Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
In that silence, I got the strangest fucking thought.
A man could get used to this.
The fuck?
Maybe other men could. Many did. But I wasn’t that kind of man. And, by my age, I’d like to think I knew what I did or didn’t want out of life.
I’d long-since decided I wasn’t the father type. Or the husband type.
I liked my life focused on work and Family and my family. I liked having my time to do with what I wanted. I liked good meals. And thought variety was the spice of life. That went for women too.
I didn’t commit.
I didn’t envision holding women or cuddling them or any of that kind of shit.
That wasn’t me.
Yet, there I was. Holding a woman and thinking about how nice it would be to be able to do so again in the future.
The fuck was that about?
“Okay. Alright,” she said, sucking in a deep breath as she pulled back. “I’m okay. Sorry. I know I’m dramatic about this kind of thing.”
“It’s not dramatic if it hurts,” I said, moving away because the moment was gone, and I needed to get my fucking head together. I couldn’t do that while standing between her thighs and thinking about pulling her to my chest again. “You got the shit under here to clean…” I started, squatting down to look under her sink. “There is too much of this left,” I said, coming back with the little saline tubes. “This should have all been gone. You weren’t cleaning it enough.”
“I know,” she said, shaking her head. “I just… work was exhausting before getting shot. But then after, everything was ten times harder. I could barely shuffle down the hall to my bed before I passed out every night. I know I should have been better about it.”
“Not doing yourself any favors beating yourself up about it,” I said, shrugging. “Shit happens. Wounds get infected. Even if you are doing all the shit you’re supposed to. We’ll fix it. But I’m gonna want to keep a closer eye on this for the next week. Wounds can get bad fast. You don’t want to have it weeping.”
Not only was she bad about pain, but just the mention of a leaky wound made her go an impressive shade of green.
“I’ll clean it, I swear,” she said, damn near looking ready to cry at the possible consequences of not doing so.
“I’ll be keeping an eye to make sure,” I said, twisting the top off the saline tube, then pouring it over the wound. “Does that sting at all?”
“No. Just cold.”
“Good. Alright, we’ll give that a second then put some antibiotic cream on it,” I said, finding what I was looking for, then twisting off the cap. “I’m going to put some gauze on this so we can see if there is any oozing on the bandage,” I said, watching her go a deeper shade of green as I brought it up again. “Better to know,” I reminded her.
“Okay,” she agreed. “I can’t guarantee I won’t throw up all over myself if I pull it off and find something on the gauze, but okay.”
A low chuckle escaped me at that. “Well, we can’t have that, can we? I’ll change it.”
“What? Daily?” she asked, brows lowering.
No, absolutely not.
“Yeah.”
“That’s too much.”
“It needs to be done. It would take me two minutes, but I’m getting the feeling it would take you an hour.”
“You’re not wrong,” she agreed, shaking her head at herself. “Okay.”
“I’ll come to the diner,” I said, not fully trusting myself treating her at home every night. With the bed just a few feet away. With no one around.
“That works,” she agreed as I found some gauze and tape, then covered her up. “Thank you. I know it’s a huge inconvenience.”
“It’s not.”
“Right. Like you have nothing better to do with your—“
“Babe, it’s five minutes. I can spare five minutes each day for you.”
Her gaze slipped away at that. “Okay. Thank you. Really, I appreciate it. I don’t do well with gross stuff.”
“I’m good with gross stuff,” I told her as I cleaned up all my shit.
She stayed right where she was, half-naked, watching me.
“How did you get into, you know, medical stuff?” she asked.
“Guess it started when my grandpa got gunned down in front of me,” I told her. “We were heading out for ice cream late at night. My gran had a migraine, so we thought we were being slick sneaking out for sweets because she wouldn’t notice.
“We’d each just gotten mint chocolate chip on sugar cones and he was opening the car door for me when a car peeled out of nowhere. The bullets rang out. At first, when he fell forward, I thought he was just trying to protect me. Wasn’t until I felt the hot blood soaking through my shirt that I realized he was hit.”