Page 92 of Bad Attitude
Steven pushes gauze into the wound, packing it down with his forceps. Declan tenses.
“Is he feeling this?”
“Oh, yes.” Steven doesn’t look up, voice mild. “Hold his hand, if you want. Talk to him.”
I walk around the bed, climbing on enough to be able to reach Declan. His hand grips mine when I take it, and I nearly fall apart right there. My chest loosens for the first time since Beverly Hills, and I can’t blink back the tears beforeone falls.
“Are the pain meds working?” I ask softly. “Are you feeling better?”
His eyes flutter open, finding mine. “You have… three heads,” he says in a dreamy voice. “Three times… as… beautiful.”
“You’re three times as annoying.” But I squeeze his hand.
Steven smirks, working a needle and thread through the hole with neat efficiency.
“Annoy…” Declan murmurs. “I’m not ’noying.”
He’s totally out of it, pupils dilated.
Steven puts a clean pad over the wound, sealing it with surgical tape. “Going to roll him now. You’ll have to hold, please.”
He works fast, pushing Declan onto his side and doing whatever he’s doing at the exit wound. I grip his shoulder, over his Marine tattoo.
“Were you ever wounded in the Marines?”
“No,” he mumbles. “It didn’t appeal.”
His eyes close again, breathing gentle and slow, and I hold him while Steven works. Declan’s never looked more vulnerable, and he’s trusting me.
I bite my lip, watching him lie there, drugged. Wondering if he would want me to let his wife know he’s injured. The wife I’m not actually sureisa wife anymore. Could she simply be a friend? One he buysjewelryfor?
Have I blamed him for a crime he’s not guilty of?
I don’t know. But the question won’t leave me alone. My earlier certainty is in fragments; afterthe interrogation on our ride, my gut now tells me I’m wrong.
“All done,” Steven says. “Leg is next.”
We roll Declan back, and he’s limp and compliant.
“Hold his leg, please,” Steven tells me. “He might move involuntarily.”
I kneel up on the bed, reaching over Declan with one hand on his knee, one on his thigh above the wound. Steven irrigates again from the saline bag, then he probes the hole with his forceps, and a trickle of fresh, bright blood leaks out. He’s methodical, not in a rush, the minutes passing. I want to tell him to hurry the fuck up.
Declan makes no sound as the doctor works, but his leg twitches under my hands. It seems ages before Steven finally draws out a squashed, deformed bullet, surprisingly small.
“Hollow point,” he says with disapproval, dropping it with a dull thud onto the nightstand.
“Is that bad?”
Steven grimaces. “Makes more mess and harder to get out. But it’s out now, and that’s the important thing.”
He washes the wound again, more thoroughly than before, and at this point I’m resigned to buying a new mattress. Then he sews it up with neat little stitches, puts a sterile pad over the top, and wraps a bandage around it.
“And there we are,” he says at last, straightening and easing his back. “You can let go.”
I’m grateful for that, my arms aching from holdinghim for so long. It must’ve been fifteen minutes, if not more. “Are we all done? Will he be all right?”
“Yes, all done, and he’ll be just fine.” Steven sighs, then starts packing his bits away. “It’s late, and I’m going back home. I’ll leave the IV up and come and get it in a day or two.” He sets two bottles of pills beside the bloody bullet on the nightstand, along with fresh pads, bandages, and some surgical tape. He snaps his case shut and stands up, making eye contact. “Read the directions on the bottles and keep the wound clean and dressed. No exertion, no stairs, anddefinitelyno riding.”
