“Officer Glass, I’m Doctor Wicks.” A bright white smile beamed at me between beautifully shaped red lips and skin the color of polished mahogany. “Mind if I take a look?” He nodded to the sheet. I was alert now. Every part of me was alert now. This was not a good day to start openly admiring men.
“Unless you can faith heal from there?”
He laughed magnificently, rich and baritone with enough treble to raise the fine hairs along my ear. When he pulled the sheet off my ass, I focused on the pain, hoping to quash my erection. “When was your most recent tetanus shot?”
“A few months ago.” There was no way I would turn to look at this guy while he examined my ass. When his fingers gently moved over my skin, I prayed he’d have no reason to look at the front of me right then.
Half-naked, lying on my side, with only a thin sheet covering the front, an erection would most definitely be noticed. I tried to imagine Nurse Jackson attempting a penile examination with a metal rod. Unfortunately, her size and manly hands had the opposite effect. If my growing cock was the icing on a shitty day’s cake, Peter’s arrival in the face of my unwelcome woody, was the cherry on a turd sundae.
“You’re hurt,” Peter said redundantly, by way of a greeting. Naturally, he had zero expression to clue me in to his thoughts on the matter.
“It’s a few scratches.”
“From the cat?”
“When I see tests to prove it’s feline, I’ll believe it. For now, it’s just a demon-thing. Hey, didn’t I tell you to stay at home?”
Wicks rolled his traveling stool to where I could see him, interrupting Peter’s response. “I’m going to numb the area with an injection, officer,” he informed me. “You’ll feel a small pinch. Then we’ll get these stitches in, and your friend can take you home.”
“Stitches?” Peter went around me to look. Everyone was going to be staring at my ass today. I was ordering that Stairmaster the moment I left the emergency room. “The cat didn’t do that,” Peter stated.
“Thank you, Captain Obv— ow!,” I growled, twisting to glare at the smiling doctor who was feeding a syringe into my butt cheek. My glare switched to Peter in the wake of the doctor’s obliviousness. “Why are you here?”
He stood there, gripping my keys tightly in his palm, the keychain medallion dangling between his long fingers. It was his only sign of emotion. Anger? Fear? Or annoyance? “Darryl and I don’t have a place to live.”
I closed my lids for a second, then focused in front of me, my deep inhale trying to mask my hurt. Peter moved slowly around to my front, pausing at my knees. I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t breathe through my humiliation. To say that Peter’s arriving with an agenda was painful was an understatement. “Stay at a fucking hotel for all I care.”
“Okay,” he answered, but made no move to leave.
“Get out of here, and leave my keys.”
“You’ll need a ride home.”
“Hoping I’ll change my mind about you staying with me on the ride home?” I sneered.
“No.”
The tug of the needle moving through my skin was all I felt as the doctor began sewing. He cleared his throat gently. I didn’t give a shit if Doctor Hotness was embarrassed by our conversation. I was angry.
“No?” I echoed. “That’s it?” I thought Peter came because he was worried about me. Maybe cared about me a smidgeon? Instead, I found out he needed something else from me. I was livid, frustrated and dangerously close to wanting to punch his face in just to see something, anything besides apathy.
“Cai said thank you for saving the cat.”
“Get out, Peter,” I replied tiredly. He could shatter my soul right now, it was so fragile sitting there in his palm.
“You need a ride home,” he repeated.
“Stop calling it ‘home’, like it’s your home. It’s my home. You were just visiting. Emphasis on were.”
“Okay. You need a ride to your home.”
“All done,” the doctor said quietly. No smile in his voice now. Peter and I had sucked the joy out of the room. “I’ll be back in a few minutes with some prescriptions and instructions on how to care for the wound.”
Neither Peter nor I said a word as Wicks left. I stared at the metal trashcan, Peter stared at me.
“Do you even have money for a hotel?” I ground out.
“I can get money.”
Another moment of pathetic tension enveloped the space between us. I wasn’t sure how much more of this my heart could take. It was already on the verge of collapse. One more soul-crushing event short of deadened. The thought of Peter turning tricks again, or ‘a gig’ would be too much to bear. “Just stay at the fucking house.”