Page 43 of Submit
“Hey. Wake up. You alive? Or are you fucking dead?” Daniel’s voice echoes around in my head like a ghost, there but not there.
The smack to my face isn’t an apparition though, and it jolts me awake. My eyes fly open, and the start makes me take a deep breath, which causes me to cough violently, unable to breathe between episodes of gut churning hacks that make my ribs hurt like a motherfucker.
“You look like shit.” He says, crouching down next to me, poking at me with his index finger. “You broken anywhere?”
“I don’t know.” I wheeze. “Maybe a few ribs.”
“That’s it? You see the car man? You should be roadkill.”
“Fuck the car, just get me off this ground and in the warm car.” I bitch to him, offering him my hand to help me get up.
He pulls and brings me to my feet, pulling me into a bro hug, but gently tapping my back instead of slapping it.
“I already called for a tow. They’ll take it to your shop.”
“Whatever.” I grunt, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and letting him lead me to his Lexus SUV.
“You wanna go to the hospital?”
“Nah. The Plaza. I can’t sleep at home.”
“You shouldn’t be sleeping at all, you’ve got some bruising on your forehead, you could have a concussion.”
“Wouldn’t be the first or last time.”
“Asshole, everything tonight was almost the last time. What the fuck were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t.” I groan as he sets me down in the passenger side and buckles my seatbelt as if I’m a child. Maybe I am one, especially with the way I behaved tonight.
I watch as he shuffles around the front of the SUV to his side, then flops down in his seat. The vehicle is nice and warm, and spotless, and I should feel bad that I’m going to dirty his white leather seats, but I don’t. I just want to close my eyes and go back to sleep. When I wake up, maybe all of this will be a horrible dream.
We bang a U-turn on the country road, and he takes us away from the wreckage of what used to be one of my favorite possessions. Now, it’s just a heap of mangled metal and regrets.
The tow truck approaches us as we pull onto a bigger road, one with street lights and other cars. Daniel slows next to it and comes to a stop, exchanging words with the driver that I don’t listen to. He knows what he’s doing, and I trust him to take care of everything that I simply can’t right now.
In the peace of his car, with the heated seats warming my aching bones, the physical pain starts to fade enough that the mental and emotional one grips me again, and as I lean my forehead against my window, the tears come again, this time slowly, eking their way from under my eyelids and drying before they make it halfway down my face.
“You wanna talk about it?” He asks, looking over at me, and I can see the concern in his face in the reflection of the glass.
“No.”
“Okay.”
Chapter
Twenty-Two
“Mister Lambert, you’re usual room is ready for you.” The cute, blonde concierge at the hotel says as I lean against the cream marble counter. “Would you like me to call in a doctor?” She asks, pointing to her forehead and looking at me with genuine concern.
“No thanks. I just need a hot bath and some sleep, then I’ll be all good.”
“As you wish, Sir. If you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to call down to me, as always.”
“Of course.” I answer her, noticing how this time she’s not flaunting her cleavage towards me, and not flirting with me like usual.
Leaving the desk I head through the arched doors into the other half of the lobby, noticing how the bright red flowers on the rugs match the red blood that’s splattered on my clothes and dried to my face. It’s fitting really.
The grand staircase that I usually walk up and look off the landing is too daunting, so I turn down the hall at the end of the archway and head towards the elevators instead.
