“Don’t do this. You’re staying with me. We still have to make it back to Montana for the wedding. And my mom needs your mom’s phone number so she can have your mom help plan our wedding shower! Do you hear me?”
I nodded. “Call Cap. He’ll…give you everything,” I said, my eyes drifting closed.
A harsh slap landed across my face, jolting me awake. “That hurt.”
“Good! You’re not supposed to die protecting me!” she shouted, tears streaming down her face. “That wasn’t the way this was supposed to work! You said we’d both make it out alive!”
I nodded again.
“Don’t you want to see me walk down the aisle in something other than a dress from the sixties?”
I nodded again. “Sure.”
“Oh my God!Just let it go! Nobody gives a shit about the definition of sure.”
“I care. It was a great answer, and I think everyone needs to know it.”
“Whatever. You didn’t even think of it until you heard Fox explain it, and nothing he says ever makes sense.”
“Christ, would you two shut up? It’s a negative response to a non-question.”
I grinned at the gruff voice that just put Derek and Sinner in their places. Well, I was pretty sure I grinned. Maybe this was all in my head. In which case, I needed a psychiatrist to tell me why the fuck these three were in my head.
“Hey!”
I felt a slap on the cheek and groaned. Why did people keep hitting me?
“Rob, wake up right now! I have a bone to pick with you!”
Krista. That was most definitely her, and she sounded pissed as hell. I tried to force my eyes open, but they didn’t want to cooperate right now.
“Yep, slap the man across the face. That’ll wake him up. Or maybe just further injure a dying man.”
“He’s not dying,” Krista argued. “The doctor said he would be fine.”
“Yeah, if he ever woke up. If I had a woman yelling at me, I’d probably stay asleep, too.”
That was Sinner. I knew it based on the tone in his voice. He always got this way in hospitals. Freaked out, a little aggravated, which made him moodier and a little argumentative. Not that I could blame him. The man had been tortured and nearly lost his manhood.
That would make anyone want to steer clear of the hospital.
“I’m not yelling at him. I’m motivating him.”
“Step aside,” Knight said.
Great, this was gonna be fantastic. I felt a whisper of air near my ear, but still my eyes refused to open.
“If you don’t get up, I’m gonna be forced to put a bullet in your girl’s shoulder just to make you suffer.”
Yeah, right. I snorted in my head, and it sounded funny even to my ears. Why did people snort? Was it a voluntary thing? And why was the word given the letters for snort? Who decided these things? Like snap. Did someone decide that the word snap sounded like a snap, so that’s what they named it? And how did anyone know what a snap sounded like?
Language was a funny thing. None of it made sense.
“All of you leave.”
“Why should we leave?” Derek asked. “We’ve known him longer than you.”
“Because I’m about to take off all my clothes, and if you don’t leave the room, you’re going to see me naked. And when he wakes up, he’ll kill all of you.”