Page 52 of Last Chance Love

“Testing to see if you were a big baby,” he said, but the smile only I could seealmosttook away from the fact that whatever he’d done had made my whole arm feel like it had seized up. “How’s the mobility?”

I grimaced as he moved my arms around. “Doesn’t feel great.”

“Limited but not terribly,” he said, then picked my chin up. “Look at me.”

“Mother…” I snapped as a light flashed into my eyes, and I winced as the stabbing in my head became a serrated blade against the inside of my skull. He flicked the light back and forth before pulling it away. “Some warning would have been nice.”

“Pupil response is important,” he said. “But I see the light sensitivity is still in play. I’ll get you some Motrin and coffee in a moment.”

“Is that going to help after taking a good smack like that?” Mona wondered.

“He’s had migraines since he was eleven. This pain might be from those, or the injuries. Nausea?”

“No,” I said, giving my head a light shake.

“Auras?”

“I would have been asleep.”

“Right.”

Mona cocked her head. “Auras?”

“A handful of people who suffer from migraines get them,” Reed said, pulling a machine over and pressing a few buttons. “They’re visual usually, but sometimes can be accompanied by a smell. Kind of like that joke about burned toast right before a stroke.”

“And sensitivity to light,” I said with a shrug. “I get dancing lights. In a rainbow. Very pretty.”

“Seriously?”

“No, it’s not pretty. Just looks like what you’d see from a sprinkler, and it means my head is about to feel like Thor is smacking around in there with a hammer and a backup axe while we’re at it.”

“Sounds lovely. Why wasn’t that in your files?”

Reed snorted, pressing his fingers against my throat for a moment. “All our medical files are on record. Anything relevant for upper management to know is sent along, but the files you and Mr. Isaiah see don’t contain anything that isn’t medically significant.”

“And when did that start?” she asked, her lips thinning.

“It’s been that way since I started work in the clinic. As far as I know, it was a decision made by someone in upper management. Dr. Greenway would probably be able to answer better than me, or Dr. Gideon, for that matter.”

“Damn it, Garret,” Mona muttered to herself, clearly thinking it was Mr. Isaiah who’d put that into effect. “I don’t remember anything about his migraines, and believe it or not, I’ve looked at his file more than once.”

“Well,that’scomforting,” I muttered, wondering what battle of wills I was trapped between.

“As per the standard operating procedure we have, only things significant for someone in charge but not in this clinic to know are passed along,” Reed said, stepping back from me. “Seizure disorders, narcolepsy, diabetes, HIV, so on and so forth.”

“Anything potentially dangerous to the person and long term then,” Mona said.

“And migraines just make me wish I was dead. They don’t actually kill me,” I said with a grin. “So those don’t count.”

“Please tell me that’s just a joke and not a plea for help,” she said with a sigh. “I have enough on my plate without putting my…putting one of our mentors on suicide watch.”

I pretended not to notice the odd lapse. “A joke. They don’t make me suicidal.”

“Well?” Mona asked, eyeing Reed studiously.

“He’s fine,” Reed said with a shake of his head.

“And why isn’t that convincing?”

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