Flashes of images struck me hearing those words, but not one of them made sense. The skeleton of the house, the land we’d bought, I was saying something to her on my knees and watching her eyes change color with the sun.
It was pretty damn romantic and idyllic, so how did it go to shit?
Then I remembered a bang and being hit in the shoulder by something.
Needing a moment alone with her to make sure she was okay, I tightened my grip on her hand and turned toward him. “I’m sorry for threatening your ass hole, Doc. Can you do what needs to be done so that I can have some time with Tamsin? I hate seeing her cry and her blaming herself for this when my job isn’t exactly risk-free…” I trailed off, watching as understanding filled his face.
“Of course, of course. My girlfriend’s the same. The second something happens, and we get hurt, they want to blame themselves for not stopping it while smothering you with attention. Some say it’s down to women having a maternal instinct, you know,” he said, getting out a foam strip and laying stuff out on a table he wheeled over from the side of the room.
“I’m not sure if that’s true, but they’re remarkably good at it. Then again, we have a lot of male nurses who are outstanding at looking after their patients, so who knows why. I say just go with it,” he advised me, half of his mouth tilting in a small smile. “They hate us being hurt, and if this is what it takes to help them through it—and what you’ve just gone through is by no means a small thing, so it’s understandable that Miss Waite is feeling this way—then it’s worth it. We’re equally as bad when the situations are reversed. Can you imagine if she was lying here instead of you?”
The machine started making some sort of rave music again, the beat and pitch incredibly obnoxious in the otherwise silent room. “I don’t even want to consider that ever being a possibility, Doc. She’s my world.”
Nodding, he went back to what he was doing, carefully raising the head of the bed, watching me for increased pain and stopping when it became clear I needed time to adjust. It took him longer than it should have to get me to a slightly higher position, but he was patient and watchful.
With every indication that I was hurting, Tamsin’s hand would shake, and at one point, she whimpered when I had to clench my eyes shut. I fucking hated it.
I hated that I was hurt, I hated that I couldn’t remember any of it, I hated that I was in pain. But I hated that she was crying and suffering at all even more.
Lowering the sheet so that it was pooled in my lap, he checked my side and nodded like what he saw was good.
“Amazingly enough, there’s very little bleeding coming from the wound here, much less than I would’ve expected,” he informed me, just as the door opened and a big breasted blonde came in wearing a scrub top that was a size too small for her. Seeing the new arrival, Tamsin growled, and her hand spasmed slightly. “Ah, Nurse O’T. Thank you for joining us.”
Not recognizing the name, I asked, “Oh tea?”
Facing me straight on, I understood the growl from Tamsin. She had trouble written all over her.
For one, that scrub top—I knew from things that Rose had told me that their scrubs were best worn loose so that that they could move and be more comfortable. Granted, they couldn’t be too baggy, but this woman had bought ones that were skin-tight, meaning that her deep cleavage was visible in the V of the neck of the top. The pants weren’t that much better, and I figured that if she had to squat down for anything, she’d burst the seams.
She also had thick makeup on, with a goldy pink color surrounding her eyes dramatically, and bright red lipstick. Her big hair was puffed up at the top and done in layers that flipped out at the bottom. Basically, she’d give men a naughty nurse porn feeling, and from how she was biting down on her lip as she looked between the Doc and me, that could well have been what she was going for.
“No, silly,” she giggled, and it took everything in me not to curl my upper lip. “O. T., as in—”
O’Tits?
“—O’Tally. My family is Irish.” This was punctuated by what I think she wanted to be a sexy look, but it kind of made her look like she had issues. I’d seen crazy eyes on some people in my past, and hers screamed fucking tonto.
Dropping her head back, Tamsin growled, “And there was me worrying it was going to be Missy. Why can’t this hell just end?”