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“Oh yeah, that. You—” She picked up a pillow from the ground and tossed it at his head. “You asked the assholes to help with the beams, but you didn’t call me? I had to hear about all this going on from Brooks and Anderson?”
“Felicity…”
She scooted an accent chair out of the way to make room on the floor. “I’m in school. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but—”
“You were in the middle of a summer term you described as both overwhelming and soul-sucking, then you were on a trip to Kansas, so—”
“That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t help my favorite brother with a disaster. And where’s the McDickhead? I thought he was staying with you?”
“I think I’m McDickhead.” Derek emerged from the bedroom. Somewhat to Dylan’s chagrin, he had changed out of his scrubs, but he was just as sexy in fitted black jeans.
“Shit.” Felicity cringed. “I mean, obviously shit about the you overhearing me call you that, but the reflexive ‘shit’ was about what the actual fuck happened to your eye? Messing up your face is a goddamn tragedy.” Felicity clamped a hand over her mouth.
“Uh, thanks?” Cracking up, Derek held out a hand to her. “Honestly, the McDickhead thing is fair. But otherwise, Derek’s fine. You must be the F Gallagher.”
“Felicity Gallagher.” She dipped in an un-Felicity-like elegant curtsy and then pointed to the bruised eye. “What’s the other guy look like?”
“It was a patient,” Dylan said before Derek could answer. It was ludicrous patients could be violent and the staff couldn’t do anything. The slightly overprotective brotherly side of him wanted to demand Felicity quit her nursing program immediately if there was any chance this could happen to her.
Infuriatingly, Felicity’s response showed no hint of shock. “One of my classmates got pushed into a wall on one of her rotations. Shook her up real good.”
“What?” Dylan said.
Derek gestured that she should sit down. “This one time, a patient’s parent pulled an eight-inch knife on me because he was vomiting and I couldn’t get him out of his dirty clothes quick enough.”
“A knife?” Dylan said, incredulous.
The other two ignored his outraged spluttering.
Felicity sat in the chair she’d pushed aside to make room for her mattress. “When I was a tech in the nursing home one patient always threw her soiled briefs at us.” She pretended to wind up like a baseball pitcher. “Surprisingly good arm. Luckily, I’ve got a smaller-than-average strike zone. And before you ask, like everybody does, I’m five feet, well, actually four eleven and a half, but I generally round up. And before you say the next thing that most people ask, yes, my older brothers did steal all the height genes before I came along.”
It seemed like Derek could barely speak through his laughter at her mini-monologue. “I wasn’t going to ask how tall you were. I was going to ask who won the nursing home battle of the briefs.”
Her face crinkled up with disgust. “The old lady definitely won.” She shuddered. “I think I took four showers that night.”
Dylan vacillated back and forth between the other two passing stories between them like some trauma tennis match. “Why in the hell would anyone do this job? The money can’t be worth it.”
“It’s not,” they said at the same time.
Derek winked at Felicity with a steeling half smile. “It can be fun sometimes. And challenging. And never boring. We see the best and worst of people’s lives.”
“For me…” Felicity’s head tilted back and forth. “I don’t know. Seemed better than being a business major, which was what my second degree was in. Shocking that the English literature didn’t pan out with career options.”
Derek jumped over the back of the couch to sit beside Dylan, bumping knees and hips. “Not to change the subject, but out of curiosity, why did you say you wanted to kill your brother?”
“Oh right. Sorry about that.” Felicity pulled off her favorite University of Kansas sweatshirt and tossed it at Dylan, revealing the new touch-up work she’d gotten done on the botanical tattoo sleeves snaking along each of her arms. Felicity’s tattoos were more daring and vivid than any of Dylan’s. “My mom and I—” but Felicity’s explanation ended with an incomprehensible shriek that sounded a bit like “ohmygodhesamazingcanihave himineedtopethimnow.”
Sensing the attention, Gus trotted right into Felicity’s waiting arms. After ear scratches, he flipped over onto his back into that absurd, open-mouth, tongue-out, dead bug position that demanded belly rubs. Christ, Dylan loved that animal despite the hint of dog musk all over his bed. So far he had slept amazingly anytime he curled up with Gus to get a few hours of sleep while Derek was at work. The mattress also smelled like Derek. And Derek smelled like Derek. Derek, who was sitting so close to him right now.
He tried to focus on the conversation and not on his mental postmortem of those heated moments. Don’t be weird. Don’t be weird. Don’t be weird.
God, he was going to be weird, wasn’t he?
“Mind answering my question about fratricide before I let another Gallagher steal my dog’s love and affection?”
Felicity chuckled. “Because of my brother’s internalized misogyny.”
“Hey.” The unfairness of that accusation refocused Dylan’s attention into the moment. “Is it internalized misogyny or that I didn’t want my sister sacrificing any of her study time?”