“Good point,” I grumble, watching as Rachel double checks my chart and hangs it back on the end of my bed before curiously eyeing Grayson. There have been four separate occasions over the past two days where she has stormed into my room only to find me snuggled in bed with a different guy. The first time she walked in to find me and Carver together, she was pissed, especially considering that I’d only been awake after surgery for maybe a half-hour. Since then, she’s stopped fighting it and has just told the boys to be careful, but it wasn’t necessary. The boys are more careful with me than she is.
I hear Ember’s thundering footsteps grow closer and laugh as she throws open a door. “Oops, fuck,” she grunts. “Sorry.”
The door is slammed once again only for us to hear the very next door being barged open. Rachel glares daggers at me. “If she pisses off my patients, you and I are going to have a problem.”
“It’s fine,” I grin. “Ember has one of those adorable faces that you just can’t get mad at.”
“Trust me, no one is that adorable,” she mutters under her breath, coming around and strapping the blood pressure monitor around my upper arm to do her thing.
I sink back into my bed and can’t help but laugh as the next door is thrown open, directly across from my room, knowing exactly what she’s going to find in there.
“Winter?” she calls into the room. “Shit, sorry wrong ro—WHOA. Hello, there. My name is Nurse Ember, can I offer you a sponge bath?”
The unbelievably sexy guy across the hall laughs, clearly finding her just as amusing as I do. “Sorry,” he says, the smitten laughter in his tone more than adorable. “I’ve already had my sponge bath today. I’ll take your number though.”
Oooh, damn. He’s smooth.
“No shit,” Ember says, making me laugh as I imagine the way she’d be gaping at him with her mouth hanging open. “Really? I didn’t think that line would actually work.”
“Sure as fuck did,” he tells her. “I’m Corey.”
“And I’m free on Saturday night.”
“Perfect. I’ll be out of here on Friday.”
“Nice. Wait,” she says, her voice still somehow travelling right through the ward despite her talking at a normal tone, at least a normal tone by Ember’s standards. “You’re like … not a part of some secret society and intent on murdering my best friend and using me to do it, right?”
“Wow,” Corey responds as I bite down on my lip, desperately trying not to laugh as she perfectly describes her twisted ex, Jacob Scardoni. “That was oddly specific.”
“Well a girl can never be too sure, you know what I mean? Guys are either serial killers, rapists or just trying to get in my pants.”
Corey laughs. “I’m not going to lie, the thought of getting in your pants sounds pretty fucking great to me, but I’m a gentleman, I promise. You know … unless you don’t want me to be.”
I glance up at Grayson who’s busily playing on his phone. “You can do background checks, right?”
He holds up the phone. “Already on it.”
Rachel looks between us, her brows furrowed and clearly wondering how the hell Grayson is capable of doing background checks on her patients.
“So, your number?” Corey continues.
There’s a short silence before Ember’s voice is lowered. “Where’s your phone? I’m Ember by the way. My friend, Winter, is in here somewhere. You haven’t seen her, have you? Hot as fuck with an attitude, probably giving the nurses a hard time.”
“Oh, yeah, I know the one,” he says, the amusement loud and clear in his tone. “You’re talking about the chick with all the dudes, right?”
“Sounds like my girl.”
“She’s in the room directly across the hall.”
“Thanks,” she says in a chirpy tone. “I uhh … I guess I’ll see you Saturday.”
“I guess so.”
There’s a long silence, but when Ember’s pretty face doesn’t show up in my doorway, I let out a groan. “EMBER, STOP HOOKING UP WITH THE PATIENTS AND GET YOUR ASS IN HERE.”
“WAIT,” a guy from down the hall calls out. “THAT HOT, LOST CHICK IS HOOKING UP WITH PATIENTS? CAN I BE NEXT?”
A long, familiar groan from across the hall sounds out before I hear a door closing. Two seconds later, Ember’s flushed face appears in the doorway staring back at me. “Seriously? Did you really have to ruin that for me? I was two seconds away from screwing the guy up against the bathroom door.”
Rachel clears her throat beside me, and Ember twists around, her face dropping in horror. “I swear, I’m not a whore,” she rushes out.
Rachel just rolls her eyes and walks out the door, pointing toward the small mini fridge that Cruz brought in here late last night. “There’s Jello-O and ice cream in there,” she tells Ember. “I have a feeling there will be none left by the time I’m kicking you out tonight.”
I can’t help but laugh. I think Rachel and I are going to get along just great.
The door closes behind her and Ember steps up to the end of my bed. “Seriously?” she grunts, her face a complete mask of disappointment. “You went and got yourself shot? Do you have absolutely no awareness of self-preservation?”
Grayson chokes back a laugh, keeping his eyes down at his phone to avoid my wrath. I glare at Ember, while also needing her carefree comments more than she could ever know. “Really? You think I went and did this on purpose. I mean, does ‘hey Carver, I’ve been dying to know what it feels like to get shot. Show me what you can do with that gun,’ sound like something I’d say?”
Ember laughs and walks around to the side of my bed, dropping into King’s favorite spot on my right. “I mean, there’s no telling when it comes to you. You’ve always been a little fucked up in the head.”
“Screw you.”
“No thanks, I have a new guy to screw on Saturday night.”
“You’re not going out with him,” I tell her, grinning at the disbelief crossing her face. “At least until we get a background check done on the guy. We don’t need a repeat of last time.”
“I was so close to tearing you to shreds just now,” she says, leaning back in the chair and propping her feet on the edge of my bed. “But you’re right. This world is already too fucked up to have to worry about new players in the game.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So, what’s the latest? Cruz said something about your mom, but like … she’s dead right? I mean, I don’t intend on being insensitive or anything, but I kinda thought that was a cold, hard fact.” She laughs to herself before her eyes go wide. “No pun intended.”
The door barges open and King, Cruz, and Carver come striding in, somehow making the massive room feel tiny and cramped. “We all thought she was dead,” King says, beating Cruz to the seat on my left, and leaving the boys to squish onto the couch beside Grayson.
I look to Cruz, knowing he’ll be the easiest to break. “So, what’s the plan? We need to somehow figure out where my mother is and find the motherfucker who set off a bomb during the ball.”