"This queen won't take no for an answer," he explained, pointing at the guy who was still standing behind him looking like a complete creep.
As I was leaning in again to talk into his ear, Josh's eyes went wide like saucers, and he spun around faster than I thought physically possible to shove the man back. I was an idiot — let's get this straight — so I didn't move an inch as I watched the big guy shove Josh back toward me. A split second later, my blonde friend threw up his hand and reared his arm back to throw a fist in his stalker's direction.
The unfortunate part?
My head was in the same spot his elbow needed to be.
Chapter 33
"Quit touching my face!" I spat out, swatting Josh's trembling hand away.
"I'm so sorry, Booger!" the poor guy cried out while reaching for my face with his fingertips again.
I wasn't mad at him, but I was mad at the fact that I got elbowed right smack under my eye. My cheekbone was throbbing and tender, so the touching wasn't helping any. The one thing I was glad about: even though he got me in the face, Josh didn't stop. He went ahead and punched the guy right in the jaw before turning around to make sure I was okay. Thank God. I would've been pissed to not only be collateral damage, but to also be collateral damage in something that wasn't worth it. The-Day-that-Josh-Wheeler-Punched-A-Guy-While-Also-Elbowing-Kat-In-The-Face would go down in the record books as monumental.
"Do you want to go to the hospital?" Nicole asked from my other side, bending at the knee to get a closer look at my damaged face.
Going to the hospital was the last thing I wanted to do. Besides being an unnecessary expense, how dumb would I look going into the emergency room with a black eye I got from my gay best friend at a gay bar? Yeah, no.
"No way," I told her, covering my cheekbone with my hand while we made our way to her car. Right after the punch/elbow, we hustled out of the club to avoid Nikki going to jail for getting into a fight with the big guy who had been harassing Josh.
"You might have a concussion," Josh piped up.
I snickered. "There is no way in hell you hit me hard enough to give me a concussion."
"I hit you hard enough to bust up your face!" he interjected, a scandalous look crossing his features like he couldn't believe that I doubted his physical power.
"Don't sound so proud of yourself!" I hissed back at him, shoving my elbow in the direction of his ribs.
His face blanched as he remembered that it wasn't cool he hit me. "It was an accident!"
Nicole groaned while spinning her keys around her index finger. "I get that you don't want to go to the hospital, but I don't want you to fall asleep and never wake up again. How about we call Ryan and see if he can check you out at least?"
I knew that there wasn't going to be a way for me to get out of it when they were both worried about me. I'd be exactly the same if it were one of them. Ryan, Zoey's brother, was the lesser of two evils when it came down to seeing him or getting hauled to the emergency room where there were people who actually had a legitimate reason for being there— you know, gunshot wounds, broken appendages, stab wounds, that sort of stuff. Ryan was a medical student in his third year of residency; we'd been calling him Doctor Quinn since before he'd even gotten into medical school.
"Fine," I grumbled as we made it to Nicole's Mercedes.
Fifteen minutes later, Nikki and I were pulling into the apartment building Ryan lived at. We'd sent Josh home, knowing that there was no reason for him to come, too. Ryan opened the door wearing only sleeping pants and a thin undershirt. It was only a little after midnight, but I knew he was busy working at the hospital at all hours of the day. So, when he yawned lazily and waved us in, I felt bad.
"What happened to your face?" he asked quietly, standing just inches away from me.
I sighed as he reached up to lightly graze the pained skin on my cheek. "Josh elbowed her in the face," Nicole explained as she walked through his living room to plop down on his couch. She had called him on our way over, simply telling him that he had a very important patient that needed his care. Ryan, being the sweet soul that he is, didn't think twice about inviting us over when he was clearly on his way to bed. "I'm going to take a nap. Wake me up when you're done making sure she's going to live."
Ryan shook his head and leaned even closer to me, his clear gray eyes peering into mine. "Are you dizzy? Nauseous?" he asked, and I shook my head. I felt fine except for the on and off again throbbing from my face. "No headache?"
"No, I'm fine. My face just hurts," I admitted.
He sighed and smiled. "I think you're fine, but if your head starts to feel funny you need to go to the doctor immediately, okay? Let me go grab you some ice." It was hard not to look at Ryan's perfectly round ass as he walked toward the refrigerator to rifle through the freezer for an ice pack. I'd grabbed that ass before, and my hands were well aware that it was a good one. I'd always liked Ryan in a very subtle way, but he was always busy with school and always had a parade of women after him. He was smart, sweet, and very handsome, so it was inevitable that he was a magnet for women.
"Thanks," I said to him after he handed me the soft, blue ice pack.
"You're going to have a hell of a shiner tomorrow," he teased, leaning against the kitchen counter behind him. "Can I take a picture?"
"Why?"
He grinned before grabbing his cell phone from the counter. Holding it up, I pulled the ice pack away from my face and winced. "So I have something to look at when I have a bad day and need to laugh."
"Fine," I sighed and gave him a small smile as the shutter in his phone chimed.
