JOSEPH
It’s taken a couple of weeks but, with Lana’s help, I’ve managed to somehow gain part of my feeling back. Dick’s still got a mind of its own, but then again, when hasn’t it?
The miserable part is still being stuck in this goddamn bed, day in, day out. I feel like some kind of geriatric patient with Lana having to turn me this way and that so I don’t develop bed sores.
The door opens but instead of my sexy but strict nurse, it’s Michael with a thick file full of paperwork. If I have to see another signature page again in my life, it’ll be too soon.
Tossing the file to me, he asks me how I’m feeling. As if he really cares. All he’s worried about is making sure the folks on the board don’t know about my ‘condition,’ as he so eloquently put it. It’s been his job to save face with them, telling them I’m off somewhere exotic doing something way better with my time than rotting away in a fucking bed. They don’t approve of my focus on matters other than business, but hey, I’m not bitter or bothered!
I check the clock on the wall that Lana had hung for me, and just like clockwork, in she comes, a brief smile exchanged between her and Michael as he leaves. It’s the same thing every day.
Right at seven-thirty, she comes in with my morning meds, asks me about how my pain is, I lie and tell her it’s fine, no big deal, and then proceed to wince in agony as she massages my legs for the next half-hour. If it weren’t for the fact that I’m ready to pop a vein, I’d think the massage was rather nice. Especially once her hands reach my thighs…
The sad part is that half the time I do end up with a hard-on, and she pretends it doesn’t even exist. As if anyone could miss it.
The routine has become the new norm, and as weird as it feels, I’m used to it now. I can’t really say I enjoy it. If I wasn’t in such agony and feeling so frustrated, having Lana’s hands on me would be amazing. She certainly has a way with her hands that I wouldn’t mind feeling in other places…
And she always manages to make me laugh, usually because I’m cheeky and she’s stern. I never really had a thing for a sassy woman before, but when she tells me off it makes me want to kiss her pink lips.
I’ve even got used to her little kid running around the penthouse. Luckily though, her daughter Olivia avoids mainly avoids my room like the plague. I was kinda on the fence about letting a kid live here. I mean, it is a fucking casino after all, but then again, it’s not like the penthouse is the bachelor pad it used to be, right? But if I carry on suffering this long journey to recovery it could be again. Well, someone needs to get some round here! For now, sleep is my only relief.
--
There’s a knock at the door, and I’m surprised to see Lana coming in after lunch. Usually, she waits for another half-hour or so.
“Hey there.”
I nod my head to her, jabbing my finger down on the power button of the TV remote. “What are you doing in here already? Judge Judy doesn’t start until two.”
“I have some errands I need to run today and thought I’d go ahead and check up on you. I didn’t interrupt anything, did I?” she asks, reaching for the clipboard on the dresser.
“Nope. Not a damn thing.”
I get the usual questions about my pain level, the fluffing, and adjustments of the pillows, and Lana sits down in the chair beside me, leveling a look at me. “And any discomfort now?”
I say the first thing that rolls off my tongue. “Not unless you consider not getting laid in a while a physical discomfort.”
She just rolls her eyes, already having learned that I’m not the most polite asshole in the world. But that’s what I dig about her—she hardly cares.
“I wouldn’t,” she says as though she knows how I’m feeling. Our eyes meet and she blushes, looking down at her notes again. I wonder about Lana’s private life. I mean, I know she has Olivia but having a kid doesn’t mean you can’t have a social life. She gorgeous and sexy and witty and gorgeous. Did I mention gorgeous? She should have men flocking around her. I’m about to ask her what her story is when she begins prodding my feet with her reflex hammer. She gets to my left foot, moving my toes around for a moment before running her finger up the arch of my foot and both of us nearly jump when my foot twitches. She meets my eyes, surprised.
“Do it again,” I say, hating the weird tingling I’m getting.
She does, and this time nothing. The frown on my face is the same on hers.
“Let me try…” she edges her fingertips to the side of my foot, brushing them lightly. I can feel it, and a muscle in my foot jumps, and we both laugh together.
“Well, don’t stop!” I say, watching with both pain and curiosity as Lana basically starts tickling my foot, the muscle twitching this way and that until finally my leg involuntarily kicks out and I nearly knock her over. “Fuck!” I yell out, sharp pain lancing up my back from the movement. I can’t help but laugh as I catch the look on her face, the widening grin.
“My bad,” she says, another laugh bubbling up from somewhere inside. Her expression if bright, her cheeks flushed with what looks like excitement. “Here, let me move this again.” She slips the pillow back behind my back, helping to alleviate the pain.
A sort of relief runs over me, my heart feeling lighter than it has since I came around from the accident “You know, I have to admit… I was starting to worry I wouldn’t recover.” I change course though as soon as I see the tell-tale signs of pity in her brown eyes. “Michael used to hold me down and tickle the shit out of me when we were kids. Just because he was the slightly bigger, older twin. I caught up in college, though. Never thought I’d miss being ticklish.”
Lana’s quiet, so I continue. “Of course, if he tries that shit now I would just deck his ass. Lay him right on out.”
When she still doesn’t say anything, I let my mind wander, getting ahead my mouth. “One of these days I’ll be hitting up the club, picking up some girl and making up for all the lost time.”
This seems to catch her attention, but she just groans instead of saying anything.
“What?” I say innocently.
She shakes her head; the curls I’ve been secretly wanting to touch bouncing around. “It’s men like you who make having a daughter so damn stressful. She’ll have to grow up and survive a world full of pretty men with only one thing on their minds.”
I snort, not missing the weird compliment. “Pretty?”
Lana shrugs but her cheeks pink a little more and I grin wolfishly.
“Just as long as Olivia avoids guys like me, she’ll be all right.”
Olivia looks at me, her head cocked to one side. “You act like you’re such a bad guy, Joseph, but you’re not. You’re just in a lot of pain, is all,” she shoots back, that same knowing look in her eyes. Lana thinks I’m ‘not a bad guy.’ The thought makes me feel uneasy, not because I want her to think badly of me, but the way she’s looking at me it’s as though she can see through my bravado, and I’m not sure I like that.
“Hey, it’s getting a lot better, obviously,” I say, pointing to my foot.
But she just shakes her head. “No, Joseph, that’s not the pain I’m talking about.” Her voice is soft as she looks away, grabbing her clipboard.
Something clutches at my insides. In the two and a half weeks we’ve known each other, I haven’t talked to Lana much about how I’m actually feeling, yet I get the distinct impression she can read it all on my face. “Am I that transparent?”
She’s surprised to hear me say anything, but shrugs. “No, not really. You’re just not a special case, is all. I’ve taken care of plenty of guys like you who get a brutal lesson in fragility. If you would just remember it in the future, you’d be fine.”
I hate how she acts like she knows me so well. “What, are you, my nurse or my mother?”
“Sometimes, it seems like you need both, so you tell me.”
Red burns behind my eyelids as I close them, holding my tongue from lashing out at her. Who the hell does she think she is?
Lana busies herself around the room, doing whatever the hell she’s doing—I don’t know because I refuse to look at her, but I hear her pause and sigh.
“I’m sorry, Joseph. I don’t know why I said that. Michael, he… he does the same thing when I mention your mother.”
The sympathy in her voice is jarring, but for some reason, it doesn’t bother me as much. “I know.” You say a single thing about Mom and Michael completely ignores you. Like she didn’t even exist.
Lana steps into my peripheral. “Were you two close? You and your mother?”
I bite my lip, desperate for a new kind of pain. “That’s not really any of your business.”
Her mouth struggles to shut, and she’s quickly apologizing, lines forming on her forehead as she starts to leave.
“Wait,” I say, reaching out toward her. I don’t touch her, though. “I’m sorry, Lana. It’s just… we don’t really talk about her anymore. It’s sort of this really private thing for me now. That’s all.”
Something changes in the way she holds herself and she waves me off. “I’m not some girl you have to impress, you know. I’m your nurse. But, keep in mind that if you ever want to talk to me, you can.”
“I’ll make sure to write that down and add it to the list of things I’d rather fight a shark than do, but I appreciate it,” I say, a grin working its way across my face.
She grins, too. “Well, I better leave you to your Judge Judy. I’ll be back later.”
I nod and watch her hips as they sway under her uniform, reminding myself to give the ol’ pump another squeeze later tonight.
--
Something wakes me from the groggy sleep I was dozing in and out of, and when I look up, I realize someone’s at the door.
A small girl with big brown eyes and long shiny dark hair cracks the door, peering in and looking around. It’s Olivia. “Come in.”
“I’m looking for my mom.”
“Oh. Well, uh, she’s not in here,” I say, straightening myself in bed. It hurts so badly to move but I try not to grimace. I don’t want to scare Olivia. “But I can call her if you’d like.”
With a firm shake of her head, she says, “No. that’s not necessary.”
What kid talks like that?”
She sighs, her eyes darting down. “She probably wouldn’t be much help, anyway.”
“Help with what?” I ask, curious.
Olivia bites her lip before opening the door wider. “It’s a math problem. A hard one.”
“I’m sure your mom knows math, I mean she kinda has to, right?”
She doesn’t seem so sure. “I don’t know, it’s a really hard one. Do you want to see it?”
I wonder for a moment if I shouldn’t send her away to someone more qualified, but ah, what the hell. Math was always one of my better subjects, anyway. “Sure.”
Olivia throws open the door and runs to me, carrying a tablet under her arm. She thrusts it into my hands, waiting expectantly.
I’m surprised to see the equation on the screen. “Are you… do you understand any of this?”
Sighing, she looks up at me with those same eyes as her mom. “I think the question is, do you understand it?”
“Good point,” I mutter, trying to pull up everything I learned in my college classes. After carefully going over the screen, I try and explain the best I can how to solve the problem. Half-way through, Olivia calmly takes the tablet back from me and with a few swipes of her small finger, she finishes the equation. “Like this?”
The screen pops back up with a big green checkmark and I’m stunned. “Uh, yeah. Like that. Good job.”
Without the smug pretense I would expect out of an obvious child prodigy, she chirps a quick thank you, before bounding back out of the room with the tablet.
“Hey!” I call out to her. “Is that what you’re learning in school?”
She leans back inside the doorway, rolling her eyes in a way that looks exactly like Lana. “No. I get bored with my school work, I found this online.” She thanks me again and leaves, shutting the door behind her this time.
I smile, unable to help myself.
Kids are not something I’ve given much thought to, and it’s funny to find that I like having one around.