Internal Fixation - Tawdra Kandle Page 0,10

bed is finished.” He patted the mattress. “Here. Toss me one side. It’s easier to make a bed with two people.”

I did as he’d asked, and we worked together in silence while I studiously kept my mind from drifting to what else two people could do in a bed. I couldn’t think of Noah that way. It wasn’t allowed for so many very good reasons, not the least of which was that he was my friend, he was the widower of my friend and patient who had died, he was still mourning the wife he’d loved as much as his own life, and . . . well, there was probably lots more, but those were the big ones. I wasn’t going down that road. Noah and I were friends. Like brother and sister.

Except that I couldn’t help sometimes noticing the way his jeans fit over his totally grab-worthy ass and how the denim hugged his tree-trunk-sized thighs. And it was true that I’d been known to catch myself staring at his arms where the sleeves of his T-shirt ended. Oh, and all right, sometimes late at night, after we’d spent the day together and I could smell him on my skin, before I fell asleep I’d wonder about what was beneath the fly of his pants. The size of his wanger had to match the rest of him, right? And if it was, well, then . . . it was probably truly magnificent.

“Pull it tighter.”

“Um, what?” Preoccupied with my occasional midnight musings regarding the size of his manhood, I was a little confused by Noah’s instruction. I wondered if my guilt showed on my face, because he frowned at me slightly before repeating the words.

“The sheet. Pull it a little tighter on your side, or it won’t be even.”

“Oh.” I looked down and tugged the top sheet until it was even with the end of the mattress. “Okay, got it.”

We moved in concert to the foot of the bed, tucking the sheet under there, and then Noah looked around.

“Where are your pillows?”

“They should be in a box over there. I don’t see them on this side of the room.”

He picked up one cardboard box and then another. “Here there are.” Ripping off the tape, he pulled out the first one and tossed it to me.

“Catch.”

“Ooof.” I hugged it to my chest. “You might give a girl some warning.”

“Nope. The element of surprise has always been my go-to method.” Noah grinned at me and winked. “How do you think I got Angela to go out with me?” He shook the pillow into the fitted case. “I eased in, lulled her into a false sense of security, and then—wham!” He clapped both hands, dropping the pillow. “Before she knew it, suddenly, she had a boyfriend. And that boyfriend was me.”

“And she never knew what hit her.” I placed my pillow against the headboard and reached for another one, stuffing it into the sham. “There’s another sham on the dresser behind you. Can you put the last pillow in there?”

“Surrrre.” Noah stretched out the word and gave me a look. “You women and your pillows.”

“Hey, what’re you trying to say? There are shams.” I patted the one I’d just angled against my sleeping pillow. “They are made to cover the pillows that adorn the bed. They make the whole thing look cozier.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve heard all this pillow crap before.” He added his sham-covered pillow to the other side. “When Angela and I first got married, I was in training camp while she set up our apartment. I came back three weeks later, and there’s our bed . . . and I couldn’t figure out how to get into it for all the pillows. Big ones, little ones—she called some of them accents and others were, uh, bollers?”

“Bolsters,” I corrected. “Those are the long, round ones.”

“Right. And some of the square ones or round ones had lace on them. Oh, and we got a bunch of, like, needlework covered ones when we got married.” He grimaced. “It took ten minutes to get all those pillows off our bed every night, and another ten minutes to put them back on every morning. Ang had this special basket next to the bed where we stowed them while we slept. Now, tell me, please . . . who the hell needs all those pillows? You’re not even sleeping on them.”

“They’re for decoration,” I answered patiently. “I’m a hundred percent positive Angela would’ve told you that.”

“Yeah,