“How’s that?” I step back to take a look at my work, making sure his lower leg is fully stabilized.
“Much better.” Chase doesn’t even look at his leg. His attention is riveted on me, and for one hot minute, I’m convinced he knows all my dirty thoughts.
Hell, I’m convinced he shares them.
“Vitals, Miss Payne.” Nurse Rogers makes an impatient noise in the back of her throat. “We don’t have all day.”
Yes, Nurse Buzzkill.
I fly through Chase’s vitals, refill his water pitcher, and before I know it, we’re moving on to the next patient.
The rest of the day passes in a blur. We’re shorthanded—again—and I haven’t had a chance to check on Chase all afternoon. He’s been unusually quiet today, so when there’s finally a lull in patient calls and Nurse Rogers takes a break, I head down to his room.
I find him playing on his phone, the TV set to a rerun ofThe Big Bang Theory. I love this show, and I can’t say I’m surprised Chase is a fan too. Just another thing we have in common, I guess.
He looks up and smiles when he sees me, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Hey.”
“Hey, yourself,” I say, studying the shadows under his eyes and the tension lines around his mouth. He’s been in the hospital for a week and half—which would take a toll on anyone—but something’s not right. Just this morning he was in high spirits. “You’ve been awfully quiet today. I wanted to make sure you weren’t down here getting into trouble before I head out for the day.”
Chase gives me his bestwho me?expression, but says nothing.
That’s when I realize his IV is missing.
I pull up his chart on the computer and quickly review the latest notes. He should still be getting painkillers, so…where’s the IV?
Suspicion creeps in and I turn to Chase, who’s still watching me, lips pressed flat. “What happened to your IV?”
He shrugs, like a disappearing IV is one of life’s great mysteries.
I move around the side of the bed and then I see it, lying in a tangled mess next to him.
That is so not okay.
I plant a hand on my hip and point to the discarded IV. “Explain.”
“It fell out,” he says, unconvincingly.
“Yeah, I’m going to call bullshit, because IVs don’t justfall out,” I say, making air quotes.
Not if they’re done properly, anyway.
“That one did.” He freaking shrugs again and I swear if he does that one more time…
“Chase,” I say, voice wavering, because what the hell was he thinking? This is a surefire way to get himself another infection. And honestly, why would he cut himself off his pain medication when he so obviously needs it? This whole thing is crazy-pants bananas. “You can’t just take out your IV whenever you feel like it.”
“Really?” He makes a show of glancing down at his IV-free arm. “Because I just did.”
I throw my hands up in disbelief. On the one hand, yay for telling the truth. On the other, WTF? “You know Nurse Rogers is going to make me replace it, right?”
“I do.”
“Then why—”Holy. Crap. He did this for me. Because I said I needed the practice. My stupid heart melts faster than a single-scoop of mint chocolate chip in July. No one volunteers for an IV stick. No one in their right mind, anyway. “I can’t believe you did this,” I whisper. “For me.”
“You said you needed the practice,” he returns, meeting my eye. “Besides, compared to a busted leg, what’s one little needle?”
I mean, he’s not wrong, but it’s too much. If he knew the truth…
“You shouldn’t have—”
