At least my friend had the decency to look a little embarrassed about the whole thing. I couldn’t blame her. There was no telling how I would have reacted if she had called me. Trauma did the strangest things to people.
“I’m not sure that’s any better. You should have reached out to me directly and not tried to send a message through someone else.”
My throat constricted at the reprimand. This was bordering on abuse. I’d never had someone talk to me like that before. Mr. Thomas may have been the boss, and he wasn’t exactly wrong, but sometimes emergencies called for special circumstances.
“Again, I’m very sorry.” My eyes started to burn, and David moved closer, as if sensing my distress. His hand landed on my shoulder as I kept talking to my boss. “It was hard enough getting to her. In the future, I will take that into consideration and try harder to reach out to other people. Not that I foresee this happening again anytime soon.”
Mr. Thomas’s scoff did nothing to set me at ease as he disconnected the call. I handed the phone back to Angela, whose brow creased in concern. “Well?” she asked as she tucked the device back into her purse.
“He’s not happy. I don’t know what else to say. I guess if you die, you’re expected to call from beyond the grave to let him know you won’t be making it in.”
Everyone laughed because the statement was absurd. And then the reality of it all set in. Was my job safe after all of this?
Chapter 34
David
Watching Malcolm sit there in that hospital bed, anxiety flooding his frame after he’d gotten off the phone, all I wanted to do was take him away. Make him realize that if he were with me, he had nothing to worry about.
Angela didn’t hang out that much longer, and they moved us to a quieter room for the night. It was still in the ER, but the new space at least had walls instead of curtains. The doctor said that as long as Malcolm’s labs checked out in the morning that he would be all right to go home.
Neither of us slept very well. Even with the added barrier from the chaos outside the room, we could still hear a lot of it. It was Chicago after all, and to think that any night in a hospital would be calm would be fooling yourself. There’d been several big emergencies, from a few more car accidents to a couple of gunshot wounds.
When the doctor finally came in to tell us that Malcolm was in the clear, but to come back if he noticed any blood in his urine or unexplained back pain, we got out of there as fast as we could. I’d taken a rideshare to the hospital, and with Malcolm’s car nowout of commission, it was our only option for getting back to his place. As we stood there on the curb and I fiddled with my phone, a thought hit me.
“Do you want to go home? Or do you want to come back to the hotel?”
He sagged a little as he looked up and down the road. “What’s closer?”
That was something I could understand. We were both exhausted after the night before. I wasn’t as familiar with the area, but if I had to guess, the hotel was a lot closer.
Another thing was nagging at the back of my mind, and I handed over my phone to Malcolm. He eyed me warily for a moment before I shrugged. “It seemed like a big deal that you didn’t call your boss yesterday. “
I waited for him to make the call, which happened quickly and without as much fanfare as it had the day before. He cringed a little when he explained he would probably be out for a few days. Honestly, maybe I needed to look into the legality of some of that. It didn’t seem right for his boss to pressure his employees to return to work so soon. I’d hire Malcolm full time if I needed to.
When he handed me my phone back, I pulled up the rideshare app and ordered a car to take us to the hotel. Malcolm was swaying on his feet by that point, so I hooked my arm around his waist and pulled him into my side. He leaned all his weight into me as we continued to stand there and wait. It took the car a good twenty minutes to get to us, and at that point, Malcolm was lightly dozing against my shoulder. I’d never seen someone fall asleep standing up before, but I guess if you were tired enough, you could do it.
He didn’t stir the entire way to the hotel, just rested his head against the passenger window while I watched the city zoom by.
Malcolm was still groggy as I led him through the hotel lobby to the elevators. I sort of felt bad that all he had was his messed-up suit from the day before. Not that he needed to really wear anything while he was with me. He was just going to be resting, anyway.
The second we entered the room, he disentangled himself from me, loosening the buttons of his shirt before pushing it off. If this had been any other situation, I would’ve been aroused at the sight. But I was only worried about him, especially now that I could see all the bruising on his body. I’m sure our driver had thought we’d looked suspicious as hell already with the two black eyes Malcolm already sported, but he had a dark bruise that stretched across his shoulder from where his seatbelt had tightened. As bad as it all looked, all those things had been what saved his life.
Malcolm collapsed onto the bed, rolling to face me. I wanted to crawl in with him and wrap myself around him to keep him safe from anything bad like that happening again.
“The doctor gave me your prescriptions. Do you want to take something for pain before going to sleep?” I asked, shaking the little paper bag.
Malcolm huffed, sitting up on his elbow and wincing a little at the motion and strain that it put on his body. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. I hate that crap. It always makes me feel out of control, but I know if I don’t, I’ll be in a world of hurt later.”
I took the pill bottles out, reading the instructions carefully before pulling out two tablets and getting a glass of water from the sink. When I reached the bed, Malcolm took them from me and tossed back the meds like he wasn’t the least bit worried about them. Then again, he’d probably realized just how much he was hurting.
He lay back down and struggled a few times to undo and remove his slacks until I knocked his hands out of the way and did it for him, sliding the material over his hips and thighs. It was hard not to admire the man, even when he was in such an awful state.
“Did you want to take a shower or anything before those meds kick in?”
Malcolm ran a hand down his face, groaning when he realized that was a bad idea as well. “I should. Hospitals always leave me feeling so grimy.”
As carefully as I could, I helped him up from the bed. He draped an arm over my shoulder as I wrapped one around his waist and steered him to the bathroom. I had him sit on the toilet lid as I warmed the shower, but there was no way I was leaving him to handle this on his own. Malcolm had been in a major accident, was overly tired, and now had pain meds on board.
