They walked him to his quarters. Elora trailed behind. When they arrived, Ram punched in his code, opened the door, and all four entered.
The predominant color was forest green. The shelves were filled with a few books and a lot of music and movies. One of the things that drew Elora’s eye right away was a collection of electric guitars hung on the wall, five to be exact, a medium size Ampeg tube amp, and a pedal array that had been custom built, probably by him. She wondered why Storm hadn’t mentioned that Ram played. In addition to the electric guitars, there was also an acoustic and an electric mandolin.
After Ram got into bed, Kay pulled the pain meds out of his pocket, read the instructions out loud and told Ram he would leave them in the kitchen, as a precaution, so that Ram had to actually get up and think about it. His bed was decked out with white on white striped sheets and a dark, forest green, satin duvet cover which might have looked girly on some guys, but not Ram.
As they were leaving, Elora spoke up. “Don’t lock the door.”
“Why not?”
“Because I want to be able to come back and forth and check on him during the night. I’ll make sure he gets the medicine on time and take care of it if he needs anything.”
“Elora,” Storm began, “that is not necessary. Ram doesn’t blame you for what happened. Nobody does. And a rib fracture is not that serious. Trust me. We’ve all had worse. He’ll probably enjoy the sheet time.”
“Sheet time?”
“That’s what we call recovering from an injury.”
“Oh.” She glanced back toward the bedroom. “Still, I’ll feel better if I know he’s taken care of.” Storm opened his mouth to argue, but she cut him off. “Personally. I want to see to it personally. It’s the absolute least I can do. And I live next door.” She glanced away. "Temporarily.”
He looked at Kay for a reaction. If Kay protested, for any reason at all, it would save Storm having to invent a reason why not, but Kay just shrugged while Storm thought, "Thanks a lot."
He didn’t like it. He didn’t like anything about it. The idea of Elora walking into Ram’s bedroom in the middle of the night – alone – well, it just wasn’t acceptable. Ram’s reputation with women was legendary. He probably had Incubus demons scrambling to keep up. Storm was pretty sure it would take more than a broken rib to stop Ram from attempting copulation with somebody who looked like Elora.
“If it’s that important to you, I’ll stay.” Kay looked at Storm as if to say, “What the f**k?”
“That’s ridiculous. I’m doing it.”
Storm had seen that same determined set of her features before when she had decided she would push through whatever pain or weakness stood between her and victory over death and frailty. He knew it would be pointless to press the issue and that doing so would make him appear to be both possessive and jealous. Something told him that a woman like Elora wouldn’t respond well to either. The three of them stood there waiting for him to make up his mind.
Elora knew when he gave up because he looked a tiny bit defeated. She didn’t like seeing that on him, but decided her need to make sure Ram was okay through the night outweighed Storm’s need to protect her from a broken night’s sleep.
Storm asked if she wanted to get something to eat with them and she agreed to come down long enough to get food to go. When she got back, she took a quick shower, leaving her hair wet to dry on its own and went next door to quietly look in on Ram. He was snoring softly, out like a light.
She closed the bedroom door without a sound. Earlier she had listened carefully to Kay’s reading of the prescription instructions, but reread the label calculating the hour when he could take more medicine.
There was little chance of falling asleep before midnight, with all the events and thoughts that were clamoring around in her head, but she set the phone alarm just to be sure. She ate her club sandwich even though the wheat toast was now cold and chewy, then settled on the couch with the Field Training Manual.
At five minutes before midnight she knocked lightly on Ram’s door so that she wouldn’t surprise him if he was up and wouldn’t wake him if he wasn’t. When there was no response, she eased into the kitchen, shook two pills out of the bottle, and got a glass of filtered water from the refrigerator door.
Again she tapped lightly on the bedroom door before entering. He was on his back, still asleep. The bottle said every six hours. After brief consideration, she decided to wake him up to take it. She set the pills and water on his bedside table and called his name. No response. She tried again without success. When she leaned over to touch his shoulder, calling his name a third time, his eyelids slid half way open.
His mouth slowly widened into a sleepy smile just before he said her name and grabbed her arms to pull her toward him. Elora was taken by surprise, her knees locked against the mattress so that there was no chance of stopping the forward momentum.
In his deep, drug induced sleep, Ram dreamed that he woke to find Elora Laiken standing beside his bed, bending over him, and calling his name. She was close enough that he could smell the jasmine and feel the vibration of her voice through the mattress where her knees were touching. It was the best kind of good dream; the kind that feels real. Naturally he reached out to grab her and pull her lush body into bed with him. Even though she gave a surprised little yelp as she was falling, his first indication that he was not dreaming came when he broke her fall with his rib cage, yelling out in pain, and coming fully awake instantly.
In his confusion he watched Elora scramble off the bed, removing the br**sts that were crushed into his chest and pushing on his hipbone to right herself. She took a step back. There wasn’t enough light coming from the kitchen through the open door to accurately read her expression, but he thought she might look angry.
“Rammel Hawking! Look what you’ve done. Probably made yourself worse.”
“Look what I’ve done? I thought I was dreamin’ because, silly me, I did no’ expect to wake and find you bendin’ over my bed in the middle of the night.” Even in his pained and woozy state, he thought better of leaving it like that, so he added, “No’ that I mind wakin’ to find you bendin’ over my bed in the middle of the night.”
“I’m here to make sure you take the right amount of medicine at the right time. I persuaded your friends to leave the door open so I could check on you. The last thing I wanted was to make this worse. It’s… very embarrassing.”
Ram threw the covers back and started to sit up. He was wearing flannel, Black Watch tartan boxers that looked thick, soft and expensive. And nothing else. He was clearly not concerned about being mostly naked. He had the well-developed legs of a rugby player - with golden blond hair that matched the dusting of hair on his chest, powerful legs that filled out the thighs of a pair of jeans.
“What do you need?” she asked.
“Bathroom.”