Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
“Perfect.” He bit out the word. “I’ll see you later.”
When he turned to me, I was grimacing.
“What?”
“Since you’re marrying him, maybe you don’t want to be your regular prickish self.”
I got a scowl.
“You know what I mean.”
“But I went over what was happening.”
“He just misses you,” I reminded him.
Quick shake of his head. “I’ll see him Friday when we leave.”
“And then I’ll miss ya,” I teased him, though my heart hurt with the words.
“Or not,” he said, his lip curling at the corner.
“The hell does that mean?”
He shrugged. “Eat your burger. I promised the nurses it was a regular one, not a cardiac event on a bun, so hurry up before I get in trouble.”
“How come you never get mad at me like you do other people?”
He tipped his head and stared at me. “My fondness for you is boundless.”
“So that’s a good thing, then,” I baited him.
“Apparently so.”
As we ate, we went through the report he was filing for his portion of what had gone on, and I made the same suggestions for clarification I always did. It felt so very normal, which did nothing for the ache in my chest. I fell asleep before the rest of the Justice League got Superman back, but that was okay. I knew it would all work out.
Thursday morning I was so ready to go. Bodhi had brought me a racquetball ball the day before, and I’d been bouncing it against the wall until one of my nurses, Chantal, came in and took it away from me like I was a child. She looked at the ceiling on her way out and asked Allah to please have me discharged.
“That’s not nice,” I called after her.
She walked back in, squeezed the ball in her hand really tight, like maybe it was my head, then spun around and left again. Clearly, I was not making any friends.
When Bodhi joined me an hour later, I asked him when I could leave.
“I just got reprimanded in the hallway and was ordered not to bring you any more toys,” he told me.
“I’m real sorry about that,” I rushed out. “Now, can I get outta here?”
“Your sincerity is overwhelming.”
“Just—come on,” I whined. “I wanna go.”
“Have you seen your doctor today?”
I shook my head. “I have yet to meet my doctor. What’s with that?”
His scowl was immediate. “First two days here, you were in and out, so it was a waste of her time to talk to you.”
I squinted at him. “But you talked to her.”
“Of course. I’m the emergency contact. You know this.”
He was more than that. Power of attorney was his if I was ever incapacitated. It was his choice to take me off life support, donate organs, or decide he wasn’t ready for anything to transpire but waiting. I had no doubt he knew everything that had occurred and what was going to happen to me now as a result.
“Tell me,” I prodded him.
“As you probably suspected, the bullet in your side went in and out.”
“I figured.”
“You lost a lot of blood, but there was no internal damage.”
“Okay, good. Then I can—”
“The issue is your shoulder.”
“I got hit in the shoulder?”
“Yeah,” he replied softly. “The vest protected your subclavian artery or you would’ve bled out right there.”
“I think that’s what Crouse thought happened. He had me on a death timer.”
“Don’t mention fuckin’ Crouse to me,” he warned, his eyes hard. “You should have been his priority, not Petrov.”
“Petrov needed to be found and stopped.”
His jaw clenched tightly, and I understood we were not coming to any kind of agreement about Spencer Crouse’s actions on Monday evening. “Tell me the rest about my shoulder.”
Taking a deep breath, then exhaling, he nodded. “The bullet abraded the joint between the humeral head and the glenoid fossa, meaning that—”
“English, please.”
“Basically, if it had hit you straight on, it could have destroyed the joint, which means you’d have to have surgery to replace it or repair whatever was left.”
“Shit.”
“Yep,” he agreed. “The bullet grazed the joint on its way out of your body, and thus far, your doctor sees no major structural or vascular damage.”
“Oh, that’s good.”
He grimaced. “It’s the best-case scenario for now. The issue is it’s all still really swollen, and until the swelling goes down, your doctor can’t tell how good or bad it all is.”
“Okay.”
“So that leaves you in a sling for at least a month while it heals and the swelling goes down so she can see what the fuck she’s looking at.”
“A month,” I moaned as three doctors walked into the room.
“Yes,” said the one closest to me, a tall, willowy woman with deep-umber skin and gold undertones. Her long hair was pulled up into a high bun, and she folded her arms as she glared at me. “A month. And I understand from your partner here that you’re a bit of a rebel deputy, but I promise you that if you ever want to have full, or even partial, use of your left shoulder again, you will heed my instructions.”