Page 45 of Fake You

“Nah, it’s cool, go.” He was really struggling to speak, he must have been in real pain.

“All right, well, call me if you need anything.” Drew nodded wincing again. “Oh, and, Bear?”

“Yeah, man?”

“Don’t tell the others… yet.”

“Huh? Okay… if you’re sure?”

Another nod. Another wince. “Thanks for bringing the kit over, dude. I appreciate it.”

When he referred to the others, I guessed he meant the guys who’d been at Rollergirl with him that first night we’d met, though I knew next to nothing about him, so I could equally have been way off base on that.

“’Kay, bye. I’ll call you.”

Once the door had closed behind Bear, I focused on Drew again, squatting next to him again, as I reached for the first aid kit.

“Who did this?”

He shook his head resolutely, and I decided to let it drop. I knew how stubborn he was, and he wasn’t about to tell me anything he didn’t want to. In the end, it didn’t matter anyway. His injuries were what they were, no matter who’d inflicted them.

I reached up to dab at the high gash above his eyebrow, noting how he shrank away from me.

“This needs sutures. Let me drive you to a doctor.”

“No.” He pressed his lips together in a hard line, and closed his eyes.

“You stupid, stubborn fuck. Thank God your nose isn’t broken, but I know your ribs are, and this cut is going to take so much longer to heal if you don’t get it closed together properly.” I waited a few beats, and when I got no response, even though I knew he’d heard me, I decided to get on with just patching him up as best I could. He’d made a good call, asking Bear to bring the first aid kit—it was well-equipped and meant I was able to do a pretty good patch job, but that was all it was—the best of a bad situation. He really needed professional medical attention.

“That’s the best I can do with what I have, but you should definitely get yourself checked out. What if there’s something wrong that we can’t even see?”

“Would you quit it. I’m fine.”

“You’re not, you’re just hard-headed. Do you have ibuprofen? It’ll help with the swelling.”

“Hmm… in the bathroom cabinet.”

“And the bathroom is…?” It was damned weird that I was suddenly in his room. Apart from at the hotel, which was technically neutral territory, whenever we met he was on my turf, invading my space, and forcing my back against the wall, one way or the other. But now there had been a not-at-all-subtle shift of power. I was in his space and he needed my help.

“Second door on the left.”

Chapter 29

Drew

As she emerged from the bathroom, pain meds in hand, I propped myself up on one elbow. Painful though the maneuver was, I couldn’t resist watching her as she crossed the room to the kitchen area. I’d had a raging boner—that seemed to grow harder every time she touched me—since she’d bent down next to the couch to tend to my injuries.

“Why don’t you take a photo, it lasts longer?”

I laughed to myself—I was in too much pain to show any outward signs of mirth—at the grade school insult I hadn’t heard in years, but I wasn’t at all embarrassed to have been caught ogling her. I’d made it clear, repeatedly, that no matter what went on between us with the supposed blackmail, the lawsuit, and whatever else, I was shamelessly attracted to her. If the way she reacted to me—even in the midst of telling me she wished I was dead—was anything to go by, the feeling was mutual.

I genuinely didn’t know what to make of what was going on—it was the first time we’d been in each other’s company and not either tearing each other to shreds with our words and actions, or ripping off each other’s clothes. Weirder still, me being at a physical disadvantage, while she essentially looked after me, threw me for a loop. My dick however, had no such confusion. That equation was simple: where Kik was involved, it wanted in on the action, all day, every day.

“Here, take these, then try to get some sleep. Why don’t you go to bed? I’ll hang out here a while.”

“No. I’m fine.” I reached for the pills and water.

“So you keep saying, but you’re full of shit. You can barely keep your eyes open, so not sleeping isn’t an option. You might as well do it in the comfort of your bed instead of folded into the couch.”

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