“Janet, it’s fine. We’ll get him ice cream if he stays calm.”
Something cold sounded wonderful to help soothe the burning of my throat.
“Kay.” But I still didn’t move.
“Can I help you move?” Sir asked after a moment.
I nodded, knowing I wouldn’t get my body to do it otherwise.
Another press of a kiss to the top of my head before Sir removed his arm from around me, only to use it to push against my shoulder. My body followed the motion too quickly except for the hold on his shirt. That left my arm pulling him right along with me.
“Let go now.”
Looking up at Sir’s tired eyes, my fingers let go of the soft material. When I did so, his eyes were sad, but a small encouraging smile lifted a corner of his lips.
“That’s my good...” He trailed off, looking at the other two people in the room.
“Left wrists’ cuts are healing well.” I didn’t turn my eyes away from Sir’s face as my arm was lifted, then sat back down. Then, the nurse reached across me and picked up my other arm. “Same with this one. The IV placements are still bruised badly.”
She paused, letting my arm down slowly. “Would you lift his gown up so I can see his ribs?”
Sir did as asked. I didn’t move my eyes as whatever the heck I was wearing was pulled up, bearing almost my entire front to the cold air of the room.
My eyes leaked tears as Sir’s gaze left mine. His eyes stayed on whatever he saw for a few seconds before returning to my face.
I didn’t know what he saw in my gaze, but one hand cupped my cheek, his thumb swiping under one of my eyes.
“Bruising is dark, but per the last scans that were run, there was no internal bleeding. Broken and fractured ribs. More so on one side over the other.” The nurse’s touch was light as before, but the pain was there with the slightest bit of pressure as she poked around the edges of what I assumed was the bruising.
“I’d like to see him up and moving in about an hour.” The doctor spoke. “John? You need to take some deep breaths for me now.”
“Go ahead.”
“That’s not my…name.” Although, I did take a breath as deep as I could, which wasn’t as much as all before the pain cut it off.
“I know, but to keep you safe, it has to be while you’re here,” Sir answered. Then, towards the doctor, “I’ll remind him occasionally.”
The other man hummed. He didn’t like me, or was it Sir he didn’t like? Or both of us?
“All tests that were run last time have come back clean. The drugs that were given to him before he got here have cleared his system.”
“And you still won’t tell me what they are, will you?” Sir asked, his gaze going straight to the doctor.
“No. The detective has the results of those.”
“I need you to sit now.”
Sir moved, causing my eyes to widen and my heart to pick up speed slowly. Before I could move and grab ahold of him, he was sitting, and my upper body was being forced to sit as the bed moved.
As soon as I was sitting up, Sir was there, never once not touching me. This time, he held my hand, the one that was closest to him. The nurse fixed my gown and moved a blanket to cover my feet again after checking both ankles.
“Keep your eyes on me.” Like I needed that order, I never wanted to let him leave my sight again.
My head leaned against the back of the bed as the nurse started to remove a bandage from aroundmy neck. Now that I knew it was there, the itchiness began from within the skin.
Before my hand reached my neck, Sir pulled my other hand into his grasp with my other one.
“No touching right now. You’ll pull the glue apart again, and we don’t need that.” Sir spoke gently to me as if he were scared I was going to freak out again.
