Page 133 of On the Double

Then his eyes widened and he rubbed the back of his neck. “You’re um…” He gestured to my chest, which was still covered in my pajama top, sans bra.

“Yes, my tits are hard. It’s cold outside and you dragged me out here without letting me get dressed first.”

“We should—” He swung his hand toward the house, clearing his throat.

“Oh, may I?” I asked sarcastically.

“Yeah, well, don’t take too long.”

“I’ll try to be quick.”

I shot him an irritated look, but hurried through getting dressed. I didn’t particularly want to go to the hospital, but I also knew he wouldn’t allow me to go to work until I was thoroughly checked over. The accident had really freaked him out, especially since a car accident was what took our parents’ lives.

“Have you called Edu?” he asked as he pulled into the hospital twenty minutes later.

“No, why would I call him?”

He made some kind of irritated noise in his throat, then shot me a dirty look. “You don’t think he has a right to know about this?”

“About what? I woke up with a stiff neck. That’s not exactly evidence anything is wrong. What if he’s doing something really important and I distract him with this? What if he got shot because I had to call him and tell him I had a sore neck?”

He rolled his eyes at me. “Fine, maybe wait until we leave the hospital.”

“Or,” I said in an exaggerated voice. “I could wait until I know if there’s actually something wrong.”

He pulled right up the ER doors, then hurried around to my side.

“What are you doing?” I hissed. “This is completely unnecessary!”

“It’s only unnecessary if I say it’s unnecessary.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” I snapped as he grabbed me by the arm, carefully leading me inside.

“We need help over here!” he shouted.

“Oliver!”

But the nurses were already rushing around the desk to check on me. Thankfully, there wasn’t a line to the ER this morning. That would have been extremely embarrassing.

“What’s wrong?”

“She was in an accident a few months ago and hurt her neck. This morning, she was really stiff.”

The nurse was kind enough not to yell at him for saying that was an emergency. “Alright, sir. Why don’t you take a seat and we’ll get her back right away.”

He nodded, shoving his fingers through his hair as he watched me go through the double doors.

“Your boyfriend is quite concerned about you.”

“He’s my brother,” I sighed. “I told him I was fine. It’s just a sore neck. But he didn’t exactly take it very well after my accident. Plus, our parents died in a car accident.”

“Say no more, sweetie. We’ll get you checked out and find out what the issue is.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing. Everyone has a bad night’s sleep from time to time.”

She barked out a laugh, agreeing with me. “Sweetie, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve woken up in the morning with a stiff neck. But it’s sweet that he cares about you that much.”

“And a little annoying.”