“No,” I shake my head, then cringe. “I meanyes, it’s okay. It’s more than okay. I wanted that, too. I just thought…” I trail off, unable to verbalize how I’d felt when we parted ways after our shoot.
I’d been the brattiest I’d ever been, when I’d wanted to prove what a good sub I am. I felt like maybe I was too much work, that I can’t follow instructions, and that I’d blown any chance at having a private repeat session with him, let alone anything more.
His eyes bore into mine, his expression and tone serious as he prods, “You thought?”
“I…should get back to work.” I turn back to the electrical panel with my heart in my throat and my thoughts all jumbled.
“Miles.”
Oh, God, that voice…
Shaking my head, I start to isolate the faulty section of wiring from the rest. I open my mouth to tell him that we will talk, but that I need to concentrate first, but the horror of my own mistake hits me moments before the pain registers.
I never de-energized the system.
I’m wearing rubber-soled shoes, but the shock to the system still reverberates through me, making me fall backwards. Dimly, I hear Dmitri call out, but I surrender to darkness before I even hit the floor.
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 aboutpossible 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 ableto 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.”
