Page 4 of Rules of Association

“You don’t look like much of a getaway driver, but you really grew into that role,” I said, reaching out and patting his hand encouragingly.

I only got another look in return. Granted that look clearly said, ‘shut the fuck up’, his silence still put worry in my stomach. Especially remembering tomorrow’s plans.

“You’re not gonna tell, are you?” I asked, suddenly feeling not scared but…okay maybe a little scared. I didn’t have to elaborate on who I didn’t want him to tell. There was only one group of people I wouldn’t want him to divulge that he’d picked me up half broken from a seedy bar.

He cut me another glance. “Do I ever?”

No. No he did not.

* * *

“It looks like you have a hairline fracture in your wrist, a pretty deep bone bruise, and a couple of fingers that are knocked out of place, Ms. Fernandez,” the nice doctor at Seaside Private General Hospital said as he looked at the X-rays displayed on the blue monitors.

“Okay,” I said, looking the doctor straight in the eye, my own eyes feeling bleary and heavy as a result of waiting for hours in the waiting room. “So?”

Seaside Private General wasn’t the kind of hospital that took just anyone off the street. The“private”was in the name for a reason. It was a privately funded hospital allocated to the most affluent of Seaside, Rhode Island. It was small and shelled out obscene amounts of money to house some of the best doctors on the east coast.

One perk of it being so small and expensive wassupposedto be fast service. But I guess every rich kid decided to get a runny nose or break their arm on the same night, because when we walked into the brown wooden waiting room, we were greeted by tons of people littering the lobby area. Each with various pains and ailments that ranged from far worse to far less extreme than mine.

It was at least two hours before the doctor got around to seeing me, but I’m pretty sure I lost track of the exact time once the pain had gotten so bad, I could do little more than sit with my head in my lap. My hurt hand resting on the muscled thigh beside me as we waited.

The last time either of us had spent this much time in a hospital, it was under less than ideal circumstances, and I don’t think it was my imagination that we were both a little apprehensive of it. So when they had finally called me back, it wasn’t just me who was visibly relieved.

Now, after examinations, X-rays, and enough poking around my injury to make me squeak in pain, the doctor was finally diagnosing the issue. Meaning we were that much closer to getting the hell out.

“So, Ms. Fernandez, it is really difficult to obtain an injury like this from,” he paused and looked at his chart, “simply falling.”

I looked across the room to where my getaway driver was sitting in the extra chair. He had been staring at the x-rays just as intently as the doctor was, but upon hearing this his light brown eyes slid slowly over to me. I could read his expression like he was speaking out loud.‘Oh really?’it said, in a challenging and unsurprised way. He’d probably had me figured out from the very beginning.

Sliding my eyes up to the doctor, I pursed my lips and swallowed my desire to call him a snitching weasel for ratting me out. Instead, I smiled as sweetly as I could while insisting, “I. Fell.”

They continued to press me with accusatory looks and after an entire minute I sighed and blinked away. “Fine. I fell onto some guy’s face when I punched him.”

Those familiar hazel eyes sharpened on me, this time saying,‘interesting’.

The doctor’s reaction was to raise his eyebrows and huff out an astonished laugh. When he looked back at the guest seat and got absolutely nothing from the stone face occupying it, he turned back to me with a shake of his head. “Well, I hope notthisguy.”

“No, this guy’s fine. The other guy’s probably got a broken nose.” Should I be proud of that? Because I was.

“Well, you’ve got a broken hand, missy,” the doctor said. “It’s nothing too crazy, but I am going to have to set it before we brace you up. You’ve got two fingers that need to go back into their lanes.”

I winced. “Will it hurt?”

“It will, I’m sorry,” he said with a wince of his own. “Only for a moment, though. Then we’ll have you in a brace and on your way in no time.”

Beyond my control, I shot panicked eyes toward safety only to find that he’d already moved from his seat. My uninjured hand laid on the cool surface of the hospital exam bed, the other laying gingerly in my lap. A soft, warm palm slid down the wrist of my okay hand and laced our fingers together. My fingers closed around his reflexively. The heel of my hand not quite reaching the bottom of his, but I held onto him as tight as I could anyway. He squeezed back and I felt him leaning into my back, his muscular chest coming down to hover near my shoulders.

In my ear he said, “I can’tbelievethis is what you were doing all night.”

“You can’t?” I asked. He couldn’t have meant that. HeknewI was going out. Still, my voice came out in a squeak as I watched the doctor move over to the sink to wash his hands. What did he plan on doing with freshly cleaned hands?

A big shaven head ducked into my line of sight, catching my eyes with brown orbs that held a mixture of amusement and sympathy. He slid his eyes from one side of my face to the other before looking at me head on. And then he graced me with one of those half smiles, leaning in with a low conspiratorial voice, “Know what else I can’t believe?”

“What?” I asked, enraptured by him like I’ve always been.

He smirked. “That youstilldon’t know how to throw a punch.”

“I do—Ah!” I whipped my head around to find Dr. Handsy now at my side, yanking my fingers so hard it felt like he was trying to pull them off.

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