She might feel embarrassed later, knowing Lochlan could likely hear what Zander was saying to her, but right now his words and the feel of his body were the only things keeping her sane.
She winced as Lochlan prodded against her gum and tooth. “Right, definite abscess and it’s infected, unfortunately.”
He drew back and she closed her mouth immediately. Turning her face, she buried it in Zander’s chest. She didn’t care what anyone thought of her right then, she just needed some comfort.
An abscess? That sounded bad.
“I’m going to take some x-rays. Have you had x-rays taken of your teeth before?”
She shook her head, then regretted it.
“Don’t move your head like that,” Zander warned.
Well, she knew that. She’d just forgotten. She huffed out a breath in irritation.
“Zander, I’m going to need you to move for the x-rays.”
She stiffened, then forced herself to relax. She could do this without him. She was a big girl.
Kind of.
She sat tensely while the x-rays were taken. Then they had to wait while they loaded up. Lochlan kept up a steady stream of chatter that she paid no attention to. When Zander returned to her side, she couldn’t help but reach out her hand to him, even knowing that if he rejected her, she would be devastated.
But he let her hold on tight to him as he talked with Lochlan. She really didn’t want to know what they were saying. But then, Lochlan started calling her name.
Crap. She just wanted to drown it all out.
“Little Thief,” Zander said firmly, moving into her line of sight so she couldn’t ignore him.
Well, unless she closed her eyes.
Which she promptly did.
“Open your eyes, you need to hear this,” Zander told her.
Drat. Crap.
Why couldn’t he go all bossy and just take over?
Opening her eyes, she stared up at him. “What is it?”
“You have an abscess which needs to be drained,” Lochlan told her. “Because it’s infected, I’m going to give you a course of antibiotics to take as well. You also need a filling. At the moment, I’m not going to do anything further and we will see how it goes but you may need further work later.”
Awesome. None of that sounded fun at all.
“What I can do is numb the gum with some local anesthetic first, you won’t feel pain but you will be awake. Or we can try some sedation. Are you allergic to anything?”
“No.” She glared up at Zander as she spoke. This was all his fault.
He raised his eyebrows, looking surprised. “Are you angry at me?”
“Yes! Because this is your fault!”
“How?” He gave her a bewildered look.
“You brought me here. If you hadn’t brought me here, then I wouldn’t need any of this!”
“You would still need this whether I brought you here or not,” he told her reasonably.