Page 38 of Protect

“I’ll be back in twenty, boys, my patient needs his dressings changed,” Violette says, pointing at my guys as she disappears behind the door.

The moment she’s gone they all start snickering.

“You look nice today, Vi,” Opp says sitting up straight doing his best mock impression of me. “Can you give me a sponge bath?” he adds.

I throw the cup on my bedside table at him.

“She could hear you, you fuck,” I mutter.

Opp doubles over. “You might as well write ‘I was staring at your ass’on your forehead.”

I look at Cal who leans back and folds his arms over his chest like the Godfather. Opp stands and grabs the whiteboard marker, writing in his messy scrawl “Stop staring at Vi’s ass” under the “today’s goals” section.

“Fucking erase that shit now,” I tell him, gritting my jaw.

“Or what?” Opp coaxes, but, of course, he erases it.Shithead.

“What are you doing?” he asks with a head nod, more serious than the others.

I know how protective they all are of Vi.

I shake my head and run a hand through my hair. “I don’t fucking know,” I answer honestly.

“Look, I don’t really know what happened with you two, aside from this weird kind of tension, but Jacob told me once you sort of dated.” Cal leans forward in his chair. “I know she’s single now, but she’s newly single and she just moved back, so make sure you know what you’re doing.”

I look to the direction of the door where she last was.

“I don’t think it matters anyway, she just barely started talking to me again, the chance of there being anything to worry about is slim,” I say.

Cal laughs a real hearty Cal laugh, the one that only comes when he’s thoroughly amused. My eyes snap to his in question.

“That fire burn your brain cells too?” he asks.

Opp snorts in the corner.

I look at them both with a blank stare.

“Violette looks at you like you hung the fucking moon. Has since she was eighteen. Even now that she’s VioletteStafford, even when she looks mad at you, hell, even just five minutes ago when she walked in this room. That isn’t changing anytime soon, so just be careful,” Cal warns, like this is something I should just obviously know.

The guys stand and get ready to leave, I realize I should be happy to hear his assessment.

It should give me hope, but the only thing I can think of is how much I hate the idea of Violette—myViolette—with another man’s last name.

This isn’t going to be awkward. I will not let this be awkward.

“I’m curious to see how good you’re looking,” I blurt out as I start to gather everything I need to give Rowan a sponge bath. “How theburnsare looking,” I quickly clarify.

Shit, thisisgoing to be awkward. This is the universe testing me, I’m sure, because his daily sponge bath wasn’t done this morning and he’s on an alternate hydro bath schedule now.

“I’m going to wash you down now, they said they didn’t do it this morning?” I ask, hoping maybe I misheard. The nurse before me said he slept most of the day, and she was short staffed, which means he’ll probably be awake through the night with me. It also means I’m the lucky winner of sponge bath duty, because keeping the parts of him that aren’t burned clean is so important.

“Uh, no, she was real busy and I was sleeping most of the day.”

I nod. “Your body is healing. It’s to be expected.”

I can do this.I meet my reflection in the mirror above the sink and mentally give myself a pep talk as I fill the basin with warm water and soap.He’s any other patient.

I soak the rags, and as I do, I wish it wasn’t so quiet in here tonight. I can feel Rowan’s eyes burning into my back as I work, and when I’m done, I carry everything over and place it on the table beside his bed.

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