Chapter 8
aris
Pain shot through my elbow as I blinked through the stars sparkling in front of my eyes. I’d had the daylights knocked out of me, and, for a second, I wasn’t even sure where I was or what happened. And then I realized I was on the hard, wet, slick pavement, half on top of my bike, and the other half was on top of someone else.
Oh my god! Danielle!
I tried to scramble to my feet, but my head was spinning too fast. Speaking of scramble, my brain kind of felt like scrambled eggs. I looked up to find Noah staring down at us both, shock on his face before he immediately went into doctor mode.
“Don’t move yet. I’m calling an ambulance, and then let me assess you both.” His voice was calm and authoritative, and I took a deep breath before glancing over at Danielle, who was also just now blinking her eyes open.
“Are you okay?” I tried not to move too much so I wasn’t disobeying the good doctor.
She shook her head. “No, everything fucking hurts.”
“I’m so sorry!” I rushed out. “I couldn’t stop. I saw you, braked, and hit an icy patch.”
She started to get up, but Noah—still on the phone—crouched down next to her, “Whoa, easy there. Let me check you out first.”
I brought my knees up and wrapped my arms around them. My ass was cold as fuck, but otherwise I didn’t seem any worse for the wear. My bike looked worse than me—it definitely had a bent frame. How the fuck could I let this happen? My heart raced thinking I might have hurt her.
We weren’t too far from the hospital, so I wasn’t surprised to hear sirens in the distance as Noah pulled Danielle to her feet. I see he is helping her before me, I chuckled to myself. I was totally fine with that and would have insisted, of course.
Guilt was stabbing into me for causing this scene in the first place. Fucking ice!
Danielle screamed as soon as she attempted to put weight on her leg. “Oh my god! Ouch! I think it’s broken.”
“I think you may be right,” Noah agreed as the ambulance turned the corner and started to head into the parking lot. “We’ll be getting you both checked out, x-rays, the whole nine yards.”
In seconds, we were swarmed by paramedics, who lifted Danielle onto a gurney and rushed her away to examine her. “I’m okay,” I insisted when they came to assess me. “Really, I can walk and everything.”
“No pain?” the tall white paramedic with cropped brown hair and glasses asked.
“He’s still going to go get checked out,” Noah advised. “But I’ll take him to the ER.” He reached out a hand. “I’m Dr. Evans. Thank you for getting here so quickly.”
“Not a problem. I’m Bart,” the paramedic answered with a grin, shaking Noah’s hand. “Okay, we’ll get your friend to the ER ASAP.”
“Should I ride with her?” I asked my boyfriend.
He shook his head. “Haven’t you done enough for her?” It wasn’t snarky—more of a joke—but it still made me feel like shit.
“I’ll see you in a few,” I called out to Danielle as they loaded her up in the ambulance.
Could I feel like any more of a dumbass right now? I was pretty sure it wasn’t possible.
* * *
I was probably a weirdo, but I found the monotonous beeps and sounds of the hospital plus its sterile smell to be soothing. My mom was a doctor, so I’d grown up in this environment. I knew hospitals freaked a lot of people out, but they just seemed comforting to me, filled with people who could take care of me.
So, it was hard for me to really fathom why Danielle was so distressed. She gripped my hand so hard when I went to see her that I thought she might rip my fingers off.
“Don’t go…please?” Her eyes darted around her curtained-off room. “Raine is coming, but I?—”
“I won’t go anywhere,” I assured her. “They will probably see you before me since your condition is more serious. I feel fine, really. But I’m so, so sorry about what happened. I just?—”
“Aris,” she said, dark eyes blinking up at me, “it was an accident. Everyone has accidents. Please don’t think I’m mad at you. I mean, I’m in pain, but I’m not angry with you.” There was the tiniest smirk curling her lips that offered me a bit of relief.
“I will make it up to you anyway,” I promised. “I just—I hate seeing people in pain. If there’s something really wrong with your leg, I’ll get my boss to squeeze you in. She’s booked up for months, but I know she’ll make time for you, especially when she finds out I’m the dumbass who got you injured. She’s the absolute best orthopedic surgeon in southern Indiana.”
Danielle’s eyes sprang wide open. “Surgery? You think I might need surgery?”
“Oh, I don’t know. They haven’t taken you for your X-ray yet. I’m just saying, you know, if?—”
She shook her head. “I can’t need surgery. I can’t be seriously injured. I’m going to be cast in a show, and I have to be able to dance.”
Just as I was about to reassure her again, the nurse came back. “We’re ready for your x-ray, Danielle. Can you get yourself into this wheelchair so we can take you down?”
I offered my hand to help her out of bed. She huffed out a long sigh as she said “okay” to the nurse, but she wouldn’t take my hand. She put her feet on the floor, wincing in pain, and used the bed handle to steady herself as she straightened to her full height. Then she pivoted, keeping her weight on one leg as she limped back into the wheelchair.
“You can wait here,” the nurse told me as I began to follow. “Aren’t you a patient as well?” She gestured to my plastic ID bracelet.
“Yes, but I?—”
“Just wait there please.” She pointed to the ugly blue chair. “We’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Fine.” I sighed as Danielle was wheeled away. She looked over her shoulder just as they exited the room, a look of sheer terror on her face.
I pulled out my phone and glanced at a text from Noah. After getting me settled here, he’d returned to the office to wrap things up for the day, but he was coming back to pick me up.
Noah: How are things going?
My fingers flew over the keyboard.
Me: She’s getting x-rays. I haven’t been seen yet.
Noah: I’ll be back within an hour. One more patient to see, and I’m done.
Me: Take your time.
I heaved out another sigh, feeling so defeated and restless, wishing there was something I could do. Seeing people in pain and not being able to do anything about it was a nightmare for a nurse. Then I heard the curtain draw back. My gaze snapped up to see Raine, Danielle’s roommate, stepping into the small enclosure.
Her glossy black hair was pinned up in a plastic clip. “Where is she?”
“She just went back,” I noted. “I’m supposed to be in the next bay, but I was waiting with her for the nurse to come take her for an x-ray. I can go back to my bay now that you’re here, I guess. It’s pretty cramped in here.”
“Wait—what happened exactly?” Raine plopped down in the chair beside me. “She was blubbering so hard when she called, I couldn’t understand half of what she said.”
“Me on a bike plus ice equals epic disaster,” I clarified. I pulled out the ponytail holder around my man bun and shook out my wild mane, then I ran my fingers through it in a feeble attempt to tame it. “I feel absolutely awful about it.”
“What part of her is hurt?”
“Her leg?—”
“Well, how is she supposed to star in the spring musical if she’s in a cast?” Raine wanted to know.
“We don’t even know if it’s broken yet. Calm down.”
“You know we live on the third floor, right? There’s no elevator in our building.”
The curtain parted again, and the nurse wheeled Danielle in. Her face was buried in her hands, and she didn’t even look up when the nurse said, “The doctor will be in to see you in a few minutes.”
Raine shot me a nervous look, then put her arm around her roomie’s shoulders. “Hey, sweetie, I’m here. Can I help you back onto the bed?”
When Danielle lifted her head, she revealed a face streaked with tears. “I can do it.” She hobbled onto the bed and let out a shuddering sob, the kind you get after crying hard once the tears began to wane.
“Did they say anything about your x-ray yet?”
She shook her head. “No, but the tech didn’t look hopeful.”
“What are you going to do about the stairs?” Raine asked.
“What am I going to do about anything?” Danielle wailed.
“Do you want me to go?” I stood up and went to her side, crouching next to her and putting my hands on her knees. My heart was somewhere on the floor—I could stomp on it, and it probably couldn’t feel any worse than it already did. Did I really cause Danielle to break her leg? I would never forgive myself if she missed out on her chance at starring in the spring musical. It would be the last show of her collegiate career. I knew how important it was to her.
“You can stay with me,” I offered before pulling the curtain open. “If you can’t get up the stairs to your apartment, I mean. You can stay with me, and I’ll take care of you. And I’ll get you an appointment with Dr. Riley, my boss.”
“What about Noah?” Raine asked while Danielle’s head went back into her palms.
“I’m sure he’ll agree,” I blurted out.
“Agree to what?” I heard behind me as I backed out of the room.
Noah was standing there, his arms crossed over his chest.
One advantage of being a surgeon was having free rein of the hospital. My ID badge got me into the ER with no issues, and a quick stop at the nurses’ station revealed Noah was in Bay 7 and Danielle in 8. I peeked into 7 and didn’t see my man, but I heard voices coming from 8, so I stood outside the curtain for a moment, realizing Danielle had just been wheeled back in from Radiology.
Through the crack where the curtain wasn’t closed completely, I saw Danielle with her face buried in her hands, and her roommate Raine trying to comfort her. Then I saw Aris, in profile, standing beside her wheelchair looking completely devastated and desperate to help her, his unruly hair free of its usual confinement and waving wildly around his head.
Then he crouched down so he was eye level with her. He really liked her—that much was clear from his body language and soft, comforting tones.
Who was I to stand in the way of their budding relationship? I had been a little unsure of opening our relationship up to other partners, but Danielle was a metamour I could approve of. She seemed good for Aris.
I had my legal issues to consider. I didn’t want either of them to get wrapped up in that mess. Maybe I was better off moving out of Cynda and Jason’s home, finding my own place. I’d been saving to buy a house, so sharing rent was helping me make that dream a reality. But maybe now wasn’t the time. If I lost my job…my dream of home ownership would be out the window too.
They looked gorgeous together. A lovely couple.
Then I heard Aris say something like, “You can stay with me.”
Me? Not us?
Raine asked what I would think about that, and my boyfriend confidently replied that I would agree.
“Agree to what?” I asked as Aris backed through the part in the curtain, nearly running into me.
I stepped back, waiting to hear his explanation.
“Her leg might be broken.” His face was painted with concern. “I don’t know what else to do but to offer to take care of her. I feel like complete shit, Noah.” He stepped toward me, collapsing against my chest, and I had no choice but to wrap my arms around him to stabilize both of us before we went crashing into a patient being wheeled down the corridor between bays.
“Let’s talk about this outside, okay?” I patted him on the shoulder, and he nodded, following me down the hall until I buzzed us out an external door.
The cold February wind grated against my skin, nipping like an annoying little territorial dog. “Damn, it’s colder than I thought.”
“At least the ice has turned to snow,” Aris said as a flake landed in his thick eyelashes. He smiled and wiped it away. “I’m so sorry to put you in the middle of this, babe. This really sucks.”
“I understand you wanting to take care of her,” I rubbed my hands together to keep them warm, “but we don’t really have space in our room?—”
“I know, but there’s the fourth bedroom at Cynda and Jason’s,” he said. “We’ve all been using it as an office right now, but…Cynda would understand, right? It’s only temporary. Danielle lives on the third floor, and she’s probably going to be on crutches…”
I sighed. “You’re right. We should help her out. Are you staying here with her till she’s released?”
“Don’t you think I should?”
I nodded again. “Okay, you stay here, and I’ll head home and have a talk with Cynda, Jason too, if he’s around. Guess our happy little family might be getting a little bigger—at least temporarily…”
“Thanks for understanding.” Aris leaned in and pressed a kiss to my cheek. His lips were warm in the chilly air, heating me up from the inside out.
I didn’t know what this new development meant for our relationship, but I felt like it might be a sign from the universe telling me to cool things.
Or quit while I’m ahead.