Liam’s eyes fly open—unfocused, glassy—and he makes a noise between a groan and a protest.
“Up, Rocky,” Lila barks. “Move your ass to the bed.”
He blinks at her, recognition filtering through the haze. “Cally?”
“Bed. Now.”
She helps hoist him up, and he rises like a zombie from the grave, swaying on his feet. They shamble together toward the California king, where he collapses onto the mattress, face-first, and goes completely still.
Lila rolls him over to the left side and takes off his shoes. Without batting an eyelash, she undoes his belt and unbuttons his pants. The action is neutral, practical. There’s nothing sexual about it, but I’m oddly fascinated by the familiarity. The implicit trust.
She drags the pants down his hips, struggling when the fabric catches at his calves. The left leg is more difficult to pull off, the material on this side tighter.
“Damn it,” she mutters, tugging harder.
I avert my eyes from the black boxer briefs that come into view. It seems indelicate to stare at an unconscious man’sunderwear, even if he’s the one who barged in here uninvited. “Should I wait in the other room?”
“Are you squeamish about blood?”
“No.”
“Then I’m going to need your help.”
She finally gets the pants all the way off and hisses through her teeth. I force myself to look.
A bandage is wrapped around his left calf—or what was a bandage. Now it’s a sodden mess of gauze, the white fabric stained a gruesome gradient from yellow to brown to a deep, wet crimson.
Lila flings off his socks and looks up at his slack face, her expression darkening. “You moron.”
She stands and disappears into the bathroom. Water runs, followed by the snap of latex. When she returns, she’s wearing blue surgical gloves.
“Bring the basin, please,” she instructs. “And brace yourself.”
Lila peels away the gauze. The outer layers come off easily enough despite being crusty and stiff, but the deeper she goes, the worse it gets.
“You sure you won’t pass out?” she asks, glancing up at me.
“Yeah.”
She strips away the last layer, and I have to swallow against my gag reflex.
The wound is garish. A raw, angry mess of scraped flesh stretching from his knee to his ankle, still oozing not-exactly-blood in places, fragments of gravel embedded like dark freckles into the ruined skin.
“Oh my gosh.” I cover my gasp with my hand. “How did he spend all night walking on this leg?”
“He probably thought it was more important to impress his asshole of a father than to live.” Lila’s voice is bitter, edged with old frustration. She lifts his leg carefully, swinging it off the bedso his foot dangles into the basin. Then she reaches into her duffel and pulls out a plastic bag with “saline solution” printed on the side.
She looks at me, her aquamarine eyes serious. “This is going to hurt like a bitch. If he wakes up, I need you to hold him down. He might jerk even if he’s out cold.”
I tighten the belt of my robe, suddenly very aware that I’m naked underneath it, and perch on the edge of the mattress beside Liam’s hip ready to push down on his shoulders if needed.
Lila pours the saline solution over the wound, and his body convulses. A strangled sound tears from his throat, not quite a scream, but nothing coherent. His torso jerks, and I pin him to the mattress. “Shhh, it’s okay,” I murmur. “Just lie still.”
Focusing on keeping Liam flat keeps me from thinking about Matt, or the lawsuit, or my parents losing their house. Or my dad enduring a similar amount of pain because he can’t afford his medications. For a moment, my world narrows down to taking care of this beautiful stranger.
Blood, pus, and tiny specks of gravel wash into the basin, the water turning red, then pink. Lila keeps washing the wound until the saline streams down clear. All the while, Liam thrashes and mutters incoherently, his fever-bright eyes never opening but rolling occasionally.
I’m grateful he’s not awake. Enduring this while conscious would be agony.
