She went to the refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of water and handed me one. “It’s okay, you know.”
“What is?”
“To admit you want to scratch your itch with a biker.”
“Me?” I raised my brows. “What about you?”
“What about me,” she averred.
“Yeah, okay. You’re not ready to scratch your itch and neither am I.”
Chapter 2
“How are you feeling this morning?”I asked, as I stepped into Boxer’s recovery room.
“Like roadkill.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be. It’s a step up from how I was feeling yesterday.”
He smiled at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back. Boxer seemed to have a natural good cheer that was hard to shake.
I took a moment to discreetly study him. His jaw was covered in stubble a shade darker than the dirty blond hair on his head that was askew. Ink snaked up his muscled arms to disappear beneath the hospital gown. I’d seen some of his tattoos the night before when I’d removed his appendix, but I hadn’t studied them, my mind clearly on other concerns at the time. But I was innately curious about them now.
Interested in his body—his hot body.
“Well, Doc? Am I gonna live?” he drawled.
“You’ll live, but there were some complications we didn’t expect.”
His expression instantly changed from good humor to attention. “What kind of complications?”
“Your appendix ruptured on your way to surgery. You’re on heavy antibiotics to ensure you don’t get an infection.”
When I paused, he nodded.
“During surgery, your blood pressure dropped substantially. We deduced that you have an allergy to the anesthesia you were given. There was no way to know until you were already under. I’ve made a note in your chart, but that’s something you need to be aware of in case you have to undergo any other surgeries. It’s very serious. We could have lost you last night.”
“I almost died?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck,” he murmured. “That’s—I don’t even—okay then. That was not how I expected to go out.”
“Go out?”
“Die,” he stated. “Dying on an operating table? In a hospital gown? Fucking pathetic.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to comfort him. It was like he was taking it as a personal insult. But death was death and none of us got to choose how our time came to an end. Luckily, this wasn’t Boxer’s end.
I cleared my throat, wanting to move the conversation forward. “I’m keeping you here for a few days to monitor you and make sure the antibiotics are doing their job and that there are no further complications of any kind.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered. “First I almost die like some frail old man and now I’ve got to laze around here? I’m gonna go crazy.”
“Which is a nice segue into what’s going to happen when I release you into the wild, I presume.”
“I’m not gonna like this, am I?”