Page 105 of Double Daddies
“Stakeout.” He grins, but his trademark humor can’t distract me for a change.
“Benton Ross, I?—”
“Benton?” Ryle’s voice breaks through my scolding.
I whirl on him and glare.
“Sorry.” He lifts his hands in a gesture of surrender. “It’s just, I mean, Benton?”
“Excuse me?” Ben snorts. “You really think you have a place to judge with a name likeRyle? What is that short for? Ryland? Rylerson?”
“I see you’ve spent a lot of time on this,” he remarks.
“How else was I supposed to pass the time on my stakeout?”
I want to stay mad that Ben got himself hurt, or angry and confused that Ryle is here, but their banter makes it impossible. I try to hold back my giggles, mainly because I don’t want to give them the satisfaction, but my willpower isn’t as strong as my amusement. I hold the clipboard up to block my face, but I have to move it eventually, and when I do I see the two of them looking at me, grinning.
Before I can summon up the energy to reprimand them again, Helen walks in. She glances around the room, but if she’s surprised to find a stranger in the room, she doesn’t comment. Nurses are well trained to observe and keep it to ourselves.
“How are you feeling, Ben?”
“Benton.” I hear Ryle mutter.
I press my lips together to smother a smile.
“Ready to go home, Helen.”
“Hmm.” She looks at his stats, then glances at me. “I think you need to rest.”
“I can rest at home.”
She turns away from him and directs her question at me. “How many stairs do you have at home?”
“We’re on the third floor, so about forty-eight per trip,” I answer at once. “Is that a problem?” My eyes scan the clipboard and then I see it: a near-miss gun shot. My heart squeezes in my chest and I close the distance between me and Ben. I put my hand on his shoulder and give it a squeeze.
“It just grazed me,” he says softly, reading my thoughts as only he can.
“You gotreallylucky. And it grazed your sciatic nerve. That’s not nothing.”
“I would really feel better if you weren’t taking all those stairs,” Helen mused. “Is there any way you can stay at a hotel? Or with parents?”
“Maybe we could?—”
Ben is already shaking his head before I can finish my sentence. He grabs my hand and gives it a squeeze. “We don’t have the extra money for that right now, and neither of our parents live in town.”
I frown at him. “We have savings. This is important.”
He glances at my stomach, and then back at me. “We need to keep it there. Save it for something more important. Besides, I’ll be fine.”
I hear the clearing of a throat. Suddenly, I remember that Ryle is in the room, watching this scene unfold. I flush with the feeling of his eyes on me. Then I lower my own to the floor, embarrassed someone might have noticed—most of all Ryle.
“My place might be an option.”
“Oh, uh, thanks, but we don’t want to put you out.”
I raise my head to look at Ryle, despite Ben’s objections. “Why do you say that?”
“Well, I don’t have stairs, for one thing. But also, it’s closer to your job, which I think could be helpful, considering…”
