Being a world-class football player meant that waking up in a hospital bed was not exactly a foreign experience to me. I’d taken my fair share of blows during the sport, on and off the field...

The first thing I noticed was that I was disoriented by the amount of space I had. The kind of treatment I was used to in England would have been cramped at best. Hospitals in London aren’t known for their open floorplans.

Here… I had space.

The room was fairly large by my standards, although the huge bed took up a substantial portion of it… but I had it all to myself.

A small television was mounted up on the opposing wall, and there was a wide window to my right, letting in some light to chirp up the place. To my left was a door, leading to either a closet or a bathroom – and beyond that, a larger door, naturally to exit the room.

That’s when I spotted the other human being in the room. Riley was fast asleep, curled up on some sort of padded storage bench beneath the window. As I shifted around in bed and found a way to raise the incline to my back, she stirred from her slumber.

“Oh! Lex! You’re… you’re awake,” Riley murmured, stifling her surprising burst of enthusiasm with a yawn. “How are you feeling?”

“My head’s a little off, but besides that, I’m chipper as ever,” I groggily answered, scratching my chest. I felt round things attached to my skin, connected to wires – so, the doctors had given me electrodes.

“You won’t want to mess with those,” Riley warned, her eyes drifting down to my scratching fingertips. “They were rather adamant about that.”

“They being who, exactly?”

“The doctors,” Riley told me.

“Right. Speaking of, what am I doing in a hospital, precisely?”

Riley looked saddened. “You… took a few blows to the head, and you were knocked out.” Her eyes glanced down to her lap, where she wrung her hands together while adding: “There was a lot of bleeding.”

“For a head wound? Not surprising at all,” I commented, feeling for the lightly throbbing gash on my scalp. My fingertips grazed it – not too bad, all things considered. “I’ve taken a few before. They always look far worse than they actually are. Lots of blood with those buggers. Scares the Devil right out of you.”

“Well… we’d better wait to see what the doctor says, anyway.”

I nodded absentmindedly, considering those words. “Where is the doctor, anyway?”

“He’s supposed to be making his rounds in thirty minutes,” Riley responded, rising from the bench, “but I’ll go check with the nurse’s station anyway. You’ve been out for a while, so we didn’t know when you might come back.”

“How long’s a while?”

“A day and a half.”

I grimaced. “Oh boy.”

Riley stepped out, and I reached over, digging around the items scattered across the end table for my phone. I didn’t see it, which concerned me – particularly since I knew that Jess was going to be pissed.

I spotted my blazer, hanging with my pants on a nearby wall. Shrugging off the blankets, I was able to barely reach it with my electrodes in place, and fished around in my blazer pocket.

There you are…

I slunk back into bed and began to text Jess. My eyes fell upon the logo for the hospital, which had the words “Saint Peter’s General Hospital” emblazoned around the edges, and notified her where I was, and that I was fine.

I hit send and slipped the phone back onto the end table before Riley popped back into the room.

“Doctor Wright will be with you shortly.”

Shortly apparently meant later than originally told, because it was almost forty-five minutes before he finally appeared. A comforting man in his mid-thirties, Doctor Wright apologized for the delay and began to examine me during some small talk.

I kept my answers brief, and my tone even.

“Everything seems normal,” he commented finally, wrapping up his investigation. “Looks like you lucked out. Minor concussion, and you’ve got that gash there, but I don’t see why it won’t heal up nicely. You don’t even need stitches for it. I’m going to go ahead and clear you for release. Shall I go ahead and file for the paperwork?”

“Please do so,” I agreed.

He left us to our devices, and I turned to Riley. “How long have you been here?”

“Since you saved me.”

“Saved you?” I didn’t remember much saving.

“The… rapists, in the alley,” she cautiously reminded me. “I was going to be assaulted and probably left for dead, but you found me… you came for me, and you rescued me from them.”

I faintly remembered something like that, but it was incredibly faint. Did I? I flexed my knuckles, feeling them ache. It was the kind of ache from battering them against the skulls of predatory, low-life scum.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

Riley smiled softly. It was maybe the first genuine, sincere smile that I’d seen out of her. “Yeah. I think I’m pretty great.”

“Fantastic to hear, love,” I smiled back.

“Listen… how long are you going to be in America?” Riley asked me, hovering near the edge of my bed. She looked pensive, tentatively awaiting my answer.

“You know, I’m not quite sure… weeks, probably. I can’t stay too long, the season starts back up in a month and a half… and I’m going to have to keep in shape, regardless of where I am.”

“Oh. I see.” She looked crestfallen.

“Listen, a month and a half, that’s a long time, right?” I replied, sensing her withdraw back into herself. Dammit, it took this long to get her to retreat out of that shell… the last thing I need is to lose her now.

“Well, not really, when you think about it,” Riley told me. “I’d actually say that it’s not a whole lot of time at all.”

“I want to see more of you,” I blurted out, surprised by myself. Riley was apparently startled as well, as she looked at me curiously and with a rather analytical gaze.

“Do you?”

“Yeah,” I reiterated. “Only if you think you can handle it.”

“I can handle myself,” she retorted, “with the notable exception of last night. Call that the exception that proves the rule.”

“You know… I like you,” I confessed. “The other night was fantastic, and I hope to experience more of those… And less nights that end in a hospital bed…”

Riley hesitated, looking at me with a clear conflict of emotions in her head. Finally, she looked me in the eyes with a startlingly vulnerable gaze, and she spoke: “…Yeah.” Adding a nod, she continued: “I think I’d like that.”

I nodded back, letting a small grin curve up the corners of my lips. “I think I’d like that too.”

The door popped open not five seconds later, and a very flustered Jess was upon me like wildfire.

“Lex, what the fuck? Can I not leave you alone for fookin’ five goddamn minutes without you disappearing on me? And this time… this time, you’re in the hospital?”

“It was for a worthy cause,” I replied, taking Riley’s hand. Her fingers flinched, but she kept her hand in mine.

Jess glanced back and forth between us. “So… are one of you going to start talking about why my friend is in a hospital bed right now, or am I going to have to threaten to beat him halfway to death with a brick to get answers?”

“Riley was cornered by a spot of trouble,” I answered simply. “I took care of it. Might have gotten a few scrapes in the process.”

“He’s being modest,” Riley elaborated.

“Am I… am I hearing that right?” Jess laughed as she turned back to me, almost in hysterics. “Modest? You? Do you even know how to be modest? You couldn’t even find it in a dictionary, yeah?”

“I was dragged into an alley,” Riley told her with complete conviction. “There were two of them, and I couldn’t fight them off. Lex found me and fought them off. If he’d been fifteen seconds later…”

Jess went completely silent, staring at me. She looked a very compelling mixture of shocked, appalled, and downright horrified.

“Lex… is this… is this true?”

“More or less,” I shrugged.

“Cor blimey,” she muttered, holding her head in her hand. “I’m gonna need a stiff pint after hearing that…” She turned to Riley again, looking at her as if for the first time.

I had to remind myself that, besides a fleeting occasion, it was the first time.

“You look like hell,” Jess finally told her. “You look like you haven’t had a good night’s sleep in… a day? Two? What, have you been here the entire time?”

Riley nodded. “Yeah.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I didn’t know how to reach you, I don’t know where he’s staying, and I didn’t think he had anyone else nearby who could care for him. Besides… he’d just saved my life.”

Jess tried to hide it, but I could see how she beamed. She couldn’t resist making quick, fleeting eye contact with me.

“Listen, I know that it’s been a rough couple of days for you… Riley,” she started. “But I thought my only friend in this country was laying dead in a ditch somewhere. If it’s not too much, can I have a couple of minutes alone with him?”

Riley turned to me. I halfway expected her to be indignant, but she looked somewhat relieved. “I could use a bathroom and some coffee. Do you need anything from out there?”

“I think I’m good.”

“Alright. I’ll be back in ten.”

She nodded cordially to Jess as she left us in the room alone. As soon as the door clicked, I tossed the bedding off and made my way towards the connected bathroom.

“This is perfect,” Jess commented over the sound of my filled bladder of piss hitting water. “She adores you now. Not hard to see why.”

“Why do you sound so pleased with yourself?” I asked warily, washing my hands in the sink.

“You saved her life, Lex. This is exactly the kind of publicity we need you to have. I’m already writing the bylines now… maybe I can whip up something to send over to the boys tonight…”

I popped the door open and began walking uneasily back across the room to my clothes. “Absolutely not.”

Jess reacted as if she were a behaving child, and I’d just ripped her favourite toy from her and slipped it well out of reach. “But why not? Surely there’s a police report or something, I don’t even really need to ask her anything else. She just told me everything I needed to know to finish your write-up…”

“You’re not exploiting what happened to her in order to make me look better,” I explained sternly.

“But nothing happened, thanks to your timely and heroic intervention,” Jess protested. “And besides, where the fuck is this Lex coming from? Used to be that you’d take anything that made you look better.”

“I don’t follow,” I replied, slipping some of my possessions into my blazer and slacks pockets.

“The Patrovo Corporation contract, you ruddy idiot,” Jess hissed. She nodded towards the door. “You need shit like this to make you look better in their eyes. Has Alistair Pritch ever saved anyone from rape? Who knows! But now Lightning Lex Lambert has! All of a sudden, you’re right at the top of the pile, where we both know you deserve to be.”

“Not like this,” I reprimanded her. “Absolutely not like this. I forbid it.”

“You forbid it?”

“I do,” I snarled, stepping closer to her. “You are not to exploit this woman to further your agenda of representing me.”

“For God’s sake, exploiting her is why I told you to go find her again! You pay me to do this,” Jess retorted. “The agenda feeds me. That agenda. The agenda that keeps the British public pleased with you. Did you forget that you’re a loose cannon? You need me to pick up after you, Lex! Without me doing my job, you’d never get that sponsorship in your wildest dreams!”

“I am not telling you to not do your job,” I hissed, practically dribbling acid around my lips. “I am telling you that you leave Riley Ricketts out of it. Are we clear?”

“You’ve got it bad for this one, don’t you?” Jess asked. I could see some revelation unfolding in her eyes.

“I’m not letting anyone – you included – take this traumatic thing she’s experienced and force her to live it publicly, going through it again and again,” I told her. “It’s not the right thing to do.”

Jess shook her head. “She’s gotten into your brain, man. You never troubled yourself with what the right thing to do would be. You’re changing.”

“So what if I am?” I demanded.

“I’m not saying you’re changing for the worse, Lex,” Jess clarified, her tone softening as she looked into my eyes. “I’m saying that it’s for the better. Whatever you two have, whatever you’re doing… you need to capitalize on this.”

“You’re not exploiting–”

“Not me, you,” she told me. “Don’t you dare let this one slip away from you, Lex. You need her. She’s going to show you how to be better than who you are… and even when this thing between you both ends, you’ll come away from it a stronger, greater man for it.”

I thought on this as we heard a knock at the door. Jess mouthed the words, “Think about it,” and then walked over and let Riley back into the room.

“Oh, you’re… up,” Riley commented.

“I think it’s time we get out of here, don’t you think?” I flashed her a smile. “We could both use a clean, soft place to sleep.”

“That sounds good,” Riley nodded.

Jess suddenly realized that she was the third wheel, and clasped her hands together. “Well. I think that I’ve taken up enough of your time now… it’s good to see that you haven’t dropped dead somewhere,” she laughed nervously. Her eyes darted back and forth between the two of us, and she took herself a deep breath.

“Jess, calm down,” I commanded her lightly. “You’ve been itching to see more of New Orleans. Take a guided tour! Hit some pubs, yeah? Get your tourist bullshit out of the way.”

I walked over to the tired American woman, placing the backs of my knuckles against her cheek. “I think my friend here can keep me out of trouble from now on… wouldn’t you agree, Riley?”

Riley afforded me a small smile.

“Yeah, I think I can probably manage that.”

“So it’s settled, then,” I turned back to my secret publicist. With a mystical wave of my fingers, I let my voice boom: “I hereby release you, Jessica Partridge, of your bindings. From this moment forth until your services are needed once more, you are free to wander the port of New Orleans, out from under my oppressive reign.”

Jess did a slow twirl and lifted her fingertips, pretending to rise out from a spell. “It’s over!” She chortled. “Your evil magic is gone! Now, I’m free! Free to not incessantly worry about your constant stream of bullshit!”

Jess and I shared a heavy laugh.

Even Riley looked cheerful.