Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
“So, you’re going to play nursemaid to Rowe, huh?” she asked, eyebrows wiggling.
“He’s just a client,” I said, glad when my tone came out breezy.
“Sure, yeah. Sure he is.”
“He is.”
And that was all he would ever be.
Because the man wanted absolutely nothing to do with me.
CHAPTER FOUR
Rowe
They were all worried about me.
And that made me feel even shittier than I already felt.
But what could I do? I barely had enough energy to eat and get myself into the bathroom without assistance, let alone put on a brave face for everyone around me who wanted me to start getting better.
The thing was, I wasn’t sure that was possible.
The doctors weren’t sure that was possible.
All they could do was give me the facts. Which they started to do as soon as I woke up in that hospital bed, numb from head-to-toe, and absolutely fucking terrified that I was completely paralyzed.
It wasn’t long until the nurse came in to calmly reassure me that it was the medicine that was making me feel numb, and that feeling would start to come back once I was awake for a bit.
Then the doctor came in, handing me the facts I needed.
Spinal fracture.
Healing time would vary, but I couldn’t expect to feel even close to normal before three months passed.
There would be pain.
There could be numbness in parts of my leg or my groin.
There could be lifelong complications.
They had no way of knowing how things would go since it was so soon.
So they jacked me up with morphine for the couple of days at the hospital, then sent me home with a script and instructions to stay as active as possible.
The problem was, activity wasn’t all that possible when it felt like someone was jabbing a knife in my spinal cord anytime I tried to move.
The meds they gave me? All they managed to do was take the edge off. And even that only for a little while. So I spaced out the pills for when I knew I was going to need to take a shower or walk out into the main area of the clubhouse for something.
Then, well, then there was the on-again, off-again numbness that the doctor had warned me about. In my legs, my hips, my ass, and my groin.
And as the days chugged forward, none of it got better. If anything, shit all started to feel worse.
So I couldn’t fake happy and recovering. I could barely force a cordial tone when someone brought me a meal, or came to ask if they could get me anything.
I was lucky to have them. And I loved them all. But their expectations for my recovery only managed to make me feel more like a fucking failure because my body wasn’t cooperating with the plan.
A plan that included going to fucking physical therapy. I damn near blacked out from pain in the shower. How the hell was I supposed to try to move around and do abdominal exercises when standing was intolerable?
I knew they were all losing patience with me. When the sweeter, more tolerant of the girls—Andi, Gracie, Luna, Summer, etc.—started to avoid coming into my room, I knew I was barely keeping it together enough to not bark at them.
Which made me a dick.
I knew it did.
They didn’t deserve it. They were just trying to help.
But I couldn’t see through the pain. It was always right there, stealing my breath, making it hard to function or see or even think.
It got to the point where only Dezi and Malcolm would come into the room to check on me. Dezi, because nothing got to that guy. Shit just rolled off his back, so he was unfazed by my attitude. And Malc, because he was my best friend, because we’d been through a lot of shit, because he wouldn’t give up on me, no matter how hopeless I got.
Which was why I was in his truck for some fucking reason.
I wasn’t even sure how he’d managed to talk me into it. Something about fresh air and just getting away from the clubhouse before I got cabin fever.
He’d been unexpectedly talkative. Well, talkative for Malc anyway. And I think I’d just been too confused to argue. And the next thing I knew, I was sitting in the passenger seat, and we were driving.
“I thought you said we are getting fresh air,” I said after he parked and hopped out of the car, and grabbed the damn wheelchair out of the bed.
I hated the thing.
I refused to use it around the clubhouse because I didn’t need to be seen as any worse off than I was. But Malc hadn’t exactly asked, just loaded it into the truck, then came to my door with it like he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“We did. Now we’re doing something else,” he said as I hissed as I swung my legs out onto the bar to lower myself down.