Bo shot to his feet. “Are you okay? Want me to get the nurse?”
“Nah,” Lucky choked out. “I’ll be okay.” Maybe. One day. A million years from now.
“Can I get you anything?”
Bo’s eager puppy act wore Lucky out. “No. But I gotta tell ya, I had the strangest dream.”
“What kind of dream?”
“I dreamed Nestor showed up and told me Victor didn’t send those drugs to Daytona.”
All the color left Bo’s face. He nodded toward the side table. Rett’s sunflowers sat next to Charlotte’s whatever-they-were, and a long-stemmed red rose from Bo with the dragon keychain hanging beneath.
All were dwarfed but a huge arrangement of orange blossoms. Orange blossoms? Where had Nestor gotten orange blossoms? The scent filled Lucky’s nostrils, taking him back in time to a house in Florida, surrounded by orange trees.
Victor’s vacation home, where Lucky opened the windows to let the sweetness perfume the house.
Oh shit. Not a dream.
Chapter Fourteen
Lucky understood the need for an assigned nurse experienced with liver transplants, but was stalking in the guy’s job description?
Every few minutes, Nurse Andy insisted on fluffing Lucky’s pillow, taking his blood pressure, or otherwise hanging around trailing the scent of Eau de Hospital in his wake. What’d the guy do? Marinate in peroxide? There’d been a time when Lucky simply hung his own monikers on people. Now, learning names worked better to keep track so he’d know who to chew out later.
Andy rearranged the water pitcher on the table.
Lucky tried for a scowl known to send rookies screaming from the room. “Don’t you have other patients?”
“Now, Mr. Harrison, until we’re done here, no one else matters but you, the patient I’m with now.” Andy fluttered his fingers. Creepy much?
Pressure cuff on one arm and an IV in the other, Lucky counted ceiling tiles. Sooner or later the overly attentive nurse would wander off and allow some privacy. An itch, rightthere, demanded attention.
Pressure good, pressure cuff off. Andy leaving in five, four, three, two…
Andy fluffed Lucky’s pillow again and rearranged the chair by the bed. “You’ll be going to a private room soon and won’t feel so much like a zoo exhibit.”
Zoo exhibit?
The perk of having a window into the hall to do some people watching took an evil spin. Good ole Andy had to go and remind Lucky the window worked both ways.
Asshole.
The discomfort grew fiercer. Lucky squirmed, trying to scratch the itch behind his balls with a little thigh rubbing. The itching kicked up a notch.
Why did Lucky even care? The him of two or three years ago would’ve reached down and had a good scratch no matter who saw what. Damn. Bo’s good manners done rubbed off on him again.
Nurse Andy stayed. And stayed. And stayed.
What the hell. Lucky reached his unencumbered hand beneath the sheet and attacked the itch. Ah, much better.
Andy’s lips twitched.
One laugh and Lucky’d share his pain. “Well, what am I supposed to do when nobody’ll leave me alone long enough to scratch my balls in peace?” A passing nurse whipped her head around and quickly averted her eyes from the bit of sheet rising up and down with the motions of Lucky’s hand.
He stopped mid-scratch. In about five minutes, she’d be running her mouth about the patient in ICU she’d caught jacking off.
He resumed scratching. From what Charlotte told him, some days hospital work got boring. Public service. Adding something to talk about to someone else’s day.
