Over the next few hours, I stay by Phillip’s side, dozing occasionally on my little sliver of bed, while Casey, my friend and fellow coworker, tends to Hunt, the other injured biker they left behind to heal. Hunt was incredibly lucky that a bullet just grazed the side of his head and part of his ear, or he would be a dead man.
More than once I’ve wanted to ask what happened, where they were and why people were shooting at them, but I kept my mouth shut. The less I know about the MC’s business, the better off I probably am. Maybe I should’ve turned them away when the group of strange men showed up at my door. I couldn’t, though; not if it meant someone dying who I could’ve tried to save. I’m certain they would not have wanted to show up at a hospital to have police start asking questions.
The doorbell rings late that afternoon, and I have a feeling I know who it will be. I wait and listen to see if Casey will get the door. When she doesn’t, I go into the living room, surprised that neither Hunt nor Casey is in there where I left them earlier, when he was recovering on the sofa. Maybe they left without saying goodbye. There’s a cup of coffee on the kitchen table, and the pillow and blanket are still draped across the sofa.
I open the door and see Nash on the other side of the glass.
“Hey.” I unlock and open the storm door, then move aside for him to come in.
“Hey. Sorry to just drop in on you. How are the patients?” he asks, looking hesitant as he steps inside and glances around at the empty living room.
“I thought maybe you had heard from Hunt since he disappeared while I was with Phillip.”
“Phillip?” He furrows his handsome face in confusion. There’s something…familiar about him, although I’m not sure what it is. Maybe I’ve seen him around town before.
“Fiasco,” I clarify. “He said his real name is Phillip.”
“I didn’t know that. How is he?”
“He’s mostly sleeping, but I think he’s doing okay so far. He was awake and alert long enough to tell me his name, so that’s a good sign. You can come see him…”
“Sure, thanks.”
I turn and start down the hallway with Nash behind me. We’re about to go into the bedroom when I notice the light is on in the hall bathroom, the door shut. Then I hear soft voices coming from inside followed by a loud gasp and then what is definitely a moan.
“I think we found Hunt and Casey,” Nash whispers from behind me. My cheeks go up in flames because I’ve never been one for casual sex or even around anyone else having sex. And the loud, noisy kind is not the type I’ve ever encountered in the bedroom, sad but true. I even jump when something or someone hits the bathroom door hard enough to shake it, then the sounds really grow louder.
“We can, ah, go on in here,” I tell Nash, urging him into the bedroom ahead of me so I can close the door behind us to try and drown out the noise.
“Sorry about that,” he says.
“Why are you apologizing? They’re both adults,” I remark.
“Yes, but that’s not why I brought him here,” he says.
“It’s…fine.”
We both pretend we don’t hear the muffled grunts and groans when we move closer to the bed where Phillip is sleeping. I press my palm to his forehead, and his skin is noticeably warmer. “I think he has a fever.”
“Shit,” Nash says.
“I’m already giving him what antibiotics I had here, but we may need something stronger, along with more morphine.”
In order to get the stronger medicines, I may have to call in a favor from a new friend in the hospital pharmacy and ask them to do something I didn’t think I would ever do – steal medicine from the hospital. Thankfully, it’s a small community hospital where everyone knows and trusts everyone else, even if they shouldn’t. While a prescription is needed for all patients, I don’t think anyone actually compares the number of prescriptions to the number of drugs that go out.
I make the call, and then Nash volunteers to go meet and pay my friend for his help.
While he’s gone, Fiasco jerks in his sleep and groans as his temperature keeps climbing. I try and cool him down with a wet rag on his face, neck and chest, but it only seems to make him more uncomfortable.
“Shh, it’s okay,” I tell him. “I’m going to take care of you.”
Talking to him seems to calm him down, so I keep at it until Nash returns, coming right to the bedroom without knocking as if he knows how urgent it is for us to get more antibiotics in his friend.
“Did you get it?” I ask, and he holds up what looks like a reusable lunch bag.
“Yes. I know how risky this is to you and your friend. Like I told him, if anything happens, I told him to say I threatened his life at gunpoint to make him steal.”
“Hopefully no one will notice they’re missing,” I say as I take the bag from him, glad to see Thomas put some syringes in here too.
Once I get everything measured out, I push the liquid into the IV I started on Phillip and wait to see if they help.
I’ve just sat back down on the empty side of the bed when Casey comes into the room. Her auburn hair is pulled up in a messy bun like mine, although much messier after sex. She’s practically glowing, face flushed like a heavy coat of blush has been applied perfectly. The blissed out look on her face falls just a little when she sees Nash standing there. “Oh, sorry. I would’ve knocked if I knew you had company.”
“It’s okay,” we both say.
“I need to slip outside to call and
