Chapter Ten
Irefuse to leave Miles’s side over the course of the next few hours, only stepping back when the paramedics arrive, but then I demand to travel in the ambulance with them.
In the Emergency Department, the attending doctor, an attractive blonde guy whose name tag reads ‘Doctor Anson Meyers’, seems to recognize Miles, who is still drifting in and out of consciousness.
Before I can get jealous and possessive, though, he turns to me and says, “If you sit down and stay quiet while I work, you can stay. My Daddy would lose his shit if something like that happened to me and he had to be separated from me.”
Nodding and swallowing roughly, all I can manage is a gruff, “Thank you.”
It’s hard to sit in the corner and listen as the doctor calmly discusses things like watching for any signs of an erratic pulse with the nurse at his side.
They hook Miles up to various monitors, and I bite my lip when they start talking about possible nerve damage when it becomes obvious that some of Miles’s muscles are spasming.
I was feeling guilty enough for distracting him, for essentially causing his accident, but if there’s permanent damage…
“You said the contact with the live wire was only short?” the doctor’s voice pulls me out of my spiral. I swallow roughly.
“Yeah,” I bob my head once, my gaze drifting away from the doctor’s blue eyes to settle back on Miles’s twitching form, “it was a split second. He cried out and fell back and hit the ground before I was even up out of my seat.” I’m worried about how hard his head hit the floor, too, now that I think about it.
“And he’s regained consciousness?”
“He’s been in and out since it happened, yeah.”
“Was he able to focus when he was awake?”
“I don’t know. The paramedics said it was a good sign.”
It’s times like this where I feel so inadequate as a grown-ass man. All of these people are so much more educated than I am and I can barely string together two sentences. What if I miss telling them something important? Something that could help Miles?
Doctor Meyers inclines his head. “Yes, I’ve read his chart. But sometimes a partner just knows when something isn’t right.”
I blink, my heart sinking. “Oh.” Clearing my throat, I move to add, “I’m not—”
“D’ddy?” Miles’s slurring cuts me off, and my heart races to hear it. I lean forward, reaching for him, even as the doctor spins quickly to smile at Miles in greeting.
“The room might seem a bit bright, Miles, so be careful opening your eyes, okay?”
Miles’s handsome face contorts into a frown of confusion, and he starts to squint. “Daddy?”
The nurse assisting the doctor barely blinks when the blonde man waves a hand in my direction, despite Miles not being able to see it. “He’s here. You’re okay. You just had a bit of an ordeal, so we need to check you out.”
Miles lets out a whine of discontentment, and seems to strain a little to focus through his squinted vision. “Anson?”
The doctor beams at him, nodding. “The one and only. That’s a great sign for your memory being intact. I think we’ve only met a few times in passing.”
“Wh’h’ppned?” Miles goes back to barely managing to articulate his words, but the doctor doesn’t seem fazed.
Pulling out a penlight, he leans over the bed and gently lifts Miles’s left eyelid, peering into the eye before repeating the process on the right, nodding when Miles flinches. “What do you remember?”
Miles closes his eyes and the frown he’s wearing deepens. “W’rk.” He pauses, then cracks his eyes open, seemingly forcing himself to speak clearly, talking slowly and with significant effort, “Dmitri was there.”
“That’s excellent, Miles,” the doctor smiles again. “Anything else?”
Miles gives it a moment before shaking his head, then grimacing.
“Headache?” asks the doctor.
“Uh-huh.” Miles scrunches his eyes shut. “Wh’re’m’I?”
“You’re in the hospital,” the doctor answers in the same calm, genial tone he’s been using since we were rushed in here.
“You touched a live wire and, for lack of a better term, were electrocuted. The force from the electricity and the pain threw you back, and you hit your head when you fell. You’ve been in and out of consciousness for a little while, but this is the first you’ve been lucid since the accident. ”
Miles winces again. “Shit. I forgot…” He gives his head another shake, this one slower than the last. “’M in trouble.”
“With who?” prods the doctor.
“M’boss,” Miles sighs.
“Accidents like this happen to even the most seasoned professionals,” the doctor assures him. “Your boss is probably going to be more concerned about your recovery than any mistakes you may have made.”
Miles deflates, seeming to slump even further into the flimsy hospital pillow. His eyelids droop, and the doctor peppers him with a few more questions, then explains he’s also being monitored for a concussion.
“You’ll be kept in for at least twenty-four hours for observation,” the doctor finally explains, “because we’re especially concerned about your body spasms and twitching.
It could just be residual trauma from the shock, but if it continues, I’d like to check for nerve damage.
Your only job right now is to rest and not think too hard, okay?
Very minimal screen time for the next forty-eight hours, and then we can talk about reintroducing some light, non-strenuous movement into your routine. ”
Miles frowns. “But…work?” Even though he looks tired, he’s more alert, and isn’t slurring his speech as much. Even I know that’s a good sign.
“Ideally, I think you need to take at least a week off to recover. And I’d like it if you had someone with you monitoring you for that time, too. Just in case there are any complications from the electrocution that we’ve missed.”
“I don’t really have anyone who—”
Miles starts, but I interrupt with, “You’ve got me.”
He startles, then winces, but still sits up a bit straighter, squinting and scanning the room until his gaze lands on me. A billion micro expressions flit over his handsome face in the span of a few seconds, everything from relief to disbelief to guilt. “You don’t have to.”
Even if I wasn’t feeling guilty for causing his distraction and landing him here in the first place, I would be saying the same thing. “Darling boy, I want to.”
He bites his lip, his cheeks dusting a pretty pink color. “Okay.”
And that’s that.