.
I hold my side, digging my fingers into my groin the whole way up, a little worried that my insides might be unraveling. I make it up to my room. Just. Too tired to peel my clothes off, I collapse on top of the king-sized mattress, hissing when the impact sends pain rattling all the way up to the roots of my teeth.
Exhaustion claims me. When I wake up later, Wren’s standing at the end of my bed with my cell phone in his hand. He scowls at me as he talks into it.
“Yeah. Thanks. I’ll make sure he takes them. Yeah. I’ll make sure he goes. Thanks.” His vivid green eyes flash daggers at me as he hangs up the call. I think he might be about to hurl himself onto the bed and wrap his hands around my throat. “I thought you were on a shoot,” he growls. “Imagine my surprise when I heard your cellphone blowing up in here.”
Uuuhhhh fuck. I did tell him I had a shoot in the city. I drag a pillow over my face, blocking him out. At least if he does suffocate me, I won’t have to see how pissed off he is.
“No explanation, then? Nothing?” I don’t need to see his face to feel his fury. “No, sorry I lied to you guys? No, sorry I didn’t say anything about checking myself into the perilously shit hospital down the road, for major fucking surgery?”
I tear the pillow away, eyeing him grumpily. “It wasn’t major surgery. And you would have made it weird.”