Yeah, it would have. Joe had spent far too many hours in a hospital. His job was dangerous so there’d been his own visits here and there, but that wasn’t what had gotten him. It’d actually been all the time he’d been in waiting rooms. In his earlier years it’d been watching his mom waste away, then later hoping his dad would come out of his various surgeries okay. Then more recently waiting on Molly and her surgeries. If he never set foot in another hospital again it would be too soon. “Just stitch me up like you did last time.”
Archer swore beneath his breath. “Lucas would be better. His hands are steadier.”
“Or Reyes,” Lucas said from his perch on the couch. He had a few scrapes and bruises, but nothing major because he was indestructible and maybe also a superhero. “Reyes has smaller hands.”
Reyes was standing at the window playing a game on his phone, his thumbs racing at the speed of light, though he slowed down enough to show Lucas his “smaller” middle finger. Reyes was also covered in blood. Not his—their bad guy’s. Setting the game aside, he came to Joe and looked him over. “I could do it. I’d give you a badass scar too.”
“No,” Joe said to Archer. “He’ll do something stupid like make the stitches in the shape of a heart just to fuck with me.”
Lucas just grinned but got up when Archer gestured for him. He too bent over Joe critically, making him feel like a bug on a slide. “Yeah,” Lucas said. “You definitely need stitches.”
“No shit,” Joe said and sighed with acceptance. “Just do it already.”
Lucas exhaled a short breath, which for him was the equivalent of an exasperated sigh. He retrieved the necessary items from Hunt’s medical kit—more extensive than most urgent care’s medical kits—and set about closing the gash in Joe’s side.
Molly walked in during this and stilled. “What happened?”
“I’m fine,” Joe said though he was sweating bullets because goddamn, getting stitched hurt like a son of a bitch.
“You’re not fine!” Molly said and glared at Lucas. “What are you doing to my brother?”
“Archer,” Lucas said. “Get her out of here.”
“Don’t you dare,” Molly said.
But Archer stepped in front of her.
She dodged him and came up next to Lucas to look Joe over. “Oh my God.” She gripped Lucas by the front of the guy’s shirt. She was five-foot-two. If you asked her, she’d tell you she was five-foot-four, but she was full of shit. Lucas was over six feet and yet he let her yank him down so that they were nose-to-nose.
“Be careful with him,” she said.
Jesus. “I’m fine!” Joe said.
Neither Lucas nor Molly looked at him, still nose-to-nose, they just stared at each other, some sort of weird, angsty chemistry going on that Joe couldn’t read.
“Did you hear me?” Molly asked Lucas.
“Woman, the people in China heard you.”
“Does he need a hospital?” she asked.
“No,” Joe said.
Archer slid an arm around her. “He’s going to be fine, I promise. Just a little scratch. I want you to wait outside—”
“I need to stay here.”
“Archer,” Lucas said again.
Archer nodded and spoke directly to Molly. “What you need, what we all need, is that bottle of Scotch you keep in your bottom drawer. Can you get that for me?”
Molly looked at Joe and he managed to give her a smile and a nod. She then looked at Lucas.
No words were exchanged, just another odd, inexplicable beat. Finally, Molly let out a breath and vanished.
Lucas stopped stitching to watch her go.
“Hey,” Joe said. “Are you staring at my sister’s ass?”
Lucas blinked. “What? No.”
“Yes, you were.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“There’s no way in hell that Lucas is dumb enough to stare at my office manager and your sister’s ass,” Archer said. “Right, Lucas?”
Since this wasn’t really a question and Lucas clearly knew it, he nodded and got back to stitching.
It took twelve stitches, and when Lucas was done he cracked the cold pack from the box and handed it over. Joe held it to his throbbing side and hoped it would keep the swelling down. He had plans for the night.
“You want to tell me what the fuck happened back there?” Archer asked.
Joe shrugged. Or started to but then stilled because shrugging hurt like a son of a bitch. “What happened was that we got the job done.”
Archer shook his head. “I haven’t seen anyone get the drop on you like that in years.”
Joe could deny it, but Archer was right. He’d been distracted and had lost his focus long enough that the guy was not only able to pull a weapon on him but actually do some damage with it. He couldn’t even remember the last time that had gone down.
Archer just looked at him for a long moment. “Remember when someone got the drop on me and I was shot?”
“Last year, yeah,” Joe said. “I remember distinctly because Elle nearly killed us all for letting you get hurt.”
“My mind wasn’t on the job. How many times has that happened?”
“Never,” Joe said.
Archer nodded and waited for Joe to catch up.
“Shit,” Joe said. “You think I screwed up because my mind was on Kylie?”
“There he is,” Lucas said. “I was starting to worry he had a concussion.”
Joe blew out a breath. “Shit,” he said again.
Archer snorted. “Man, Elle so called this. I should never have bet her. You just cost me a hundred bucks.”
Reyes started sing “Another One Bites the Dust” beneath his breath.
Lucas was looking horrified at the thought of Joe letting his concentration down over a woman. “Aw, man. You should’ve just let the guy stab you in the gut. It would’ve been less painful.”
Joe ignored this and looked at Archer. “It won’t happen again.”
“I’m counting on that being true,” Archer said. “I assume you’re aware that you broke at least two of his ribs after he got his knife in you.”
And Joe would’ve broken the rest if Lucas hadn’t pulled him away from the guy. “He pissed me off.”
Archer gave a rare full smile. “Go to bed, Lover Boy. To sleep.”
Smart idea. But as already proven when it came to Kylie, Joe wasn’t all that smart. Which is why he slid into his truck and didn’t drive home.
He drove to Kylie’s.
He parked and lifted his shirt to get a look at his side. The swelling was actually minimal and Lucas’s small, neat row of stitches wasn’t readily visible—if he kept his shirt on, that is. He leaned his head back and drew in a long breath, then slowly, purposely let it out again.
It was one in the morning and he was exhausted. And for once, he didn’t have a plan A. Or B. Or any plan at all. Maybe he’d just stay right here and stare at her place like a lovelorn teenager for the rest of the night.
But passive wasn’t on his list of character traits so he got out of his truck and told himself it was okay to show up this late because her lights were on.
Kylie opened the front door to his knock. She was a little sweaty and breathless, wearing a sports bra and capri leggings, one in Day-Glo yellow, the other in Day-Glo pink, blinding him. “Hey. Whatcha doing?”
“That’s my question to you,” he said.
“Couldn’t sleep.” She leaned on the door, clearly out of breath.
“So you were . . . handling your own business?” he asked hopefully. “Maybe with your light saber?”
She rolled her eyes. “Why do guys always immediately go there?”
“Because we’re all just hopeful sex addicts looking for our next fix.” He nudged her aside and let himself in. That was when he saw the yoga mat on the floor in front of the TV, which was paused midshow, giving him his first laugh all day. “Golden Girls?”
“It’s the only thing I haven’t marathon
ed yet.” She turned off the TV and looked him over, her smile fading a little bit. “You okay? You look a little singed around the edges.”
“Work,” he said and scrubbed a hand down his face. “It was a long night.”
“Everyone else okay?”
“Yeah. Well, maybe not the bad guy. He wasn’t feeling like going to jail.”
She was wide-eyed. “So he . . . ?”
“Tried to blow me and Lucas up with a hand grenade. But all he got was a Dumpster. Oh, and himself.”
“Oh my God,” she said, looking horrified.
“Like I said, it was an interesting night.”
Her eyes narrowed and she stepped closer, putting her hands on him, looking at his shirt. “Is that . . . blood?”
He looked down at his front. His black T-shirt had stuck to him where he’d bled like a stuck pig. Shit. “It’s nothing, just a scratch.”
Going pale, she began pushing up his shirt.
“Really,” he said. “All I needed was a Band-Aid, but—”
“Off,” she demanded, and who was he to argue with a bossy woman who wanted his clothes off?
He carefully slid his arm through and pulled the shirt over his head. In the next minute, he found himself being pushed to sit in a kitchen chair with a warm, sexy woman bent over him. “Oh my God, how many stitches?”
“Not too many,” he said.
“You went to the ER and they left you all covered in blood like this?”
Before he could answer, she was cleaning the blood off and fussing over him.
“Sloppy nursing,” she said.
“Yeah, well, Lucas isn’t exactly gentle and nurturing.”
Her head snapped up. “Lucas? Your coworker Lucas? He stitched you up?”
“Good as new.”
She was looking at him like she’d grown a second head. “What’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with a hospital?”
“Don’t like them,” he said. “But hey, Lucas was a medic. He’s always stitching one of us up. He’s good.”
She shook her head, muttering something to herself about stubborn alphas. Their gazes met, and as if she could read his mind about why exactly he didn’t like hospitals, her eyes suddenly softened as she continued cleaning him up.
The kitchen was warm, and so were her hands, and he was tired. So tired. Leaning back in the chair, he closed his eyes, enjoying the feel of her standing so close, her warm breath on his neck, the scent of her, which his body now responded to like Pavlov’s dogs.
When she was finished, she bent low and kissed his skin just above the white gauze holding him together. He opened his eyes and met hers.
“Better?” she asked.
He put his hand over hers. “Much.”
“So now what?” she asked quietly. “What do you need right now?”
That was easy. “You.”
Her breath caught. “Okay. Come on then.” She held out a hand and led him to her bed. And maybe, a part of him hoped, into her heart, as well.
Chapter 23
#HoustonWeHaveAProblem
The next night was Molly’s birthday party at O’Riley’s. Kylie was happy to take a night off from thinking about her life to celebrate. Finn and Sean decorated the pub, something they did for everyone’s birthday, which meant they all did a lot of celebrating.
Tonight’s Wild West theme was Kylie’s favorite. It wasn’t much of a stretch for the pub, which had whiskey barrel tables and a bar crafted from repurposed longhouse-style doors. Adding to the effect were the hanging brass lantern lights and the horse-chewed fence baseboards.
Everyone dressed the part. The girls had met up at lunch and hit their favorite costume shop around the corner. Kylie hadn’t had the time so she’d just added a hat and boots to her jeans and plaid button-down, and called it good.
The birthday girl was dressed to the hilt as a lady of the night and was the center of attention, which she seemed to enjoy.
“You beat me to that one,” Tina said about Molly’s costume. Tina was wearing something that was probably supposed to be a lady of the night but instead more resembled Little Bo Peep—if Little Bo Peep had been six feet tall, mahogany-skinned, and gorgeous. “I’m trying not to hate you.”
“Hey, I’m not getting any, okay?” Molly said, adjusting her corset. “I thought I’d up my game tonight.”
“I’ll up your game, baby,” said a guy on the other end of the bar.
The guy’s buddy shook his head. “Man, are you nuts? That’s Joe’s baby sister.”
The first guy went pale, stammered an apology, and nearly ran out of the pub.
“Dammit, Joe!” Molly yelled.
Joe, across the room and involved in a mean game of darts with Caleb, Spence, and Lucas, looked over. “What?” he yelled back.
“Stop ruining my sex life!” his sister yelled.
With a grimace, Joe put his fingers in his ears and turned away.
Molly rolled her eyes. “He’s not going to stop. He’s giving me anxiety. I need some action. My lady bits need some action, people!” she said. “Someone needs to man up!”
“Thought you were going to try online dating,” Elle said.
“I did. But it turns out there are a lot of frogs out there.” Molly looked around the pub a little wistfully. “I mean, it’s not like I’m asking for too much. All I want is a six-foot-plus guy who’s funny, smart, respectful, outgoing, well dressed, loyal, honest, hardworking, and obsessed with me. Oh, and he should have great stubble too. Or a beard.”
Elle snorted. “Well, if that’s all.”
“Hey,” Molly said, pointing at Elle without taking her eyes off the crowd. “You don’t get to judge. You’re wearing a diamond ring that could blind the whole city.”
They all looked at the ring Archer had put on Elle’s finger. It could indeed light up all of San Francisco. Maybe the entire state of California.
“I know diamonds are supposed to be a girl’s best friend,” Willa said, “but then leggings happened. Leggings are the new diamonds.” She looked at Tina with her perfect hair and makeup and sighed. “The fact that you wear extensions and false eyelashes astounds me because I can’t even be bothered to put on real pants.”
“Girls, that’s just sad,” Tina said. “You gotta use it or lose it.”
“I’m going to really hope that’s not true,” Molly said.
“Well, no matter what happens, pizza will always be there for you,” Tina said. “Through thick and thin, in crust we trust.”
They all drank to that and then the chitchat turned to Haley, who’d had a blind date the night before. “How did it go?” Willa wanted to know. She had a vested interest since she’d set Haley up with a girlfriend of hers.
“Well,” Haley said, playing with the condensation on her glass of wine. “Sober-me and drunk-me are no longer on speaking terms.”
“Dammit,” Willa said. “It didn’t work out?”