Chapter 6
Hazy
An incessant beeping dragged Hazy out of a deep sleep.
“No, give it to me. I’m tired of watching the news. It’s like you’re ninety years old or something.” Lover’s voice registered first, his complaining a familiar comfort.
“Watching the news is not for old people. It’s good to stay informed on current events,” Beanie said.
Hazy could almost see the scuffle, though his eyes remained closed. Something clattered to the ground.
“Fuck, ow. Why would you do that?” Lover asked.
“Why would I do that? You started it!” Beanie sounded outraged.
Silence for several seconds, and then something jostled Hazy. He opened crusty, sleepy eyes to a blinding light and groaned. He tried to stretch, but his fingers were tangled, and the slight movement sent a bolt of pain through his leg.
“Fuck,” he said, and examined his surroundings.
Livy sat in a chair next to him, her fingers intertwined with his.
He squeezed her hand, thankful she cared enough to sit next to him while he slept.
The last time they’d been in a hospital together, she’d been the one in the bed while he held her hand, helpless.
Sixteen-year-old Livy had been in so much endometriosis pain she couldn’t stand on her own, and the doctors sent her home with ibuprofen and told her the pain and hemorrhaging were normal.
Over a decade later, conversations about women’s healthcare still fired him up.
He remembered his injury. His head hitting the ice and Robbie forcing him to lie down. The ambulance ride to the hospital. Going into surgery. He wouldn’t have gotten through the ordeal without Livy. Being on this end still sucked less than watching her suffer.
Lover and Beanie sat across the room, tussling over the remote control. A news anchor on the TV sat straight and covered a story about a local high school’s food drive.
At the sound of Hazy’s voice, Lover dropped the fight with Beanie and crossed the room to loom over him. Lover touched his face, sweeping sweaty hair off Hazy’s brow.
“You fucking jerk,” Lover scolded. “I worried about you.”
Hazy frowned and swatted Lover’s hand away.
“I’m fine. How’d the game go?”
A pretty brunette nurse in blue scrubs knocked twice on the door and stuck her head in. Beanie invited her inside. She maneuvered about the room, taking notes on various readings on the computers.
“Glad to see you’re awake,” she said.
“Just now.” Hazy nodded.
“How do you feel?”
Hazy took stock of his body. His leg throbbed. His eyelids were heavy as fuck. The pillow was a rock against his head. Harsh fluorescent lighting hurt his eyes. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.
“Could be better,” he said.
The nurse jotted some notes and lifted the blanket covering his lower body.
Livy dropped his hand and stood. He tracked her movements as she whispered into Beanie and Lover’s ears. Both men excused themselves from the room, and Livy shut the door behind them before rounding on him, hands on her hips.
“Could be better,” she said in a mocking tone. “For fuck’s sake, Connor.”
He swallowed, the motion doing nothing to help the dryness in his mouth.
“What?” he asked.
“You haven’t had pain meds in six hours. ‘Could be better’ is a goddamn understatement. If you don’t tell Amanda what hurts, she can’t fucking fix it for you.”
“I’ll be fine. A little pain never killed anyone.”
The nurse butted in with, “I can give you more drugs if you need them. What’s your pain on a scale of one to ten?”
Hazy debated his answer. Eight for sure. Maybe a nine. His leg hurt like hell.
“Like a six.”
Livy threw her hands in the air, stomping her foot. “Can you be so fucking for real right now? This is one of the worst injuries you could get as far as pain goes.”
The nurse set her clipboard on the end of Hazy’s bed and stalked over to the door, her expression icy.
“You need to leave,” she said to Livy.
Panic gripped him. He needed her to stay right fucking here and help him get through this.
“No!” he yelled before he could stop himself.
The nurse—Amanda—turned her stuck-up expression on him. “She’s impeding my ability to provide care. Hospital staff have the right to ask patients’ visitors to leave if they’re in the way. She’s in the way.”
“Amanda, forget the petty bullshit. Give him the pain medication he needs to manage this. It’s stupid for him to sit and suffer for no fucking reason.”
“I said you need to leave.”
Livy stormed out the door, and the nurse returned to Hazy’s side. She placed a blood-pressure cuff around his arm.
“I wanted her here.”
“It’s not your choice. Besides, now you can speak freely.”
“They can all hear everything. They’ll ask me later.”
The nurse pointed at the clock. “Visiting hours are over. You can see them tomorrow.”
Hazy sighed. “I feel like shit. Give me the good stuff.”
If he couldn’t talk to his friends, he might as well sleep, and he needed stronger painkillers to do so.
When he woke again, the sun shone through a crack in the curtains, illuminating the dark room. A hand held his, and a smile touched his lips before he opened his eyes.
“You were right,” he said.
Livy’s voice didn’t greet him. “Duh, I told you.”
Hazy yanked his hand free from the imposter, and it flew to cover his racing heart. When he realized it was Lover, he relaxed.
“Fuck, you scared me,” he said.
“What was I right about?”
“Fucking nothing. I thought you were Livy.”
“She had work. You get me this time. Someone had to hold your hand.”
Hazy frowned. “Nobody had to hold my hand. I’m a big boy.”
Lover snatched Hazy’s hand from where it rested on his chest and pressed it to his cheek. “If I need the hospital, somebody better always hold my hand.”
A laugh escaped him. He pulled his hand away from Lover’s face but allowed his friend to keep hold.
“Sure. If it comes to it, I’ll get right on that.”
The door opened, flooding the room with light. Beanie walked in, bearing a full drink carrier. He set the drinks on the bedside table and pulled his own drip coffee free.
Lover claimed an iced caramel macchiato (double sweetener, disgusting). Which left an iced vanilla latte for Hazy. He stabbed a straw into the lid, but before it could touch his lips, Lover stayed his hand.
“Are you allowed to drink caffeine?” he asked.
He glared at him.
Beanie said, “Nope. Decaf.”
“Thank you,” Hazy replied, though the statement halved his enthusiasm for the drink.
Beanie tossed the cardboard drink carrier and sat opposite Lover.
“Why aren’t you at practice?” Hazy asked.
Lover shrugged and gulped his sugar rush in a cup.
“Practice ended an hour ago,” Beanie replied. “Plus, we’re both taking maintenance days.”
“For what?”
Lover said, “If you weren’t broken, I’d smack you. What the fuck do you mean, ‘for what?’ To sit with your dumbass in the hospital.”
Beanie said, “We wouldn’t have gotten much done, anyway.”
“Have they announced anything yet?” Hazy asked.
Lover shook his head. “They have you as day-to-day right now.”
Hazy hummed. “I’ll be out for a while, right? Like six weeks at least?”
Beanie’s nostrils flared, his expression grim.
Hazy asked, “Right?” again.
“Definitely at least six weeks,” Lover confirmed.
“Buuutt,” Beanie said. “It will probably be longer.”
Hazy saw red. Six weeks was standard for broken bones. It couldn’t be that fucking bad.
“Why would it be longer than six weeks? I’ll shake it right off.”
“I don’t think you will,” Beanie said, reaching out to squeeze Hazy’s shoulder.
Hazy shifted in the bed to get more comfortable, but pain radiated through his leg. He grimaced.
“Fuck, that hurts.”
Beanie leaned over and pushed the button on a remote next to Hazy’s head.
Within a minute the rude nurse from the previous night appeared.
She pushed past Lover and grabbed a clipboard off the wall.
After making a few notes and updating a whiteboard with the current time, she addressed Hazy.
She asked the normal check-in questions, and when he admitted his leg hurt like a bitch, she emptied a syringe of clear liquid into his IV.
Beanie and Lover stared at their phones while she went through the motions of her examination.
The nurse had barely finished and disappeared out the door when Livy appeared wearing a delighted expression and boring gray business clothes. Why the fuck did she wear so much gray and beige these days? He hated it.
“You’re awake!” she said, her voice filled with fake cheer.
Hazy frowned. “Why are you talking like that?”
The smile fell from her face. “Oh, sorry,” she said. “Customer service voice. How are you?”
The drugs were taking hold. Hazy bit his lip to hide a grin and said, “Nurse Livy to the rescue. You’re too late. The mean one already drugged me.”
Her mouth popped open in shock and hurt filled her eyes. Fuck. He hadn’t meant to poke at a sore spot. He didn’t know why she dropped out of nursing school, but apparently it wasn’t on the table for appropriate teasing topics.
She glared at him, her open, friendly demeanor suddenly closed off. “I swear to God, if you don’t tell me how you’re feeling, I’m going to murder you.”
Hazy raised his eyebrows and attempted another lighthearted ribbing. “I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to threaten the patients.”
“Oh, are you going to lodge a complaint? I can get my supervisor if you’d like to speak with them.” Instead of laughing at his silliness, she said it all serious and annoyed.
She didn’t find any of his jokes funny. “Fine,” he mumbled. “I’m feeling better with the drugs.”
“Are you hungry?” Again, no humor.
As she asked, his stomach grumbled. “Yeah.”
“I can have the kitchen send something.”
“Don’t bother. We already ordered lunch; it’s on the way,” Lover said. She gave him a fond smile, and Hazy frowned. That should have been his smile.
She placed a kiss on his forehead. “I’ll be off in a couple of hours, and I’ll stop by before I head home. Text me if you need anything. I’m an elevator ride away and I’ll come running.”