Page 28 of Justice for Daesha

Amos grabbed his tee and lounging pants and headed to the hall bathroom. After knotting the condom and throwing it away, he cleaned himself up and wandered back to the kitchen. When he stepped back into the bedroom, she was slipping into bed. He handed her a bottle of water. “Here ya go.”

“Thank you.” As she twisted the lid off, she said, “If I’m your warrior princess, I guess you’re my knight in shining armor.”

Amos set his bottle on the nightstand and turned off the lamp on his side of the bed before slipping down under the covers and reaching for her. “I’ll be whatever you want me to be, beautiful, as long as you’ll let me be yours.”

* * *

When the alarmwent off at five, Amos refused to turn loose of Daesha. “I’ve got to get up!” she said, giggling.

“I don’t want you to get up. I want you to stay here with me. Does that make me sound whiny and pathetic?”

“Yes!” That made her laugh. “But I like it! Begging becomes you!”

“Ah, begging. I’ll beg if I have to.”

“Won’t do you any good. I’ve got to get up. What time do you have to be at the office?”

He kissed her, then released her from his grasp and stretched. “I’m salaried. As long as I get results, nobody cares where I am. But I try to get there most mornings by eight thirty.” He rolled over and watched her as she got up and pulled on her robe. God, she was beautiful! “I can’t believe I’m not going to see you tonight.”

“I know, but we made the rehearsal rule and I have to stick to it, especially since it was my idea.”

She was pulling underwear, a bra, and socks from the dresser drawers, and he was stunned when she opened the closet. Half of it was her regular clothes, but there were at least twenty sets of scrubs in there. “Whoa! That’s a lot of scrubs!”

“When I go in, I take an extra set with me. You wouldn’t believe all the times I’ve had to change in the middle of the day when a patient bled on me, or accidentally peed on me, or even worse.”

“Worse?” She nodded. “Wow. Why would they?”

“Some of them are paraplegics. They come to us fresh from their injuries, and they don’t have any control. And it winds up being a problem, at least for us if we don’t have extra clothes. I kept having to borrow scrubs from Garrick, and he’s over six and a half feet tall and weighs almost three hundred pounds. Just keeping the pants up was a challenge, so I learned to bring more.”

“Well, I can certainly see that.”

“Did you bring work clothes with you?” Amos nodded. “So here.” She reached into the top dresser drawer and held out her hand, then waited until his upturned palm was under it. “You can have it.” Her hand opened and something fell into his.

Amos was startled. “Am I to assume that?”

“Yes. And the code for my security system is seven nine eight nine. Say it with me?seven nine eight nine.”

“Seven nine eight nine. Got it.” He palmed the key and smiled up at her. “I’ll get you one to my place.”

“Works for me. See you in a minute.” Swinging away on her crutches, she disappeared into the bathroom and he heard the water start.

Amos got up, started a pot of coffee, and went back to the bedroom to change into his running clothes. Then he stuck his head into the bathroom. “What do you usually eat for breakfast?”

“Whatever I can find,” she answered.

“Well, okay then.” Amos found bread in the kitchen and started some toast. At least she’d have that. He’d thought she would at least sit down and have coffee with him, but getting dressed just led to hustling around, gathering things up, and getting ready to leave. “Can’t you at least have some coffee?”

“No, but I can take it with me.” He watched as she poured it into a huge travel mug, added a little white Stevia powder, and then poured a dollop of half and half into it. “I’m sorry, babe, really, but traffic is so horrible going into the city that I need to get a move on. Want me to call you this evening when I leave rehearsal?”

“Yeah. Please.” Amos walked her to the door and when she turned back to him, he swept her up in his arms and kissed her. “Guess that’ll have to hold you until Friday, huh?”

“You coming to the bar?”

“You’ll have to tell me where.”

“I’ll find out tonight. Bye, babe.”

“Bye, sweetie. I love you.” He watched as she got in her car, and he yelled, “Oh, by the way, how do I get my Jeep out of the garage?”

---