Chapter 22
“We don’t exactly keep playing cards around here,” is the only answer she offers me. It’s so quiet it’s almost a whisper.
I take a deep breath and do my best to will my raging hard on to go away after the sponge bath to end all sponge baths.
I nod to the window ledge without thinking, just grateful she didn’t say no. “My crew brought me some,” I say without thought, before I remember that there’s a goddamn titty magazine in that basket.
Before I can protest, Violette starts to move toward it.
“Fuck, actually can you just pass it to me? These guys are a bunch of fucking d-bags,” I say, my voice almost frantic. So frantic it piques her curiosity enough that she raises an eyebrow when she gets to it and sees the bottle of Liquid Silk and a rolled up magazine secured with an elastic.
She smirks as she grabs the latest edition of Wicked Magazine out of the basket and pulls the elastic off. I’m not sure whether I’m mortified or turned on as she starts flipping through it with interest…slowly, like she’s studying the fucking thing. She gets to the centerfold and completely opens it up. I haven’t even looked at it, but from here I can see the woman who’s earned the coveted spot spread eagle, two fingers on her clit. Fucking Christ , that’s it. I blew it. Violette is gonna think I’m just a fucking pervert.
She doesn’t look at me like I’m a pervert though, or tell me what a jackass I am. Instead, she starts laughing. Really laughing.
“Wow, I admire the old school vibes here but, um…you realize your door is always open here, right?” she asks in a giggle. “At least try to keep your porn in your phone like a normal person, King.”
I realize she’s busting my balls here, but I still might fucking kill the guys anyway.
“Fucking pricks…” I mutter.
“Uh-huh,” she jokes. “Whatever gets you through the day.” Violette shakes her head and rolls the magazine back up, then starts digging though the basket in search of either more ammo or snacks, I can’t tell which.
“Have you had any practice at Euchre since the days when I destroyed you?” she asks with a cocky little tone, reminiscent of another time that almost has me bricking up again on the spot. “Every single time we played?” she adds.
I like playful Vi. Fuck, I’ve really missed her.
“ Every time is a bit exaggerated. And to answer your question, no. When you’re naturally good at something, you don’t really need to practice,” I answer.
She scoffs at me. She did beat me and Jacob almost every single time.
“Hmm. My dad and I still play all the time online and now that I’m home, every Sunday,” she says, as if to warn me of my impending demise. “I beat him too.”
I chuckle.
“But I can’t play cards with you while I’m working,” she says, pulling out the deck of cards.
Oh.
“However”—she fishes out two bags of mini chocolate chip cookies—“on my break, I can offer you thirty minutes to remind you why you shouldn’t play me.”
Violette makes her way over to me, tossing the cookies on the tray beside my bed along with the cards. “Practice up while I’m gone.” She turns and heads for the door. “You can find the rules at www.play-euchre.com, in case you forget them.” She grins over her shoulder as she ducks behind the door.
“Just get your ass back here and get ready to lose,” I call to her, with the world’s goofiest grin on my face.
“Never lost yet, don’t know why I would now, especially when you’re weak, injured, and high.” Her voice echoes down the hall in response, and I extend my good arm up, resting it behind my head as I lean back in my bed. I count the minutes until she gets back, pain, guilt and self-blame aside, this night is looking up, all because Violette is here with me and she’s smiling.
“I’m sorry to beat you yet again and bring up all those bad memories of losing to me,” Violette says, not looking the least bit sorry as she pops the last mini cookie between her plush lips and lays her card down on the tray between us.
We just finished our second game of Euchre. Somehow, even though I was in the lead five minutes ago, she just earned her final two points by picking up a fucking nine of clubs and making that trump with no bower in her hand. All she had in her hand was the king, a nine, a ten, and an Ace of Spades but she took every trick and just made me look like a chump. She giggles and swipes the cards up into her graceful hands and starts shuffling.
“How dare you come in here and have no mercy on me when I’m weak, injured, and high,” I grovel.
“I see. I hurt your feelings too much?” she asks with her eyebrow raised and the prettiest fucking smile, the one where she’s a little nervous and her bottom lip meets her teeth.
“Fuck yes, forgot you play dirty and make it on anything you turn up,” I add to her.
Her mouth falls open in a gasp. “I do not play dirty. Rule number one, you never turn down.” She tosses her braid over her shoulder, and I notice her toned arms and the silky waves of her hair as she does. “My dad taught me that, and he always won until I beat him,” she says matter-of-factly.
She’s right, no one else beat Jack Taylor at Euchre. He’s won tournaments for Chrissake.
“Admit it.” She stands checking the time on her phone. “Admit I’ve still got it and that you’re not worthy.” She giggles. I know it’s been thirty minutes, probably longer, and she has to go back to work. I just don’t want her to. I could sit across from her all night.
“I plead the fifth,” I say, which earns me another genuine laugh.
“You need to get some sleep, and I have to go back to work.”
“Violette?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks. I don’t sit still very well. It gives me too much time to think. Aside from physical therapy, I haven't done much. Mostly sit in this fucking bed with my demons…so, thank you for this. There are days when what happened to Jacob feels…too heavy, like it might crush me,” I say honestly to her. I don’t want to get into some intense conversation, but I do want her to know I appreciate it.
She nods, pursing her full lips. “I understand all too well what the weight of losing Jacob feels like. There are days it’s still crippling, especially since I’ve been back.”
“I can imagine,” I offer, surprised she said something so personal. I don’t even have time to register that moment before the walls go back up.
“Get some sleep,” she tells me before she heads into the hall.
I lean back in my bed and let myself just remember her for the first time in a long time. I can almost still smell her beside me as I close my eyes. I think of the look in her eyes right before I kissed her all those years ago, the way her skin felt under my hands, and the sounds she made when I made her come for the first time. My cock remembers too, beginning to stiffen, and in this hospital gown there’s no hiding it.
I know it’s wrong to remember her like this when she’s right down the hall, but I do. I catalogue everything she said to me in the last few days, grinning to myself when I think of the way her face looked as she pulled that magazine out of the basket.
Joke’s on her if she thinks I’d even consider looking at that when I can still hear the way she moaned my name, or the sounds she made as my lips grazed her neck. I instinctively reach for my stiffening cock, Violette’s face in my mind only makes me harder. Fuck. I will not jerk myself off in a hospital bed while the object of my quickly growing obsession is down the hall.
I force myself to think of every unsexy thing I can—unloading the dishwasher, filling my tank with gas, the way Opp’s yellows smell. After a few minutes, I feel my hard-on subsiding.
Fucking Christ. Ten years of trying to forget how I let her go was just decimated by that stunning smile and a couple games of cards.
It's just because I’m desensitized to her after not seeing her for so many years, that’s all it is. After a few more days, it will get easier…right?
Wrong . My obsession just gets even worse when, for the next two nights, Violette comes to my room on her breaks, always checking on me first, asking me questions like how my dressings feel, or how my pain is, but every time I somehow manage to keep her, and we talk more. About Hollie, her parents, my work, even a little more about Jacob. On her last night, when I know she’ll be off for a few days, she tells me she’s officially divorced as of today.
“The odd thing is, I don’t even think I’m sad. How messed up is that?” she asks, popping her last bite of salad from the cafeteria into her mouth. “I almost feel relieved.”
She’s wearing baby pink scrubs today and the color just makes her look like a real life version of hot Nurse Barbie.
“I don’t think it’s fucked. If you aren’t with the right person, if it’s a struggle, then I would imagine there would be relief. You should never have to pretend.” I offer.
“You seem like you’re speaking from experience,” Violette says, taking a sip of her sparkling water.
I laugh and scrub my face with my hand. “Fuck, I have no experience.”
“None?”
“Well…” I feel my throat heat as I try to answer…fuck, am I blushing? “I have experience , I just…no one’s ever, I’ve never—fuck, I don’t think I’ve ever liked anyone enough to make it past a few weeks?—”
Violette’s laughing cuts me off, but it’s more of a snorting kind of laughter.
“I was just fucking with you, Kingsley, I don’t need the gritty details of your sexcapades,” she says as she stands and throws her container in the garbage in the corner of my room.
Excellent, now she thinks I’m a manwhore. Smooth .
“Gotta get some work done, see you in a bit,” she says before I can defend myself or say anything even remotely witty.
I fish my phone out and check the time. Only two hours left until she heads out for a couple days, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t gonna miss her.
I pull up my contacts and take matters into my own hands, planning ahead. Because even though she won’t physically be here, I’m not about to let that stop me. Not when she’s finally starting to come out of her shell and I’m finally starting to see a glimpse of the old us.