Page 43 of The Jackpot Screwer
“He’s waking up,” I told Shaw, recognizing the tell. “You take my car and tell Mom I’ll call her later.”
“You can’t be serious about staying with him?”
“Yes, Shaw I am. Weren’t you the one who less than twenty-four hours ago was telling me what a good man he was?”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, before we found him in bed with Nancy Andrews. Which kind of makes me a shit judge of character, dontcha think?”
Exhaling heavily, I turned my gaze back to Carter who was most definitely waking up—he was scratching his balls.
“Just go home, Shaw.”
Shaw looked to Carter and then back to me. “If I find out Nancy Andrews was lying, I’ll chop those balls off and that baby you’re carrying will be the last of his fucking bloodline.”
“What’s going on?” Carter asked, looking at me with only one eye open. “I wasn’t dreaming, you’re here, Lollipop.”
Shaw opened his mouth, but I slapped my hand over it. “How’re you feeling?”
He winced and put a hand to his cheek. “Still have a fucking toothache. That’s what woke me.” He patted the pockets of his jacket. “You seen my painkillers? I had them in the café.”
“The café where you hooked up with Nancy Andrews,” Shaw griped.
“Shaw,” I snapped. “I told you to go home.”
Carter pushed himself into a sitting position and scratched his cheek. “What the hell are you talking about?” he asked. “I remember eating pancakes and then Nancy offering to give me a ride home, but after that.” He let out a loud yawn. “Don’t remember much, except sleeping and dreaming about you Lollipop, except it wasn’t a dream because you’re here.”
He gave me the most beautiful of sleepy smiles but then winced and flopped back against his pillows.
“Shaw, make yourself useful and go check for painkillers in the cabinet in the bathroom.”
He began to grumble but when I pinched his side after Carter gave another groan of pain, he left the room.
“Shit, I really need to see the dentist,” Carter said, clutching a hand to his face.
“Yeah, you do.” He certainly didn’t look like a guilty man, just a tired one wracked with pain.
He was fully clothed, and Nancy had been too. It did seem pretty unlikely anything had happened between them.
“Nancy may well have been telling the truth.” Shaw shoved a bottle at me. “If these are the same as the ones he took with the Advil, there’s no way he’d have managed to even think about getting his dick up, never mind actually getting it up.”
I looked at the label and saw it was emblazoned with Extra Strength Tylenol.
“Are these the same as the ones you had in the café?” I showed them to Carter.
He grimaced and pulled in a breath. “Yes. I just need them until my dental appointment next week.”
“Carter,” I cried. “Why have you not been to the dentist? The number of pills you’ve taken along with the Advil and no sleep, no wonder you pretty much passed out.”
I turned my gaze on Shaw, who shrugged. “Okay, so maybe Nancy was telling the truth. Look, I’m going to go.”
“At last. And be careful in my car.”
He shuddered and turned for the door. “Can’t believe I have to drive that thing. It’s fucking pink for starters.”
“I hear you, Shaw,” Carter said around a pained laugh. “I keep telling her to trade it in for something more suitable. A nice SUV that can handle the winters, but she won’t listen to me.”
I pushed a hand against Carter’s shoulder, emptied two pills from the bottle and passed them and a bottle of water from next to the bed to him. “That’s the last two you’re getting. I’m going to call the dentist and get you an emergency appointment. You take them and get some more sleep. And you,” I pointed at my brother, “go home and stop saying shit about my car.”
Shaw sighed and with a wave of his hand left me alone with Carter.
