Evan

These are some damn good meds.

“You going to do it or pussy out?” I remember saying to Roman. Except, now in my head, in a whacked flashback, I’m slurring it.

We face each other in a bit of a standoff, hidden in an abandoned car garage in Brooklyn that carries the ghosts of drug deals and girls in scanty clothing looking to make a buck or twenty—whatever they needed to get them by for the night. The bustle of the street below and rank air bounces off the cracked cement walls of the vacant structure, which thanks to the morphine plugged in my vein, now has a cool ricochet sound. Acoustics are everything.

I can’t tell you how many nights I watched this lot, how many times I’ve been in plain clothes and swapped money and plastic baggies filled with a little more than fairy dust. These are old stomping grounds for a guy like me. But I’m not walking in my old footsteps for a trip down memory lane, no, I’m on a mission to get myself in some serious trouble, because that makes life a little more interesting, now doesn’t it?

Roman stands, gun in hand, with an uneasy expression across his face. Understandable. I’ve got Bella on the brain, so I’m about to do something exceptionally idiotic, but perfectly necessary, in order to get what I want. I see her when I close my eyes and brace myself for the blow.

“Should I countdown, or—" Roman racks the slide, “—just do it?”

“Why the hell would you countdown? What person in their right mind would want to know what you’re about to do and when?”

“Ok. If that’s how you want it, Lacuna.”

Bang.

“Goddamn, Roman,” I groan, twisting my head to appraise what he’s done.

“So, I didn’t count,” Roman grins. “How’s that work for you?”

“Dude, you shot me in the arm.”

He laughs. In this drug induced haze, it echoes inside this structure. “Eh, it’s a flesh wound.” He comes closer, squinting his eyes. “Or not.”

“I said to make it look real,” I groan again, “not to really do it.” I wobble in my vision. “I think you better call in a favor,” I say. “I have a feeling this is about to go from bad idea to really bad motherfucking idea, fast.”

Sirens screech just as I slide down against the cement wall, sitting myself on the stained concrete. Blood flows in a steady stream from my arm, soaking my shirt with rusty red, flooding the garage.

Fuck.

I yank my belt from the loops of my jeans and fasten it tight around my arm in a makeshift tourniquet, biting the end of the belt with my teeth to hold it taught.

Oh. Motherfucker. Roman drifts away. White lightning shoots through my arm, the pain so fierce I can feel it in my teeth. I need more morphine.

The fuck was I thinking?

I’ve been shot before, shot at anyway … but I was wearing a bullet proof vest and that’s a whole other ballgame.

Ah, the things you’ll do for love.

“We’re going to be here all night,” Roman complains.

He’s actually here now, in my hospital room—instead of in my morphine crazed mind—staring holes through me. I’ve got one from him already, that’s enough.

“No,” I correct, “you’re going to be here all night. I’ve got shit to do.”

I follow where his eyes are now trained and see Bella pass by pushing her chart cart. Those pink lips. Her smile is genuine, like she really loves helping people. I love that most. I watch her as if she’s in slow motion. Even in scrubs she’s sexy as hell.

Scrubs be damned, she’s all crescent moon hips, curvy ass—"Something interesting in that hallway, Evan?” Roman chuckles as he catches me ogling her.

I shrug it off. “A lot more interesting than looking at you.”

She enters my room, appraises Roman for a moment, and then looks over at me. “How’s everything going over here? How are you feeling?”

“Like I was shot in the arm.”

Roman clears his throat. “I think I’ll wait outside.”

“Probably a good idea,” I return, feeling highly fucking—what’s that word he uses? Yeah, miffed.

Roman glances at Bella as he swats the curtain aside and exits my room. She looks at me, a little bit of amusement in her eyes. “Lover’s quarrel?”

“Long story.”

Her expression smoothes out, all business again. “How’s your pain?” She points to a chart on the wall filled with faces. The first looks perfectly happy, smiling from ear-to-ear. The last is a wreck, red and grimacing with tears flowing.

I’m about to answer when the curtain moves again. Fully prepared to tell Roman to screw off again, I open my mouth, but it’s not him. It’s Dr. Blonde.

“How’s our most important patient?” he asks. “How’s your pain?”

“A two for one,” I joke. “How lucky.” I glance at Bella but she averts her eyes to the pain chart.

“I was just getting to that part,” she tells him.

“Of course, you were.” He smiles at her and it’s too warm. I have to look away, back at the TV, as I try to keep my cool.

I’m still a man who lives in an alternative universe where gold is really brass and sweet is really bitter. The only thing that’s changed is who’s the keeper of those elements. Right now, I feel downright bitter, watching this man smile at her. But I have to be sweet. I have to bury the truth and unearth the beast from within, dangle our prey in front of his eyes and tell him ‘not yet,’ even though I’m starved.

“Pain on a scale from one-to-ten?” the doctor asks again. Bella changes my bandage as he looks at me. She looks so different. She’s a little bit blonde and cut off all her long pretty hair that used to fall to the small of her back. It sits at her shoulders now. Still the prettiest fucking girl I’ve ever seen.

Her hands move exceptionally slow, and when she presses her fingers down on the gauze, I can feel them shaking. I’d like to take her hand and just hold it still for a moment, but obviously that’s not going to happen.

“Morphine is doing its job,” I say, still looking at her as she works. “No worries, Doc.”

“Good to hear.” He smiles tightly at me and then looks at her. “How is everything looking, Bella?”

I get stuck on her name. Bella—In Italian, it means beautiful. It rolls off my tongue so easily. I don’t like it rolling off his.

“I’m almost done,” she says, quietly.

He pauses for a moment. “Maybe I should assist? Such an important patient. One who only deserves our best.” The good doctor tries to take over for her, but Bella stands her ground, smiling up at him sweetly and in a voice I don’t recognize—all sugar, no spice.

“I’m fine, Alexander.” She glances over at him, but he makes no plans to move. “I’m just going to check his vitals once more,” she says, but still, he remains.

A little part of me dies watching her lose the sparkle that illuminated how much of a firecracker she was. She now operates in robot mode.

“Yes, I’d like to see those as well,” he says.

Fuck.

She comes close to me, her body so warm I can feel the heat rolling off her as she digs through a drawer at my bedside. She’s still so fragrant, like a flower about to bloom. I could groan at how good she smells, instead I put my eyes back on the TV.

Alexander shoves his hands in his coat pockets and directs his gaze to me. “You’ve got a great nurse taking care of you,” he says, carefully. “Remembered your blood type and everything.”

Oh, shit. What did I miss when I blacked out? Didn’t want to black out, but one can only lose so much blood, ya know? It was a little out of my control.

Bella doesn’t offer up any help, keeping her attention on the drawer.

“That so?”

“Yes. But I guess it is pretty rare to get an AB negative patient, especially when you’re the same blood type.”

Bella finally faces me. “I treated you a while back for something.”

“Right,” I say, looking up at her when she comes to take my blood pressure. She watches the gauge and then rips the cuff from my arm when it’s done. She plugs her stethoscope in her ears and puts the metal to my chest, listening. “Sorry. Didn’t recognize you,” I say, “You cut your hair, dyed it blonde.”

“I can’t hear, if you’re talking.”

Alexander still monitors everything with Hawkeyes. I glance to him. “Lucky to have such a good nurse working in your hospital.”

His lip lifts in the corner. “Even luckier that she’s my fiancée.”

Hell, he might as well just stick out his tongue, swipe it across her cheek and say ‘There, I licked her. She’s mine.’

Bad image to put in my head.

He’s a statue, until a code blue comes over the intercom. A gaggle of nurses blow past my room, he spins and follows after them without a word to us.

“Thank God,” I say. “Didn’t think he’d ever leave.”

“Shh. I said be quiet. Don’t talk.”

I put my hand on her arm and have to close my eyes for a moment to steady myself. “How’s he treat you, Bella?”

She huffs. “I need to listen to your heart, so shush. Please.”

“Probably won’t get an accurate reading. Not with you being the one who's listening.”

She pulls the scope from her ears and stares at me. Like she’s still eighteen and I’m twenty-seven. Like I could still whisper three words, three times, and it would get me out of that trouble. “You lost so much blood, Evan, so just lie back, shut your mouth, and let me do my job, please.”

I lie quiet and she looks at me for a long measure, untrusting, because that’s exactly how she should be looking at me.