Chapter 28

Cami

“He didn’t even ask for waffles.”

“What was that?” the nurse who’d just stepped in to check on me asked.

“Nothing,” I replied. “My friend should be here in a few minutes. I can sit in the waiting room if the doctor wants to release me now.”

That seemed like a reasonable suggestion. I wouldn’t have to do all the paperwork after Xander arrived. I was exhausted, and all I wanted to do was climb into bed and sleep for ten hours. I couldn’t since I had appointments the next day, but the sooner I got home, the more sleep I’d get.

“We can’t release you unless your ride arrives. Will this friend be the person staying with you?” Her question was unexpected.

“Staying with me?” I asked. “No one said anything about me needing someone to stay with me.”

“I’ll stay with her, and I’m driving her home.”

Xander’s announcement drew my attention and that of my nurse. She turned and gawked at him in stunned silence before finally regaining the ability to speak. “You’re Xander Marsh.”

The smile he flashed her was the same one that had groupies tossing panties at him. I suspected my pretty redheaded nurse wanted to throw her panties at him—in a figurative sense, at least. Who could blame her? I certainly wasn’t immune to Xander’s charm. Dressed in worn jeans, a black hoodie, and a baseball cap, he looked like he’d just thrown on clothes and raced out the door when I called.

“That’s me,” he replied.

The nurse looked between us, and I could tell she wanted to ask about our relationship. I could relate to her dilemma. One of my patients was the daughter of a well-known musician. I’d been flustered the first few times he’d come to my office with his daughter. It was hard remaining composed when you wanted to let out a fangirl scream and jump up and down. My nurse was trying to be professional. If she followed celebrity gossip, she’d probably heard about me dating Xander but hadn’t recognized me before Xander’s arrival. I took pity on her and explained our relationship—our fake relationship.

“Xander is more than my friend. I can tell you want to ask.”

Xander sat beside me on the hospital bed, slipped an arm around my shoulders, and kissed the top of my head.

The nurse’s cheeks flushed, and she cleared her throat. “Sorry. We’ve had other big names in the hospital, so I shouldn’t be acting this way.”

Xander could be arrogant and clueless at times, but he was usually a sweet guy. That’s why I wasn’t surprised by his response. “We had a benefit show a few months back, and I was so excited to see some of my favorite musicians that I didn’t realize I was staring like a zombie until one of them came over to ask if I was high. It’s more than a little awesome that I have that effect on some people now.”

The nurse smiled, looking much less embarrassed. “I’ll go get the discharge paperwork.”

Once she was out of the room, Xander asked, “Concussion?”

“How’d you know?”

“I’ve had a couple myself. I guess I get to wake you up every hour.”

I shook my head. “They don’t do that anymore. There are no signs of internal bleeding. I was out for less than a minute, but they wanted to play it safe, so they did a CT scan.”

“What happened?” he asked. His arm was still around me, and I leaned into his side. It was nice having him with me.

“I slipped in the stairwell. Someone spilled something slippery on the steps. Luckily, when I screamed, the cleaning crew heard me.”

“You could have been killed,” he said softly.

“That’s being a little too dramatic.” Sure, I could have died, but it wasn’t likely. It’s not like I’d fallen all the way down a flight of stairs. “I’m glad I got the padded laptop bag.” I gestured to the bag sitting on a chair beside my purse. “I checked it already, and nothing was damaged.”

“Who the fuck spills something in a stairwell and doesn’t clean up?” He sounded thoroughly pissed. “The least they could have done was report the spill.”

“Calm down. If the spill happened after six, the person would have needed to send an email to have it cleaned up. Before you start ranting about them cleaning it up themselves, oil is hard to clean up. Even if they wiped it down, the stairs would still be slippery.”

Xander was frowning. “Why would someone have oil in the stairwell?”

“They could have broken the bottle and cleaned up the glass,” I suggested. “It’s likely they even tried to wipe up most of the spill. I don’t know.”

“Maybe someone put it there on purpose.”

I laughed at his suggestion. “You’ve been watching detective shows again, haven’t you?”

He let out a tired sigh. “You’re right. I’m probably being paranoid. Still, why would someone be walking down the stairs with oil after hours?”

“It could have been something else,” I pointed out.

“You also said there was cleaning staff in the building,” he argued. “Why didn’t they find one of them? Or they could have put a note on the door to the stairwell to warn people that they were slippery. I know it would have been a lot of work to put a sign up on each floor, but that shit is seriously dangerous.”

“The spill may have happened before the nighttime cleaning crew arrived.” My tone was exasperated as I pulled away from Xander. “The person who spilled it should have done more. I don’t know why they didn’t, but my head is throbbing, and I’m exhausted. Can we stop talking about this?”

While he didn’t look happy about it, Xander nodded. “All right. I’m sorry about pushing this. I’m just worried.”

“You don’t have to stay with me,” I told him. “It’s almost morning, so I can just stay up until someone else can come over.”

“I’ll stay with you,” he replied.

“You don’t have to,” I argued.

“You’ve already said that.” Xander looked like he wanted to say more, but we were interrupted by the nurse.

“I’ve got your discharge paperwork. We’ll have you out of here in a few minutes.”