“Why is Skylar here? Gio isn’t here, is he? I thought…”
Sin shakes his head. “Long story. No, Gio isn’t here. Skylar…we’re gonna have to keep her tonight while we figure some stuff out.”
“Keep her? Why? Where’s Lydia?”
Rafe answers that one, striding across the room to hand Sin some gauze and tape. “Dead.”
Gauze and tape?
It’s then that I notice the dark stain covering Sin’s left arm. “Oh, my God, you’re bleeding,” I say, leaping up off the couch. I’m not sure what to do, exactly, but apparently the whole damn world changed while I took a nap.
Sin peels his jacket off. “I’m fine. Flesh wound, it’s nothing.”
“Flesh wound?” I ask, bug-eyed. “Like, you got shot?”
“Fucking Lydia,” he mutters. “I’m gonna go clean this. You can help me tape it if you want to.”
“We need to get you to a hospital,” I state, floored by how calm he is being about this.
His eyebrows shoot up like I just suggested we go for a promenade through the park in our Sunday finest. “A hospital? For this? No.”
Then he’s gone, heading into the kitchen and leaving me to gape at his back. Since Rafe is still here and he didn’t sleep through everything, I turn to him for an explanation. “What the hell is going on?”
Rafe puts a reassuring hand on my back and gives it a little rub. “He’ll be fine. I’ll make our doctor check it out tomorrow, but it’s a clean wound, superficial. He got lucky. Well, and Lydia’s a terrible shot.”
My eyes bug out again. “Lydia shot him?”
“It’s over now. Don’t bug him about it tonight, all right? Today was a slaughter. He’ll be fine, he knows how to take care of himself, but let him have the rest of the night off.” Gesturing to Rex and Skylar he says, “I can’t take care of a baby though, so you’re going to have to handle that. Tomorrow I’ll talk to my cousins and see who wants to take her.”
“Take her?”
Sighing, Rafe rakes a hand through his golden hair. “Her parents are both dead. Sin brought her here because he couldn’t just leave her in the house alone. Technically, I’m her godfather, but I think we both know I did not anticipate ever having to carry out that responsibility.”
“Oh, my God.” I walk over to check on Skylar. Of course she’s just a little baby, so she has no idea what’s going on. She looks over at me and smiles when I rub her cheek. “Hey, little girl.”
Rex is still holding her awkwardly, so he asks hopefully, “You wanna take her?”
“In a minute. I have to go take care of Sin first. Between the way you hold a baby and calling pregnant women emotionally unstable, you better not knock anyone up anytime soon. Free life advice.”
“I always take life advice from someone who’s clearly killing it in the good decision department, so thanks,” he offers back.
I shoot him a humorless look and rub Skylar’s tiny hand one more time, then I go to the kitchen to help Sin with his wound.
I still want to demand he go to a hospital and make sure he’s okay, but since Rafe is fairly calm too, I guess he probably has it under control. I’m still nervous about it, so I Google it on my phone as I walk into the kitchen. Sin is standing shirtless at the sink, washing up. He turns his head to look at me when I walk in.
Armed with my 40 seconds of medical training, I glance at the wound. “It’s not swollen, is it?”
“Get off WebMD,” he tells me.
I smile faintly. “I’m not on WebMD, so ha.”
“I’m fine. I’ve handled far worse wounds than this one without medical assistance.” Nodding at the sink as he takes a step back, he tells me, “Wash your hands and you can play nurse.”
“Sounds much sexier than it is,” I inform him, tucking my phone in my back pocket.
He smirks. “I knew you were into roleplay.”
“I mean, I would rather be medically assisting you with a raging hard-on than a gunshot wound, but I work with what I’m given,” I tell him, turning on the faucet and scrubbing my hands clean.