His expression changes, a scowl appearing on his face. He yells something in Russian, and a burly middle-aged dude is suddenly holding my other elbow with sausage-like fingers that are hairier than those of a sasquatch.
He came with a minion?
“Step carefully,” the Impaler instructs.
When I put one foot in front of the other without faceplanting, he grunts approvingly.
Reluctantly accepting their help, I let them lead me to a limo that’s waiting at the curb.
They open the door and deposit me inside. The Impaler climbs in to sit next to me. I catch a faint whiff of his yummy bergamot and citrus scent, and my breathing turns fast and shallow.
I hope I don’t faint. Who knows what could come out of me if I do?
The minion gets behind the wheel and slams the door behind himself.
I clear my suddenly dry throat. “So, you have a chauffeur?”
The Impaler leans over and secures me with a seatbelt—nearly causing my brain to melt in the process. “Ivan is more what you’d call a personal assistant.”
Really? Ivan looks more like a bodyguard, or that mobster guy who wanted to chop the yellow M&M into little bits and sprinkle them on ice cream in that Super Bowl ad.
Ivan’s expression is grim as he turns the key in the ignition.
Could he be the Ivan, as in The Terrible? I can picture it now: The Impaler was feeling lonely, found a man with a name almost as grandiose as his own, turned him, and began a beautiful friendship.
With a squeal of tires, the car torpedoes forward.
“We’re going to Presbyterian, right?” I ask when I swallow my heart back into my chest.
The Impaler closes the partition, separating us from Ivan. “Your friend sounded like she knew what she was talking about.”
As I recall the conversation he’s referring to, a wave of tingling heat hits my face.
Without paying much attention to me, he picks up a laptop from the neighboring seat and pops it open to a page filled with stylish lines of code.
His eyes narrow on the screen, and those lickable fingers dance over the keyboard with the grace of a pianist.
“Give me the phone that’s in Giver mode,” he says without looking up.
As I hand him my work phone, I get an inkling of what he’s doing, and fleetingly debate jumping out of the car.
After a few minutes of typing, he attaches the phone to his laptop’s USB and drums his fingers on the trackpad as he waits for something—my guess is for the app to update.
“Say something if you feel anything,” he says and clicks a button on the screen, confirming my suspicion.
Somewhere inside me, the squirrel comes to life.
“Something!” I redden to boiled lobster levels.
He nods approvingly and clicks something else, putting the squirrel back to sleep.
“You fixed the bug I found,” I say, voicing my earlier theory.
“It was a good find.” He looks right at me as he says this. “Great job.”
My heart flutters pleasantly in my chest. If I were always complimented on my testing like this, I might not want to switch to the development department.
Reddening more, I reach for the phone in his hand. “Let’s stop at the nearest bathroom, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
“No.” He yanks the device out of my reach. “I’ve done some research. You need an X-ray and a doctor’s supervision.”
He did research on things to do when your employee has an object stuck in her fanny?
Someone shoot me. It would be a mercy killing.
The car comes to a jerky stop.
“We’re here,” he says, leaning in to unbuckle my seatbelt.
My hormones go into overdrive.
Stop it. He’s your boss squared.
But he smells so yummy.
Now you sound like a cannibal. Get a grip. He—
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“Peachy.” Was that concern again? More importantly, how long was I talking to myself?
“Let’s go.” He guides me out. Then he and his personal assistant grab an elbow each and lead me into the ER entrance like an invalid.
Hey, it could’ve been worse. He could’ve wheeled over a wheelchair. Or a gurney.
Leaving me in the waiting room, my boss squared sends Ivan back to the car and goes to get forms from the check-in desk—which gives me a moment to shoot a text to Ava to let her know that I’m here.
I’ll come see you, she replies. Wait there.
Sure. I was so going to prance away before, but now I’ll wait.
Coming back with the forms, the Impaler helps me fill them out—as though my fingers are damaged. Midway, we have an argument: Instead of letting me use insurance, the very same one his company provides me with, he wants to pay for everything himself.
“I made you come here,” he says over my objections. “It’s the least I can do.”
Fine. He did drag me here. Let him pay—and I’m sure the bill will be huge enough to teach him a lesson about people’s free will.
“Fanny!” Ava is wearing her scrubs and grinning like a loon. Her eyes dart between me and my boss squared.
“I’m going to hand in the forms,” the Impaler says after I introduce them.
Ava waits until he’s (hopefully) out of earshot before she jumps up and down and claps her hands like a preschooler. “You didn’t tell me the Impaler looked like that. And he brought you here? Did the two of you—”
“Is there a private room where you can hide me?” I glance over to see how far away the Impaler is—and it’s a good thing I do, because he’s coming back.
“Not officially, but yeah,” Ava says. “First, I’ll take you for an X-ray.”
Catching the end of that sentence, the Impaler nods approvingly.
Ava quirks an eyebrow. “Mr. Chortsky, would you like to wait here, go to Fanny’s room, or come with us for the X-ray?”
I glare at her. I don’t want him anywhere near my room. Or my X-ray.
He grabs my elbow again—sending another wave of tingles through me. “I’m going with.”
Ava winks at me before she helps him lead me to the service elevator, which she opens with her hospital ID.
A corridor later, she ushers me into the room where a technician awaits. I cast a worried glance at her and the Impaler, who hang back together in the hallway.
I have a bad feeling about this, and not just because it makes me jealous. Ava doesn’t have much of a filter when she speaks, so who knows what damage she might do?
Since I don’t have a choice, I do my best to make the X-ray process as fast as possible, and when I sprint out of the room, Ava and the Impaler stop mid-word.
Does she look guilty?
Before I can confront anyone, I’m led to a nearby nurse’s station where Ava turns a screen our way.
On the screen is an X-ray that shows what one would expect: an image of a classically beautiful pelvis with a ghostly outline of the squirrel toy below a nicely shaped coccyx bone.
No wonder my parents always said I’m beautiful on the inside.
I catch the Impaler peering at the image with a deep frown, and I’m not sure how I should feel. On the one hand, he’s seeing inside me—which is another level of embarrassing. On the other hand, there’s definitely concern on his face, and even if it’s due to fear of liability, it’s still a sign that he kind of cares.