Chapter 7
PEYTON
He’s out cold on my floor.
Liam.
Of course he has a sexy name to go with the sexy, limp body.
I stare at the phone in my hand, reeling from the absurdity of the situation. A stranger who’s done nothing but yell at me came to my room to pass out. And he’s handed me his most private possession, asking me to, what, save his life?
I should call 911.
But he begged me not to. And for whatever reason, I don’t want to break his trust.
I hold the phone over his clammy, fever-flushed but still very handsome face to unlock it. The screen glows against his sharp jawline.
Two in the morning. Who even calls anyone at this hour?
Well, Lila, I’m sorry, whoever you are. This is on him, not me.
I search his contacts until I find a Cally. She’s a striking redhead with aquamarine eyes and a dimpled smile in her profile picture. For inexplicable reasons, I’d hoped she’d be ugly and somehow knew she wouldn’t be.
Liam emits a death rattle from somewhere deep in his chest, snapping me out of whatever petty jealousy I’m nursing over a woman I’ve never met. I press call.
The line rings and rings, but she doesn’t pick up.
Okay, I’ll give this another try. If Lila doesn’t answer, I’ll call an ambulance. Before I dial her back, the phone rings in my hands, startling me. I firm my grip on it and tap the green button.
“Rocky, what the fuck time is it?” The question comes out groggy with sleep.
“Oh, um, hello.”
“Hi?” She sounds more awake at hearing a woman’s voice instead of his deep baritone.
“Hi. I am, mmm, with Liam, and he’s passed out and told me to call you and not a doctor. So, err, sorry for waking you up.”
I hear scuffing, and when she speaks again, she sounds fully alert. “Why is he out? Where are you? And who are you?”
“I—err—he fell off his bike earlier and hurt his leg. Then he came to my room, I don’t know why, acting delirious, and hit his shin against a low table and dropped like a stone. We’re in the honeymoon suite at the Rockwood Resort. And I’m Peyton.” I rattle out answers to her questions.
A sigh that sounds more competent than spooked. “Alright, Peyton. Any other symptoms?”
“He’s burning up, sweaty, and a little pasty.”
“Put a wet cloth on his forehead. I’ll be there in ten.”
She hangs up before I reply. I do as she said with the cold compress and wait by the door.
A knock comes fifteen minutes later.
I hurry to open up, ready to explain I don’t know why I have a comatose man on my floor, but the redhead from the phone photo greets me with a tired smile.
She doesn’t look like she needs explanations.
She looks like she needs coffee. She’s drowning in gray sweatpants and an oversized hoodie, her long hair piled in a haphazard ponytail.
She has a black duffel bag slung over her shoulder and is carrying a plastic pedicure basin.
“Hi.” Her voice is surprisingly chipper for two in the morning. “Peyton?”
“Yeah.” I nod, stepping back to let her in.
“Where is my favorite idiot?”
A flicker of discomfort twists in my chest. Why is he her favorite? Is she his girlfriend? Does she find it weird that Liam is in my room? Why isn’t she mad?
I point to the floor. “I tried to move him, but he’s heavy.”
“Yeah, he’s got a thick skull. Adds weight.” Lila peers over my shoulder, her expression shifting to exasperated affection. She drops her supplies on the console table and brushes past me, bringing in the scent of rain. “We need to move him onto the bed.”
I eye the expanse of tuxedo-clad muscle. “He’s got to be two hundred pounds of dead weight.”
“We have to try.” She crouches by his feet, rolling up her hoodie sleeves. “Grab his shoulders. I’ll take his ankles.”
I kneel behind him, my robe bunching awkwardly around my thighs.
His face is slack, flushed with fever while also pasty, but even unconscious, the sharp cut of his jaw and the dark sweep of his lashes against his cheeks are annoyingly compelling.
I remove the wet towel from his forehead and slip my hands under his armpits, where heat radiates off him like a furnace.
“Which leg is injured?” Lila asks.
“His left.”
She nods, adjusting her grip on his ankle. “On three. One, two—”
We heave. We grunt, strain, try again. My arms burn, and sweat prickles along my hairline. We manage to nudge him maybe a foot before Lila gently lowers his legs with a huff, and I ease his shoulders back against the carpet.
“This is why I could never kill someone,” Lila mutters matter-of-factly. “I’d never be able to get rid of the body.”
A startled snort escapes me. “Yeah, that’s the main reason.”
She grins, and it feels strangely easy. Like I’m moving a body with my oldest friend and not a stranger I just met. “Right? They make it look too simple in movies and books.”
We both stare at the immovable lump of a man between us.
Lila sighs. Then, without warning, she kneels down and slaps him across the face.
The smack echoes through the suite.
Liam’s eyes fly open—unfocused, glassy—and he makes a noise between a groan and a protest.
“Up, Rocky,” Lila barks. “Move your ass to the bed.”
He blinks at her, recognition filtering through the haze. “Cally?”
“Bed. Now.”
She helps hoist him up, and he rises like a zombie from the grave, swaying on his feet. They shamble together toward the California king, where he collapses onto the mattress, face-first, and goes completely still.
Lila rolls him over to the left side and takes off his shoes. Without batting an eyelash, she undoes his belt and unbuttons his pants. The action is neutral, practical. There’s nothing sexual about it, but I’m oddly fascinated by the familiarity. The implicit trust.
She drags the pants down his hips, struggling when the fabric catches at his calves. The left leg is more difficult to pull off, the material on this side tighter.
“Damn it,” she mutters, tugging harder.
I avert my eyes from the black boxer briefs that come into view. It seems indelicate to stare at an unconscious man’s underwear, even if he’s the one who barged in here uninvited. “Should I wait in the other room?”
“Are you squeamish about blood?”
“No.”
“Then I’m going to need your help.”
She finally gets the pants all the way off and hisses through her teeth. I force myself to look.
A bandage is wrapped around his left calf—or what was a bandage. Now it’s a sodden mess of gauze, the white fabric stained a gruesome gradient from yellow to brown to a deep, wet crimson.
Lila flings off his socks and looks up at his slack face, her expression darkening. “You moron.”
She stands and disappears into the bathroom. Water runs, followed by the snap of latex. When she returns, she’s wearing blue surgical gloves.
“Bring the basin, please,” she instructs. “And brace yourself.”
Lila peels away the gauze. The outer layers come off easily enough despite being crusty and stiff, but the deeper she goes, the worse it gets.
“You sure you won’t pass out?” she asks, glancing up at me.
“Yeah.”
She strips away the last layer, and I have to swallow against my gag reflex.
The wound is garish. A raw, angry mess of scraped flesh stretching from his knee to his ankle, still oozing not-exactly-blood in places, fragments of gravel embedded like dark freckles into the ruined skin.
“Oh my gosh.” I cover my gasp with my hand. “How did he spend all night walking on this leg?”
“He probably thought it was more important to impress his asshole of a father than to live.” Lila’s voice is bitter, edged with old frustration.
She lifts his leg carefully, swinging it off the bed so his foot dangles into the basin.
Then she reaches into her duffel and pulls out a plastic bag with “saline solution” printed on the side.
She looks at me, her aquamarine eyes serious. “This is going to hurt like a bitch. If he wakes up, I need you to hold him down. He might jerk even if he’s out cold.”
I tighten the belt of my robe, suddenly very aware that I’m naked underneath it, and perch on the edge of the mattress beside Liam’s hip ready to push down on his shoulders if needed.
Lila pours the saline solution over the wound, and his body convulses. A strangled sound tears from his throat, not quite a scream, but nothing coherent. His torso jerks, and I pin him to the mattress. “Shhh, it’s okay,” I murmur. “Just lie still.”
Focusing on keeping Liam flat keeps me from thinking about Matt, or the lawsuit, or my parents losing their house. Or my dad enduring a similar amount of pain because he can’t afford his medications. For a moment, my world narrows down to taking care of this beautiful stranger.
Blood, pus, and tiny specks of gravel wash into the basin, the water turning red, then pink. Lila keeps washing the wound until the saline streams down clear. All the while, Liam thrashes and mutters incoherently, his fever-bright eyes never opening but rolling occasionally.
I’m grateful he’s not awake. Enduring this while conscious would be agony.
At some point, I stop pressing down and just watch. Lila works with steady movements despite the gruesome nature of the task. When the wound is clean, she reaches for a tube of antibiotic cream.
“Are you a doctor?” I ask.
She doesn’t glance up. “I went to med school but never started my residency.” A wry smile tugs at her lips. “Much to my parents’ disappointment, I got a doctorate in physical therapy instead.”
“Why didn’t he want to go to the hospital?”
“Same reason he went to a business gala with his leg like this.” She smooths cream over the raw flesh with gentle fingers.
“Not to disappoint his father. This is a small town. Everyone knows everything that happens.” She glances up at me, her grin turning sly.
“For example, I’ve already heard three different versions of the story about Liam’s secret wife stashed away at his resort. ”
My jaw drops.
Her smile widens. “Don’t worry.” She nods toward the corner where my wedding dress lies in a crumpled heap of dirty tulle and discarded underwear. “I won’t ask questions about the whole bridal situation.” She pauses, her eyes sparkling. “Unless you want me to.”
“I’m not his wife.” The words come out defensive. “And aren’t you his girlfriend?”
Lila grabs a packet of gauze with “non-stick” written in bold red letters on top and starts dressing the wound. “Best friend,” she says without looking up. “Since we were kids.”
“The kind where you’ve been secretly pining for each other for decades and are just waiting for a rainy night to confess your undying love? Or—”
“Or,” she interrupts while she finishes securing the tape on the bandage, “the kind where I never got over my high school boyfriend, and he teases me endlessly about it. And he has never been in a serious relationship, and I tease him endlessly about it.”
She stands up and grabs a clean towel from the bathroom stack, laying it over the comforter before she lifts Liam’s leg back on the bed.
“We drunkenly kissed once, and it was like kissing my brother.” She makes a gagging gesture. “Which is really gross because I have a twin, and the idea of kissing Preston—bleagh.” Another exaggerated gag.
I laugh, the sound unfamiliar in my mouth. It’s been forever since I laughed; the burst loosens the tension that’s been coiling behind my ribs for days leading up to the wedding.
“Good to know. I’ll update his Yelp reviews,” I joke. Even if I suspect kissing this man wouldn’t give me fraternal feelings.
Lila snaps off her blue gloves with a sharp thwack, tossing them in a bin, and empties the basin into the toilet, flushing and then rinsing it under the shower.
When she comes back, she declares, “I’m starving. They make a delicious French toast here. Want one?”
“Actually, yeah,” I say, surprised that after the call with Matt and the doom impending over my life, I can still work up an appetite. But I didn’t finish my dinner and had nothing else to eat all day.
Lila grabs the phone’s receiver from the bedside table, unbothered by the fact that it’s three thirty in the morning, and orders breakfast.
“Don’t worry,” she says as she hangs up. “I’ll tell the staff not to charge this to the room.”
“I’m not worried. He’s footing the bill for all this.” I gesture at the opulent suite.
Her smile turns sly again. “Really? And how did you manage that?”
I shrug and can’t resist grinning back. “Blackmail, of course.”
Lila throws her head back, laughing. When she stops chortling, she watches me for a beat, then glances at the bed where Liam sleeps, boneless and snoring.
“So,” she says, casual but not careless, “are you sticking around?”
I don’t know what I’m doing next. My mind won’t settle; it’s spinning like the wind outside that keeps throwing rain against the windows.
I stare up at Lila. “I have no fucking clue.”
She nods, studying my face. “Well, I hope you do.” A pause. “I like you. We’re friends now.”