Page 232 of The Bonus

The voices slur, the darkness gets darker.

Blah…blah…blah blah blah.

Slumberland drags me back under.

The sun is just setting over the park outside my hospital window. A gentle knock sounds at the door and Gabriel gets up and answers it. “Hello, yes. She’s hungry.”

He stands to the side and the lady wheels in the dinner trolley. “Dinnertime.” She smiles.

I sit up, excited, and Gabriel wheels the table over the bed to sit in front of me.

“We have chicken soup, followed by meat loaf and vegetables, and a bread roll.” She places it all down in front of me. “And fruit salad for dessert.”

Gabriel looks over the food suspiciously. “Can she have something else other than meat loaf?”

“That’s the only option.”

“Hmm,” he replies, unimpressed.

“Meat loaf is fine.” I widen my eyes at him. Stop.

“Would you like water, or lemonade?”

“Lemonade.”

“We’ll take some waters too.” Gabriel gives me the side eye.

She loads it onto the tray and leaves us alone. Gabriel takes the lid off my meal and gets my knife and fork ready.

“You know, you can go home. You don’t need to babysit me.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“How you going to cut up that horse meat loaf with one hand?”

I stare down at the meat loaf. “Horse?”

“It’s dubious for certain.” He leans over me and cuts up my food. “How you going to take the lid off your water?” He unscrews the bottle of water and pours it into the glass.

“I’ve never felt so useless.” I sigh.

“Hmm,” he says, uninterested. “I feel like you’ve been a lot more useless than this before.”

“When?”

“When you used to work for me.”

“Are you kidding me?”

His eyes dance with mischief. “See…if I wasn’t here, who would annoy you?”

I twist my lips to hide my smile and I take a big bite of my meat loaf.

“Appaloosa or stallion?” he asks.

“You’re gross, you know that?”

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