Yes & I Love You (Say Everything #1) - Roni Loren Page 0,30
In fact, he would make sure she walked away very satisfied with her new friend Jasper.
Shut. Up. Pervy. Brain.
He had bigger things to deal with right now than inconvenient attraction. Like goddamned recovery from surgery and hospital bills and starting classes and figuring out this whole theater situation. No more thinking about Hollyn. Or how she’d look in his bed. Or how she’d just sighed in her sleep in a way that made him think of what she’d sound like when she—
Nope. Not going there. He turned his head away so he couldn’t watch her anymore. He just needed more sleep. He wasn’t in his right mind. She’d probably be gone by the time he woke up anyway.
* * *
Hollyn’s joints protested and popped when she woke up in the uncomfortable hospital chair. She groaned and rubbed the back of her neck, trying to work out the crick. A barrel-chested nurse was leaning over Jasper’s bed, checking on the IV bag. He smiled Hollyn’s way. “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.”
She shifted, putting her feet to the floor. “It’s fine. How is he?”
“Has he woken up again?” the nurse asked.
“Not that I know of.” She’d sat for a good while after they’d wheeled Jasper in from the recovery room, hoping that he’d wake up so he could tell her who she should call for him. He’d been semi-awake when they’d first wheeled him in but still heavily drugged. He’d called her Felicity for some reason and then had talked to her like she was another nurse. She’d given up and decided to wait until the anesthesia wore off. But she’d apparently fallen asleep at some point along the way.
She checked the clock on the wall—a little past five in the morning.
“Will you be the one taking him home when he’s discharged?” the nurse asked.
She blinked. “Um. I’m hoping when he wakes up again that he can tell me who to call. We’re just…coworkers.”
The nurse gave her a kind smile. “Well, you’re a very good friend to stay with him like this. No one likes waking up in the hospital alone.”
Hollyn rolled her lips together and nodded, feeling like a jerk because her original intention had been to leave him here solo.
“The doc will be making rounds in the next hour or so.” The nurse marked something on an electronic tablet he’d brought in. “We can’t discharge him until he shows that he can keep liquid down and urinate, so if he wakes up, there’s ice water in this pitcher.”
Hollyn cringed on Jasper’s behalf. She’d known him for only a couple of days and someone was discussing his urination with her. She couldn’t imagine he’d appreciate that. “Right.”
The nurse plunked the plastic pitcher onto the side table. “I have to check on a few more patients, but why don’t you try to talk to him and wake him gently? Then, if he’s up to it, get him to eat some ice chips or sip some water. I’ll check back in with you in a little while.”
Hollyn froze. “Wait, you want me—”
But the nurse had already strode back into the hall, too busy to worry about Hollyn and her awkwardness. She stared at the closing door and then swung her attention back to Jasper. His chest was rising and falling with steady breaths. In the thin hospital gown and in slumber, he looked a lot less intimidating, but her heart was beating fast at the thought of waking him up and explaining the situation to him.
You had surgery.
I’m here because…because you left your phone? Because I couldn’t leave you alone? Because I totally ignore personal privacy and have been creepily hanging out in your room like a stalker? Ugh.
And not only was she supposed to wake him up, but she was supposed to talk to him about peeing?
Just kill her now and be done with it.
With a groan, she pushed herself to her feet, her fingers doing her four count. She cleared her throat and stepped closer. “Um, Jasper?”
His eyelids didn’t move.
She wet her lips. God, she didn’t want to do this. She’d rather him not know she’d been there at all. She glanced back to the chair. Her purse was on the floor with Jasper’s phone sitting on top of it. She’d tried to get to his contacts last night, but the phone was locked. She needed his code or… She looked back to Jasper and the hand that didn’t have an IV sticking out of it.