I raised my hand, pretending I was going to whack her, and she laughed and ducked against me. She put her arms around my waist and hugged me. She was tense until I rested my arm around her shoulders.
“You’re both so cute,” Noah said from her bed. “My likkle wikkle babies.”
“Oh God,” I grumbled. “Go back to sleep, love. Ye need your rest, okay?”
“Why would I sleep when I feel this powerful?” She suddenly sat up. “Look at my muscles, paddy. Look at them!”
Bailey laughed as Noah flexed her thin, not-a-single-muscle-in-sight arms. I got to my feet, approached her, and eased her back until she was lying down once again. Her hands gripped on to my biceps and she waggled her eyebrows.
“Look at your muscles,” she purred. Literally. Like a damn cat. “You’re so sexy, take off your top so I can see you.”
“Oh, Christ,” Bailey whispered. “She’s gone mad.”
“She’s medicated, not mad.”
Noah was in the middle of rubbing her hands over my arms, chest and stomach. I had to angle away from her to keep her from reaching lower. I was about to distract her with a chaste kiss when the doctor who’d reset her foot entered the cubicle.
“Sorry for the delay,” he said. “We had a resus.”
“No worries, we’re not goin’ anywhere.”
“Elliot,” Noah suddenly shouted. “Let’s have wild, dirty sex!”
“Oh my God.”
I mentally echoed Bailey’s whisper.
“I’m sorry,” I apologised to the doctor. “She’s high as a kite.”
The doctor looked like he needed the laugh as he waved his hand.
“Better this than her in pain.”
I agreed with a smile. He took out an X-ray image from the folder in his hand and held it up in the air.
“Ah, fuck,” I grumbled. “She’s gonna need surgery, isn’t she?”
I could clearly see the fracture in her leg.
“Unfortunately, yes. She’ll need internal fixation,” the doctor said. “Which is a fancy way of saying bone fracture repair.”
Damn.
I scratched my neck. “Surgery is the only option?”
Noah’s hands were back on my stomach, now under my T-shirt, and I left her to poke at my abs and count them out loud to keep her from shouting and causing a scene. Bailey was mortified on her behalf – one look at my sister showed her covering her face with her hands.
“In her case, yes.” The doctor nodded as he pointed at the X-ray. “The fracture is quite severe. Her foot is fine, it’s actually the bones in her leg she fractured. She has two: one here on the tibia and another here on her fibula. She’ll need the aid of some screws, pins and likely a plate to get everything back in working order. The surgery is pretty straightforward; it can take between three and six hours. She’ll have a boot cast on when she comes out of surgery, and she’ll be able to go home in two days if everything goes well. But she’ll be off her feet for six to eight weeks and she’ll have to attend physio.”
I’d guessed as much.
“Understood.” I nodded. “I’ll make sure she stays off of it.”
While Bailey talked to Noah to distract her, I stepped outside with the doctor. He told me that her surgery wouldn’t be until the next morning, as her leg was a little too swollen for his liking. I shook his hand and thanked him just as I caught sight of a familiar face disappearing round the corner.
“AJ?”
He popped his head back and raised his eyebrows.
“Irish, what’s wrong? Why’re you here?”
He was on watch; he was wearing his uniform minus his jacket and heavy gear.
“Noah fractured her leg in two places.” I jabbed my thumb towards her cubicle. “She’s gettin’ surgery in the mornin’.”
“Jesus. Poor Nono.”
“Tell me ’bout it.” I stretched. “Why’re you here?”
“We brought in a resus a while ago,” AJ explained. “The paramedics needed me to keep up compressions in the ambo.”
“Successful resus?”
“So far.” AJ nodded. “Fingers crossed he stays on the mend. Cardiac arrest at his grandson’s birthday party.”
“Shite.”
“Yeah. How is Noah?”
“So stoned.” I shook my head, my lips twitching. “She was tryin’ to have sex while the doctor was explainin’ to me that she needs surgery. She shouted it. Bailey’s mortified.”
“The kid’s here too?” AJ was suddenly grinning. “Where’s she at?”
I snorted. AJ loved to torment my sister, because he – and everyone else – knew how much she fancied him. He was apparently the Dulwich Adonis, according to my sister and her friends.
“Elliot!”
AJ and I darted forward at Bailey’s shout. I yanked the blue curtain aside and found my little sister struggling to hold a thrashing Noah down on the bed.
“She said spiders are on her.”
Bailey stepped back and AJ and I quickly restrained Noah, who was crying that spiders were in her mouth and crawling in her hair. So AJ and I made a big show of killing all of the imaginary spiders. Noah was a sniffling, snotty mess by the time she calmed down.
AJ handed me a few tissues from the dispenser behind us. I cleaned up Noah’s face, and encouraged her to blow her nose like a parent would with their toddler. Then, like the click of my fingers, she was snoring.
I looked at my sister and saw her favouring the right side of her face.
“What’s wrong, baby?”
“Noah whacked me by mistake.” Bailey rubbed her red cheek. “She didn’t mean it, she was scared of the spiders she saw.”
“Lemme see.”
Bailey dropped her hand and let me tilt her head so I could inspect her cheek. I winced; it was red and starting to swell, and there was already a blue bruise forming around her eye. I leaned down and gave it a gentle kiss.
“She got ye good. I’ll get ye an icepack and AJ will bring ye home in me car before he goes back to work, okay?”
Bailey’s eyes widened, and her face went scarlet to match her cheek.
“I wanna stay with you.”
Laughing, I hugged her to me. “He won’t tease ye.”
“He will,” she grumbled. “He always does.”
“Are you two talking
