from the bathroom. He offered me the cup, but when I tried to take it, he just held it steady while I took another drink.
The whole time, the weight of his stare rested on me, and I finally let go of the cup and licked my lips. Yeah, the water was great. What the hell died in my mouth?
Instead of moving away, Kestrel set the cup down on the nightstand. Crouching, he put a hand on the bed next to my leg, but he didn’t touch me. “How are you?”
I frowned, then had to stop because it just added to the dull ache in my head. “How the hell do you think I am?”
“I don’t know,” he said slowly, then exhaled a heavy breath. “If I knew I wouldn’t have asked. You’ve been in and out of consciousness for the last three days.”
Three days?
My stomach bottomed out. “The show…”
“You don’t have to worry about that right now.”
“Right now? That’s my life.” What the hell did he mean right now? The dull thud of the headache seemed to be gaining some force.
“It was a job with shitty people who you let treat you shitty.” The judgment in his voice dried up my next words before I said them aloud. “Fuck.” He pushed upward and stalked away from the bed. I wasn’t sure who that last comment was for—me or him.
He raked a hand through his hair and then turned around to glare at me. Again.
“What?” I demanded. “What did I do?”
“You’re here.”
“That wasn’t my choice. In fact,” I continued and shoved the blankets back, “I’ll just leave if it’s bothering you so damn much.” I swung my legs out, and if he ended up seeing my bare ass, too damn bad. The world swayed once I stood, and I still kept my weight off the bad ankle.
“Sit down.”
“Fuck off.”
He glared, and I glared right back. “Emersyn—”
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
“You can call me Miss Sharpe or ma’am or a fucking cab, but you don’t get to use my name.” I’d asked him to do that when he’d been so damn kind that first night. But it was just another act. I should have learned my lesson by now. I had the absolute worst taste in…
“Sit down before you fall down. I don’t want you to get hurt any further.”
“Then why not take me to a hospital or a…” Wait. They had taken me to a doctor. No. They should still have taken me to the hospital. Called the cops. “Where am I?”
“Somewhere safe,” he said. “Sit down, Ms. Sharpe.”
“Why are you so pissed at me? What did I do to you?”
Head back, he stared at the ceiling for a minute. “You got hurt.”
“Well, I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“You sure about that?” He bit off the last word with a growl, and I just stared at him.
“Seriously, what did I do to you? And when can I leave?”
“Sit down.”
We were going in circles.
“Tell me when I can leave.”
“I can’t.”
“Then I can’t sit.” And we were at an impasse. As badly as everything ached…
The door opened, and I turned to find another room on the other side of the door. I could see the bed from here. The man standing in the doorway, however, was strangely familiar. “Well, it’s about time you woke up, sweetheart. You were starting to worry us.”
“Doc?”
“Excellent.” A genuine smile stretched his lips as he continued into the room. The door behind him remained open, but all I could make out was a bed with a dark cover and a bit of a bookshelf. I shuffled forward a step. “Uh-uh,” the doctor said as he circled my bed. Well, not my bed, the bed I’d been using. “That ankle is still swollen, and you’re not putting weight on it yet. So let’s sit down and go over some things.”
Maybe it was the fact he smiled or he was a doctor. Or maybe because he wasn’t the guy I’d trusted in the first place, but I sank down on the bed, suddenly aware of my lack of dress, not to mention my shitty hygiene.
“Whatever you do, can you get these things off me so I can shower?”
“Maybe,” he said. “If not, I can wrap them in plastic and we’ll get you cleaned up.”
We? I shot a look at Kestrel, who fixed such a narrow-eyed, almost hostile look on the doc.
“Ignore him, sweetheart,” Doc told me as he sat on the bed next to me. “Seriously, ignore him. Look at me.”
I shifted a