Page 24 of A Sudden Response

The double doors abruptly opened just as a nurse called out. “You can’t leave!”

Eric watched Joe stumble into the waiting room with her light blue uniformed shirt untucked and bloodstained, her boots untied, and a large, white gauze pad taped to her forehead, barely covering the large bruise peeking out to complete the ensemble. He’d like to say that he was surprised that she was trying to haul ass against medical advice this early in the game, but sadly, he wasn’t.

Nothing pissed Joe off more than being told what to do, which, of course, meant that he was going to have to resort to lying and manipulation to make sure that her beautiful ass never touched the tech bench in the back of an ambulance ever again.

Joe leveled a glare on him when she spotted him. That was followed by pointing a damning finger in his direction, barely righting herself as she stumbled to the right as she said, “Don’t think for one minute that you’re getting out of buying me a steak dinner tonight, you cheap bastard!”

“I. Hate. You,”Joe bit out evenly as she watched Eric savor another bite of the steak that should rightfully be hers.

“Mmmm, this was a really good idea tonight,” Eric said, taking a sip ofherbeer.

“You’re dead to me,” Joe groaned as another wave of nausea took over. Slapping a hand over her mouth, she quickly crawled off her bed and made a mad dash to the bathroom. She just barely made it to the toilet when the ginger ale Eric forced her to drink made another appearance.

“Let’s get you into bed before you slam your head and I end up having to bring you back to the hospital for more stitches,” Eric said in a soothing voice as he gently picked her up and carried her back to her bed.

She couldn’t help but glare at the takeout container that held the remains of her juicy steak. “You could have waited until tomorrow night,” Joe mumbled pathetically.

“I believe you requested your steak dinner tonight,” Eric reminded her with a smug grin.

“You know I get sick from anesthesia! You could have waited, you evil bastard!” Joe snapped, causing the pain behind her eyes to explode.

She sucked in a breath as she buried her face in her pillow, hoping that it would go away. When it didn’t, she focused on not crying. No matter what, she would never allow herself to cry. From somewhere above her, she heard Eric’s soft curse followed by his footsteps as he walked away. She forced herself to focus on relaxing her breathing until the pounding at the back of her skull had somewhat dulled, allowing her to curl up onto her side, facing away from the television and the small lamp near her desk.

A minute later, Eric was kneeling down next to the bed with what looked like another glass of ginger ale and the bottle of generic aspirin she kept in the kitchen. “Open up,” he said softly. When she grudgingly did as he’d asked, he dropped two pills in her mouth. “Swallow,” he said, holding the glass against her lips.

Eric watched her as he gently ran his fingers through her hair and pushed it out of her face. “You need the pain medication they prescribed to you.”

She started to shake her head only to remember that wasn’t such a good idea right now. “I can’t take that while I’m working,” Joe pointed out only to cringe when a new onslaught of pain tore through her head.

“Since you’re not going to work for a few days, I don’t see the problem,” Eric happily announced, cutting off any protests she was about to make by forcing her to drink more ginger ale. So, she settled for glaring at him.

When he decided that she drank enough, Eric removed the cup and placed it on the nightstand by her bed before he stood up and pulled the covers over her. “I really don’t like the idea of leaving you alone to go pick up the pills.”

“Then don’t. I don’t need them,” Joe lied, feeling like someone slammed a sledgehammer into the top of her skull head.

He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “So, I called-”

“If you tell me that you called Mom,” Joe said, ignoring the excruciating pain tearing through her head so that she could cut him off, “I will kick your ass.”

Eric picked up an ice pack and gently placed it against her forehead. “It would serve you right if I did,” he murmured softly, ignoring her glare. “But no, I realized calling Mom would only set off that stubborn streak of yours and piss me off when she started barking orders.”

Relieved, Joe laid back and allowed him to place her hand over the ice pack to keep it in place. The last thing she needed was for Alice to come here and fuss over her. As much as she loved the woman, and she did, she tended to turn into a mother hen when any of them was sick.

Then, there was her tendency to act like a drill sergeant to everyone around them who wasn’t sick. She still cringed when she thought about the time Nathan caught mono. Alice fussed over him, making sure every one of his needs was met whether he wanted them met or not. She probably would have found the whole thing funny if she hadn’t been regulated to what Alice liked to call “Disinfectant Duty.”

For the first day, they’d been forced to clean anything and everything Nathan might have come into contact with. It hadn’t mattered that mono couldn’t be spread by touching the bricks in the fireplace. They were scrubbed within an inch of their lives, along with everything else in the house. The second day, and every day after that until Nathan was better, were spent cleaning every inch of his room, the bathroom and making sure that he had absolutely no reason to leave his room. The only thing that had saved Nathan from getting his ass kicked when they had to wash his dirty underwear was that they knew that he had it worse than them.

She really didn’t want to deal with Alice on top of everything else right now. Not that she would admit it to Eric, but she was still pretty shaken up by what happened tonight. They’d had a lot of close calls over the years, but what happened tonight easily surpassed every single one of them. On more than one call, she’d wondered if they were going to get hurt, but she’d never actually thought one of them could get killed.

“Hey,” Eric said softly as he knelt back down again. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Joe mumbled, forcing a weak smile. “I was just thinking about what Mom would do if she found out that I left the hospital.” Which was a lie because there was no question that Alice would drag her sorry ass back to the hospital, kicking and screaming.

“Don’t worry, I called Nathan and he should be here soon,” Eric said, running his fingers gently along the bruise marring her forehead. “I could kill that little bastard.”

“Nathan?” she asked, trying to lighten the mood. Thankfully, it worked. Eric rolled his eyes. “No, not Nathan.”

“It’s over, Eric,” Joe said, hoping he’d let it go. She didn’t want to think about what happened tonight or just how differently things could have gone if he’d managed to get his hands on that gun.

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