CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Rosemarie
I woke feeling stiff and confused. It wasn’t until I opened my eyes and noticed that I was in my living room that everything came rushing back in. The stranger that was in my bed and the state that I’d found him in. And the fact that I’d taken care of him as best as I could.
I grabbed a fresh bottle of water before I wandered into the bedroom. I knew I needed to check on him and more than that, I needed to get him into the shower. I’d cleaned out his wounds last, but I knew I needed to do it again. That would only work if I could get the rest of the filth and grime off of his body.
I knew it was going to be awkward and weird because he certainly wasn’t going to be able to clean himself. I was just going to have to flip my professional brain on and do it like it was my job. I could handle it that way. Nurse Rosemarie. I just had to pretend that the warm lights of my place were more like the harsh fluorescent bulbs in the hospital. That the mix of rose pedal and sage that floated through my home was more of a sterile scent that clung to the cold air of the exam rooms and hallways.
As soon as I stepped into the view, his blue eyes landed on me as his body attempted to jerk to attention. Once he saw that it was me and not some kind of danger, his posture easily relaxed back into the bed.
I could have said something comforting or gave an apology for frightening him, but instead, I chose to push past it so as not to embarrass him. I could see that panicked look on his face, even if it was only there for a flash. A man like him wasn’t one to have fear, and if he did, he never wanted to show it. I knew this well enough and so I chose to move along like nothing had happened. Like I was completely oblivious to it.
“How are you feeling?” I asked and winced. It didn’t escape me that I had my Ms. Nice Nurse voice going on. And by the huffed laugh that made its way out of his mouth, it didn’t escape him either. Giving a shrug and a smile, I moved closer to the bed.
“Oh, just peachy,” he replied giving me a lopsided smile.
“Do you think you can move? I figured it would be a good idea to take a shower. A quick one though, don’t want to sit under the spray for too long.”
“If I say no, does that mean you will give me a sponge bath?” I almost missed the wink that came with his statement.
I should have been mad. I should have turned the nice girl thing off and flipped him the bird. Or worse. I should have dumped the whole bottle of ice cold water over his head. But there was something in his tone that made me pause. It was like he was trying to cover up his pain. This sexy—almost sexist—charm was just his mask, his way to make light of the dark. So I let it slide and shook my head.
“Come on, stud,” I said in a joking tone as I tried to help him sit up then tucked myself under his arm. “Up you go.”
I went slow, knowing that every part of him had to be hurting. He grunted and paused. My head turned to look at his face to gauge the level of discomfort, only as my eyes landed on his everything seemed to stop.
“I realized that I don’t even know your name,” I whispered almost breathlessly.
“Bocca,” he said and I cocked my head as much as I could in this position.
“That’s your name?” I asked skeptically.
“That’s the only one you need to know.”
“So, you want me to call you Mouth?” I said because I knew that’s what that word meant in Italian.
There were so many times my grandmother would say ‘Calma quella bocca’ to us children when we were being too rowdy. ‘Calm that mouth.’ She spoke English well but it seemed like scolding us in Italian was more effective, or so she thought. She did the same thing to my granddad, who was very much American, but loved her every single time she yelled at him. She wasn’t truly a mean woman, she was just stern. Which was quite the opposite of my all jokes granddad.
Bocca nodded, a little something that I guessed was surprise on his face.
“People seem to think that I run mine, and at times, let it get the best of me.”
I heard his words, I did, but I already had his number. Maybe that was what people thought and perhaps even the reason he’d gotten the name. But I could tell that this man right here, didn’t just run his mouth just to run it. No, he used it as a weapon, if you will. Or maybe it was more of an armor or distraction. That part I hadn’t figured out yet. But what I could tell you, was that he knew what he was doing, he calculated what he said in a way that most people would never be able to tell.
It was at that moment, my face so close to his that our noses almost touched, that I was able to see the heaviness of his soul in his eyes. The burden of carrying too many secrets for one person and having to keep them hidden. The lock-box in his brain that was to the point of overflowing.
The moment became still and strangled. I cleared my throat, blinked my eyes back into focus, and began to shift so that I could get him out of the bed. With a hard grunt, he shoved himself to his feet.
“I got it,” he said as he took his weight off of me. He wasn’t mean, in fact, his tone was almost kind like he didn’t want to hurt me in his attempt to make it to the bathroom. “Just…don’t go far, please.”
It took a good twenty minutes, but he made it there all by himself. And once he was in the shower—completely naked, mind you—I turned on the water. I did my best not to look. It wasn’t that I wanted to take advantage of the moment, it was that I felt the need to watch him to make sure he didn’t get weak and pass out.
I had no choice but to leave the curtain cracked as I stood right there keeping an eye on him. With a heavy sigh, his shoulders sagged and for a moment I wasn’t sure what I should do.
“This is extremely embarrassing, but I need help. And before you think that this is some pathetic attempt to get you into the shower with me, I assure you it isn’t.”
There he was, the real man behind all the jokes and charm. How could I deny him this when it was clear it was so hard for him to ask? And I couldn’t ignore the zap of some kind of thrill that shot through my veins even though I knew it was completely wrong.
“Sure,” I said pushing the curtain back a little more.
That was the moment his knees gave out and though I tried my best to catch him, he was just too much for me to hold up. He went down, his knees hitting hard on the bottom of the tub. He let out a grunt as his eyes screwed shut.
“Are you okay?” he asked and I felt like I should have been the one to be asking him that.
“I’m fine. Are you?” The words rushed out of me with a slightly panicked tone.
“Yeah, you know, just a little embarrassed but no big deal.” He did his best to smile at me as he lowered his butt down so that he was sitting on the bottom of the tub.
With a few tiny grunts, he moved his legs to stretch out in front of him. Good thing I had one of those nice, big garden tubs. It was really one of the reasons that I’d picked this condo. But that wasn’t the important thing right now.
“If it will make you feel any better, I can just pretend that I didn’t see anything,” I said and flashed him a smile of my own.
He let out a short laugh that was followed by a harsh cough. As he wrapped his arm around his ribs.
“Sorry,” I said sympathetically. “I won’t make you laugh anymore.”
“No, please. I need the laughter right now. Otherwise…”
He didn’t finish that statement but I didn’t need him to in order to catch his meaning.
So I was a little bit curious to know what had happened to him, but I wasn’t about to ask. Honestly, I was smart enough to know that I probably wouldn’t really want that information anyway. Seeing his injuries was enough to tell me that it wasn’t a simple accident. And it also told me that this wasn’t anything good. Whatever Bocca had stumbled into was not only bad, but very, very dangerous. Something I didn’t need to know anything about let alone have any involvement in.
Even as I thought that, I realized that I already was. Because I had this stranger here, in my home, and I was currently taking care of him. And maybe even hiding him. That part I didn’t know for sure though.
“Just get as comfortable as you can,” I said reaching for the bar of soft, white soap and a washcloth.
He sat there, his knees spread slightly, his shoulder slumped in almost a defeated way. Half of his hair had fallen out of the tie that held it back and was hanging in his face.
I started with his back, knowing it would cause him the least amount of pain. I worked quickly because he didn’t need to sit under the spray for an extended period of time. Then as I thought about it, I stood and pulled the detachable shower head down after I shut off the water. I let it dangle, figuring that it would be easier to rinse him off that way.
My hand moved over the tattoo on his shoulder blade. I didn’t even realize that I had leaned forward to get a good look at it. The name of the motorcycle club didn’t ring any bells with me. Then again, I’d only been in the area a little over a year. And I wasn’t a very social person, so I didn’t know the good and bad things about the city.
Sure, I knew where to go and where to never step foot in. I knew the parts of the city to avoid. I’d seen quite a few gang members come in with gunshot wounds and I knew those pretty well only because of that reason. But that was about it. As far as other major underground players went, I was clueless.
And yes, I realized that I was judging him right away. I wasn’t saying that all motorcycle clubs were bad. Truth was, I didn’t have any experience with them and I imagined that they couldn’t have been as bad as the TV shows had portrayed how they might be. Who knew, they could have been a club of men that rode motorcycles and played golf on the weekend. That could have been a thing…right?
“You got quiet on me,” he said and it snapped me out of my thoughts.
“I could say the same about you,” I quipped back.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said like he somehow maybe knew that I was thinking about his tattoo and what it could have meant.
“I believe you,” I said with full honesty.
“We aren’t bad guys. A little gruff and rowdy sometimes, but we don’t go around picking fights and shooting up places just for the hell of it.”
Okay, was I mistaken or was there something that was not said in that statement. Like maybe he wasn’t exactly denying some sort of unlawful activity.
Or maybe my mind was just trying too hard to read into it.
With a shrug, I moved to clean his shoulders. We were silent as I carefully washed around his cuts as best as possible.
“Um, here, you can clean all that, if you want.” I handed him the soaped up washcloth as I tried to not check out his goods. I mean, they were right there and weren’t exactly unnoticeable.
He snickered as he took the cloth and began to scrub himself as best as he could manage in his weakened state. When he was done, he set it to the side.
“Can you please wash my hair,” he said softly and there was no way I could deny him even if I wanted to.
It wasn’t because he sounded pathetic or broken. It wasn’t even that he seemed so helpless. I honestly couldn’t explain what it was, but I wanted to help him in any way that I could. I wanted this stranger to feel whole again for some reason and I would have done anything to help him get there.
With shaky fingers, I pulled his hair free of the hair tie as gently as I could manage. It was a dirty, tangled mess, but I was able to not rip too much of his hair out. Then I got my smoothing shampoo and began to massage it in at his scalp. My fingers worked slowly but efficiently, making sure that I’d scrubbed it really well.
“Ready?” I asked once I was done as I reached for the shower head. He nodded almost blindly like he was either lost in his head or in some kind of dazed trance. I couldn’t tell which.
I made sure the water was warm enough before I started the spray. Trying to make sure all the shampoo was out of his hair with one hand was quite difficult and took way longer than it should have.
I had to admit, now that it was clean, he had amazing hair. Medium blond and very soft. He obviously took care of it under normal circumstances.
“Okay, all done. Can you get up or do you need some help?” I asked as I shut off the water and reached for a clean towel. Then I thought better of it and grabbed a second one for his hair as well.
“Yeah, just give me a few minutes if that is alright.”
“Sure,” I said with a little nod of my head. “I’m going to go change the sheets. If you need me just call out. I won’t be far.”
With that, I left him sitting there and went off to change the bed.
He shuffled out of the bathroom just as I was finishing up, his hair half dry and the towel wrapped around his waist. I hadn’t thought this far yet, but I had nothing for him to wear. And the clothes I found him in…well, they were best just tossed in the trash. As he swayed on his feet, I figured it didn’t much matter right at the moment because he wasn’t going to be going anywhere anytime soon.
I helped get him back in the bed. The moment his head hit the pillow his eyes closed. His body was pretty banged up and I knew that rest would be the best thing for him right now.
“Thank you,” he whispered as he caught my hand after I released the sheet to cover him. His eyes didn’t open but he gave me a light squeeze that made my heart flutter a little.
Which was strange. Because I had not ever really experienced anything like that and I had no idea what the hell it meant. I shrugged it off thinking that I wasn’t shown a lot of gratitude in my line of work and that it must have just been really nice to hear.
Pushing it out of my mind with a quick shake of my head, I checked over and redressed his wounds. Then I walked out of the room and left him to get some sleep.