Page 32 of Lucky Laces
“Sorry about the wait Mr.Blackwood,”the nurse says as she pulls back the curtain and steps into the cubicle I’ve cooled my heels in for the last six hours.
A big ass earthquake means that a cut doesn’t garner much attention.
Unfortunately, a deep cut paired with a fever garnered enough to get my ass carted here and shoved into a bed next to a boatload of other people with far more serious injuries than mine as I was given IV antibiotics and eventually stitched up.Most of the others have been treated and sent home or triaged and sent upstairs.Meanwhile, I’ve been stuck behind a curtain until the IV finishes.
“I know you guys are busy,” I tell her, lifting my arm so she can scan my wristband.“I’ll try to get out of your hair as quickly as possible.”
Something that’s going to be difficult considering I don’t have a ride home and the city’s streets are a mess and I don’t know the state of my house and I have no clue where Diana ended up after cell service was restored.
But I’ll figure it out.
I always do.
Except…that’s not true.
I shake my head, trying to jostle the thoughts from my brain.
“No?”Kelly, the nurse, asks, brows flying up.
“I’m sorry,” I admit.“I was zoning out.”
She pats my hand, checks the flow on the tube pumping shit into my arm then moves to the blanket.“I was just asking if it was okay to check your wound?”
I nod.“Oh, yeah.Of course.”
She lifts the edge of the blanket, peels back the gauze to peer at the line of neat stitches.“That’s looking better already.”She smooths the edge back down, tucks the blanket in place.“Your wife?—”
I go stiff.
“—has gotten her cuts cleaned and bound and she’s picking up both of your prescriptions from the hospital’s pharmacy.They’re pretty slammed, so it may be a while.But you’re almost home free and as soon as that’s done”—a nod at my IV—“you’ll be free to head out of here.”
That’s good news.
Great news.
But I’m still stuck on the wholewifething.
“My wife?”I rasp.
Kelly’s typing on the computer, but she pauses and glances over at me, reaching for my hand and squeezing lightly.“Oh, don’t worry.Most of the cuts were surface level.Only a few had to be irrigated and closed, and most of those were with glue.But Ms.Diana is a trooper.I swear she barely flinched.”
Diana.
My wife.
Fuck, only in my fantasies.
Another squeeze of my hand.“Don’t worry,” Kelly teases.“I won’t tell her that you cried like a baby.”
I scowl.
She pulls back and winks.“I’m kidding.You were tough too.”A few more taps on the keyboard and then she’s pushing in the keyboard.“I’ll check back in a bit.”
“Thanks.”
A moment later, she’s bustled out and I’m left alone behind the curtain, acutely aware of how much quieter the department has gotten.
Hopefully, that means the worst is over, that people are getting back to their lives.
