Amused now, I shake my head, reaching for the hand loosely clenching my shirt and tightening her hold. “Well, you’re going to want to hold on tight. I don’t have anesthetic, so you’re going to have to either grit your teeth through it or drown yourself in alcohol. Which would you prefer?”
Her eyes dart down to the bottle of gin I gathered, and her nose wrinkles adorably. “Got anything better? Gin makes me sick.”
Not a moment later, Baxter comes back with a new cherry-flavored sucker and an unopened bottle of whiskey, wiggling it at her in offering. “This better?”
Without answering, Maddie holds her hand out and wiggles her fingers, accepting the bottle as soon as Bax uncaps it. My eyes almost bulge out of my fucking head when she sits up slightly and downs three whole mouthfuls without a single cringe. She shocks me further when she pulls the bottle away, licks her lips, and admires the bottle with a small appreciative nod, right before she takes three more mouthfuls.
“Okay, I’m ready. Fix me, needle man,” she demands, not a single tremor in her voice that tells me this really isn’t anything new to her. What the hell kind of shit has she gotten into in her short life that not even taking a needle to the forehead scares her? Hell, I think I’m more scared for her, and I’m an expert with a needle and thread. I don’t bother analyzing why that is, certain I already know the answer but refusing to acknowledge it.
Sharing a look with Baxter, and then Caiden when he comes back to the living room with a fresh pair of sweats, I send them a silent plea to keep her calm just in case and prepare the suture kit. Bax offers her the sucker, which she accepts with childlike giddiness, popping it in her mouth with a little hum before she settles and tightens her hand on my shirt, pressing a little harder against my back as though she’s offering me a hug of comfort.
“All right, brace yourself,” I announce, hovering over Maddie’s head and watching for her reaction. When she only blinks owlishly at me, not an ounce of fear showing on her face, I blow out my own steadying breath and go to work.
I receive only a slight wince and wrinkling of the nose when I pierce her skin with the suture needle, her hand flexing against my back only once before she relaxes once more. I check on her, finding her watching Caid as he fiddles with his phone. Pretty sure I hear a camera shutter, and I only glance up once to find Ryan standing nearby with his phone in hand, taking photos of the scene his sleepy bedhead has stumbled on.
“I don’t know what’s happening, and I’m pretty sure it’s a dream or something, but I figured I’d take a photo just to be sure,” he explains, right before he almost stumbles into the kitchen in only a pair of sleep shorts, a loose-fitting white tee, and his hair a sleep-rumpled mess.
Ignoring him, I turn back to my patient, tugging the thread through her pierced skin as gently as I can manage. Surprisingly, Maddie isn’t fazed, her eyes now firmly planted on Caiden’s phone that he’s turned toward her. I recognize the intro toGame of Thronesinstantly, and an actual smile breaks free as I stab the needle through Maddie’s flesh once more and all she does is sing the theme song under her breath.
Sure enough, she doesn’t react at all after the first run-through, making her the best patient I’ve ever stitched up in allmy twenty-eight years of life. I work through every stitch while she sucks on her sucker, watches the show Caiden is more than happy to play on his phone for her, and occasionally pauses to take a sip of whiskey Baxter keeps nudging toward her. Ryan is the only one who keeps himself occupied, eating cereal at the island counter while watching the scene before him. I’m sure it looks as ridiculous as it feels.
By the time I’m done with the last stitch, tying it with expert precision and snipping the thread, Madison has tipped the scales into wasted. As she giggles over a particularly gruesome scene where some poor guy gets shot by an arrow while he’s sitting on the toilet by none other than his own son, making me worry for her mental state more now than I had before, it becomes increasingly obvious that she’s three sheets to the wind.
“All right, Captain Giggleshits. Let’s get you home,” Caiden snickers, turning the show off and moving back enough to give Maddie space to sit upright. She’s a little unsteady, Caid’s and my hands going to her back to keep her upright while she giggles even harder.
Seeing that Caid has her safely, Maddie’s eyes widen right before she reaches for his phone, so I leave them to it before I go about cleaning up the mess left over. I’m pretty sure I hear a camera shutter sound followed closely by Caiden’s snickers, but I pay more attention to discarding the sutures, used gauze, and wrappers that now lie on the floor and couch.
Just as I’m done, I lift myself from the floor, closing the first-aid kit just as Madison sighs. I look over and watch her prod around the Band-Aid I’ve placed over the stitches. She doesn’t flinch, only nods as though she’s impressed, and I ignore the satisfaction that forms in my chest at that look.
“What a day,” she laughs, and I’m about to leave just as the drama queen scares ten years off my life when her eyes rollinto the back of her head and she goes completely limp, falling back against the couch with a bounce.
“Oh my God,” Caid breathes, sounding just as stunned as I feel. This girl went through taking a hockey stick to the forehead and stitches without anesthetic, but it’s the alcohol that’s bested her.
Shutting my eyes for a long moment, fighting against the amusement bubbling in my chest, I shake my head before gesturing to Mads. “Bax, think you can take her to her apartment?”
“Easily,” he agrees readily, scooping the famous photographer off our couch and into his arms just as easily as he could pick up a sack of potatoes.
I catch Caiden’s frown as he complains, “I could have done it.”
“Let it go, man,” Ryan laughs, washing the small number of dishes in the sink, only turning to watch Bax carry Maddie carefully out of our apartment.
Like a bunch of idiots, we all grow silent the moment our door closes, each one of us listening for the sound of Maddie’s door opening and closing before the very faint sound of Baxter’s footsteps travels through the ceiling separating our apartments. Hell, I’m holding my breath, worried I might miss something.
It’s only then I realize I’m acting stupid, so I blow out the air trapped in my lungs slowly before muttering, “I’m going to have a shower. Today has been weird.”
I don’t wait for a reply, throwing the garbage in the trash can before ditching Ryan and Caid. The last thing I hear before I go is Caiden petulantly muttering, “My muscles are just as good as that asshole’s, damn it.”
I’m grinning as I walk into the bathroom, shaking my head at the absolute chaos today has been.
Chapter Twelve
Maddie
“Oh my God, I’ve gone blind,” I whisper into the darkness that surrounds me as soon as my consciousness snaps back like a rubber band, the headache pulsing behind my eyes becoming a secondary concern to my missing eyesight. What the hell happened between the first sip of whiskey and now that has rendered me sightless? And why can’t I remember it?
A bubble of panic appears in my chest as I sit upright from a familiar-smelling cloud of softness, my hands gripping tightly to the comforter I’d know the soft crinkle of even if I were dead. How am I in my bed? How did I get here? And why can’t I see anything?
Whimpering as the panic grows with all the speed of a spreading wildfire, I release my comforter and begin slapping against my bed, hoping to find my cell phone. Not sure what good my cell will do, given that I’m blind now, but hell, what’s a girl to do when she wakes up without properly functioning eyes and no clue how it happened?
