“He’s okay, just a little banged up. I was telling your friend here”—he motioned to me—“what to watch for.”
“Thanks, but if there’s one thing I’m familiar with, it’s taking care of someone who has a concussion.”
“Rand?” the nurse asked.
“Who else?” Roman responded with a chuckle.
“I’m going to go on in and see how Ash is doing,” I said, leaving the two of them to finish talking. I slipped into the room so I wouldn’t wake him if he was resting, and I was glad I did. It gave me a minute to school my features because he looked horrible. The left side of his face was swollen, and bruises were already starting to appear across his delicate cheekbone spreading down to his jawline. He had stitches where his eyebrow had split open, and his lip was busted.
“It looks pretty bad, huh?” he said.
“Well, you’ve had better days, that’s for sure. What happened?”
“Let’s get out of here, and then I’ll tell you, okay?”
“Okay. The nurse said you were ready to go, but do I need to get you a wheelchair or anything?”
“No, we walked up and down the hall a couple of times, and I’m okay. I guess you can have balance issues after a concussion, but I was fine. My head hurts like bitch, though.”
“You stay close to me then. Do we need to get any prescriptions filled or anything?”
“No, they said I should just take over the counter meds for now. If the headaches linger, I can see my regular doctor about something else.”
Roman stuck his head in the door, and Ash said, “So I finally get to meet the infamous Roman Barnes.” Both his smile and his voice were weak, but Roman ignored that.
“That would be me. Now let’s get you down to the car and somewhere where you can actually rest.”
We stopped at the counter and did our final checkout. Then we waited inside with one of the hospital security guards for Roman to bring the car around. “He really is hot,” Ash said, watching him walk away.
“I guess if you’re still able to ogle my man, you’re not in too bad of shape,” I teased.
“I’m never in bad enough shape I can’t appreciate a good ass.”
“Well, you’ll have plenty of time to ogle. We’re going to go back to his house. I’m not leaving you alone, and he won’t leave me, so I figured we needed to go someplace larger than your place.”
He’d laid his head back against the wall and sighed. “That’s probably best, as long as he really doesn’t mind. I also need to let Deidre know I won’t be into work the rest of the week.”
“Staying at his place was his idea, so he doesn’t mind at all, and Deidre can wait until we get you situated.”
Roman
I picked them up at the front door, and Ash was asleep before we even made it out of the parking lot. “Did he tell you what happened?”
“No,” Trey said, shaking his head. “He said he would tell us all about it when we got out of the hospital.”
“Okay, well, we can let him sleep until we get to the house, and then he can tell us. His face is beat-up pretty good.”
“It is, and I noticed him favoring his left shoulder too. Did you hear back from Fredrick?”
“Yeah, he said just to let him know if we have any problems or need his help.”
“Sounds good. Plus, I’m looking forward to being away from the whole mess for a few days.”
“Me too. We need to get you two settled, and then I’ll run to the store and pick up some food. I may not be much of a cook, but me being in the middle isn’t the only reason I have the grill. I’ll get something light for tonight in case Ash needs a snack, but I’ll get some steaks for tomorrow. How does that sound?”
“That sounds amazing.”
I parked in the garage and waited while Trey woke Ash.
“Are we here already?” he asked, wincing when he moved too quickly. Someone had really worked him over.
“We are, wait until you see Roman’s house. He has the coolest fish aquarium downstairs, and one of his brothers’ lives on each side of him.”
“That’s really awesome. You guys must be close. I don’t have any brothers or sisters, but I always thought it would be cool