Chapter Twelve
The Ridge House wasblissfully quiet when they walked in, and no one stopped them as they made their way slowly upstairs.Dale got them inside his suite and locked the door because that was a thing he could do with his hands while his head prowled.
Oren sat at the kitchen island like a stubborn patient, surprisingly steady while Ty worked.Dale had thrown a first aid kit at them and Ty had it open, hands clean, and everything he needed laid out before him in minutes.He swabbed, glued, wrapped and cared for their man.Oren’s breath hitched twice, and he turned it into a joke both times because of course he did.
“Hold still,” Dale practically growled.
“Translation,” Ty said without looking up, deadpan.“When Dale says, ‘hold still,’ he means, ‘I’m sorry you’re in pain.’”
Oren’s mouth quirked.
Dale paced three lengths of tile, came back.“Stop hurting.”
“Translation,” Ty said dryly again without looking up, “I hate it when you are hurting and I can’t do a thing about it.”
“You’re not funny, Ty,” Dale muttered as he continued to pace.
“Uh-huh,” Ty said.“Keep telling yourself that, big man.”He held a butterfly strip in place and counted under his breath.“Eight, nine, ten...”He glanced up at Dale.“You’re doing the glare face again.Try an expression with fewer teeth.”
Dale unclenched his jaw.“I’m not glaring.”
“Translation,” Ty said, still not smiling.“He’s glaring.He was also scared shitless.”
Oren rolled his head to look at Dale.“I’m here, Dale.I’m okay, thanks to the both of you and the team.”
That landed where it needed to.Dale nodded once.The growl in his chest didn’t leave.It just stopped demanding to be let out quite so viciously.
Ty taped the last edge of a dressing he’d placed around one of Oren’s injured wrists and slid a hand along Oren’s forearm, checking for heat.
He looked up to see Oren staring at him.“You’re pretty,” he told him.“In a punched-by-an-idiot kind of way.”
“It certainly wasn’t how I planned to spend my day,” Oren said.
Ty finally smiled, small and real.“There is that.”He packed the kit away, efficient and neat.“Okay.Rules for the next few days.Water.Food.No showers for eight hours or the glue sulks.Sleep horizontal.”His eyes cut to Dale.“And no pacing trenches in the floorboards.”
Dale grunted.He wasn’t promising anything.
Oren reached out as he walked past, wrapped his fingers loosely around Dale’s wrist and left them there.“He’ll try,” he told Ty.“It’s the best he can do.”
