Page 50 of One More Chapter
I’d say it’s from me yelling at him, but he looks pained himself. Bymypain. Like the fact that I’m lying on the floor near tears is doing things tohim. My heavy breathing is no longer due to the pain, but from watching this man morph from empathy into action.
“Hey. Scale of one to ten. What’s your pain? What do you need next?”
Oh. I mean. If he keeps talking to me likethat, all rough around the edges, the pain is going to disappear.
“Um…” I shift to sit up and remember that my ass—despite its thickness—caught a large brunt of the fall. “Like a nine point five. Can’t decide if my ass or my wrist hurts more.”
“Let me see.”
I level him with a deadpan stare, dipping my head and twitching my eyelids. He scoffs and rolls his eyes, dipping his head lower to meet mine.
“Your arm, Pen. I’m being serious. I need to see how hurt you are so that I can fix it.”
Annnnnnd those, ladies and gentlemen, are apparently the magic words to get me to do anything, because I lift my mangled wrist between us into his awaiting hands. Hands that hold me so gingerly, I can barely feel the pain as his fingers dance along the swelling skin. I’m too busy getting lost in the touch I once swore had finally stitched my pieces back together.
My body is a flame, and I will the fire in my cheeks to subside. He studies my wrist injury with his brows drawn together in a neat line, and his big hands cradling me like a butterfly has landed on him.
“What do you need to happen next?” he asks, with somehow more gravel in his throat than there had been before. I swallow around my own.
“I uh… I’m no baby, but this hurts pretty badly. I should probably get it checked out.”
He grunts and nods once, sending a call on the walkie to the nurse that he’s bringing me down, then a second to the janitor that there has been a major spill in our classroom. As we walk down the vacant halls, he puts in one last call for Nathan to meet us in the nurse’s office. The entire walk across the school, the hand that isn’t operating the walkie hovers over my lower back. I have to remind myself with every pained step in my tailbone that he’s just doing it for my stability.
While Nurse Cammie examines my wrist and gets me an ice pack, Nathan and Ant talk quietly. It happened on school property, which means paperwork will have to follow. I can hear them outside the doorway, and have to stifle a chuckle when Ant mentions banning water bottles. Eventually, when it has beendecided that I need to go to the ER for X-rays, Ant and I are left alone in the small sick room.
He looks flushed. His shaggy, dirty blonde hair is mussed out of its normal chic style, like he’s been tousling it through his conversation with Nathan. His breaths are shallow, and when he puts his hands on his hips, I watch where they white knuckle, like he’s holding onto himself to stop from reaching out again.
“I’m taking you,” he says with a curt nod.
“What are you talking about?”
“To the ER. You can’t drive with a bum wrist.”
I exhale and shake my head.
“It’s fine. I can get Claire to come get me?—”
“Please,Pen. Let me make sure you’re okay.”
I bite my lip. The desperation, mixed with his strangling grip and the hint of red creeping up his neck have me desperate to give in. But the scratching feedback of his walkie-talkie reminds me that this would be a terrible idea.
“Sounds like duty calls.” I shift to the edge of the sick bed and slip my phone out of my pocket—thankfully it didn’t sustain any damage. “I will call Claire. I’ll be fine, Ant. It’s seriously not a big deal.”
He huffs, biting the inside of his lip to keep his words at bay. It’s embarrassing how badly I want to hear them. But he tips his chin up to the ceiling, exhales, and levels me with his gaze.
“You’ll call me as soon as you get home?”
“Home?” I laugh.
“Yes. You’re not coming back to school today. Boss’s orders.”
“Oh, so now you’re my?—”
“Nathan’s,” he says more quietly. “I know better to assume I’m the boss between the two of us. You hold all the control when it comes to us, Penelope Jayne. I’m just along for the ride.”
My heart skips a beat. Maybe several. I’ll have to add that to my ER consult.
His walkie crackles, and he sighs, closing his eyes before bringing it to his lips.