Page 113 of Bears Behaving Badly
“But we have. Slept together, I mean.” He squashed the urge to scratch at the door and whine.
“Away!” He stepped back as the door slid open and she limped past him. “I’m growing fond of you, David, but I have no use for a Stage 5 clinger.”
“Pretty sure I’ve got far to go before it’s that bad.”
“Lovely. Something to look forward to.” She sighed. “I appreciate that I’m one of many patients, but where is that doctor? He assured me I could leave in time to have lunch somewhere that wasn’t here.”
“No, he didn’t. He was horrified that you wanted to leave and begged you to stay another night. Which you should, by the way. I’m aware I’m wasting my breath, but I wanted to just, y’know, get that comment on the record.”
“That money-grubbing reprobate is padding his pockets at the expense of the good people at Blue Cross Blue Shield.”
“You were shot three times!”
“One of them was just a graze.” She sniffed. But she gripped his hand as she crawled back into the bed and sighed with relief when she was again settled. “You know the best part about being in the hospital?”
“Not dying?”
“The warm blankets. Did you know they have machines just for keeping the blankets warm? So they always have warm blankets on hand? Isn’t that clever? It makes me forgive them for the food. Why do they think Jell-O is best at room temperature?”
“This is why we should go out,” David decided, settling in the chair beside her bed. “You’re really easy to please.”
“I’m not, actually.” She gazed at him through lowered eyelashes. She had dark circles under her eyes and the hospital gown was wildly unflattering and she had holes in her that she didn’t have on Monday (and so did he) and it was all outstanding. “So what’s this? I thought you were determined that we were not, in fact, going to go out.”
“That was before you helped me kill the bad guys. Again.”
There was more to it, of course. But he wasn’t sure he could explain it. He’d known she was sexy and sweet and dedicated and dangerous. He’d known two days in that she’d kill in defense of herself or others. But he hadn’t known that she’d walk into a pack of warwolves intent on her death, then basically tell them to go fuck themselves, then refuse to meekly relocate to a murder spot more convenient for said warwolves. And all that while expecting her partner to turn up any second and betray her to death. Wearing salmon. On an empty stomach.
“So that’s all a woman has to do to win your heart? Bite bad guys until they bleed out?”
“No, she also has to be snarky and constantly forage for buffets and worry about her charges and go through an alarm clock every few days and back-seat drive until the person behind the wheel gives real thought to driving over a cliff.”
“In what is a truly fantastic coincidence, I possessallthose qualities. Dammit! I never did get a chance to buy a new clock…”
“Yep. So. We’re going out. Will you wear salmon?” he asked. “I fucking love salmon now.”
“Never again. And that’s how you ask me out?”
“Initially. I’ll gladly get on my knees for you, but you’ll have to help me back up.”
“Only if someone helps me up first.” She prodded gloomily at her heavily bandaged left shoulder. “Gah, feels like the slug is still in there, roaming around and freaking out my white blood cells. What was it, a .45?”
“Yeah. Don’t poke at it. It’ll never get better.”
“I’ll poke whatever I like, thank you.”
“I feel like I should come up with a sexual double entendre, but I’m really tired.”
“Good instinct.” And then, out of nowhere: “I was thinking about Lund in the bathroom.”
He grimaced. “Why?”
“I never met a sport before,” she admitted. “That I know of. It’s not something people brag about.”
“I went to high school with one. Most of the teachers treated him like a short-bus kid, y’know?”
“Ugh,notokay, David… All right, so Lund couldn’t shift, but my understanding is that he enjoyed all other aspects of our paralogical physiology. The metabolism, the reflexes…”
“Yeah. Remember the Olympics scandal in ’05? Guy was a werewolf who broke too many records, but he couldn’t shift, so he got away with it.” Until the twenty-two-year-old track star in perfect health had a fatal heart attack out of nowhere. To this day, conspiracy theories abounded. David wasn’t sure he was ready to assume a secret Shifter cabal randomly poisoned the guy. On the other hand, heart attacks at that age were pretty rare…
