Strangers with Benefits (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Jennifer Willows

  When he brushed his furry tongue and teeth, Sidonie helped him drag the IV back to the bed. It took him longer to get back in than to climb out it seemed. Eventually, she nudged and tugged until he was positioned perfectly.

  She pulled out her phone and he watched as she sent off a text message.

  Who was she talking to?

  “Who’s that?” he asked, trying to remove the hint of sarcasm he felt, but it didn’t sound totally successful.

  “Really? You know my kids are about to go to school this morning. The least I can do is check on them.”

  “Sorry.” He was being an ass, but Den hated the hospital and doctors for that matter.

  It wasn’t that hospitals were unnecessary, but he hated being a patient. He had a fear of needles to begin with and he didn’t like the sight of his own blood. Others he could handle. But seeing his own made him want to vomit.

  He looked over and realized his parents were nowhere to be found.

  “Where did Ma and Pa go?”

  “They took you up on your offer and are at your house. Your mom said she was going to clean up, because she knew that you likely hadn’t. Your dad said he was hungry enough to eat a rattlesnake that he caught with his own two hands.”

  “Pa said all of that?” His dad wasn’t famous for having too many conversations. He said little, and let his actions speak for him.

  “Yeah. We had a nice conversation. You have really awesome parents. They’re kind of an odd couple, but somehow it works.”

  Den chuckled and his shoulder complained. “They are odd. But awesome.”

  “I’ll second that. But meeting them? Now you make so much more sense.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, when we first met, I wondered about your ethnicity, but I never got the guts to ask. Not to mention your code of honor. I can see how you became the man you are now.”

  “I don’t know what to say to that.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. I just… I dunno. But your parents are hilarious.”

  Hilarious? They were interesting, true, but he’d never found too much hilarious about them. They were what they were.

  “What made them so funny?”

  “Your dad and mom are like the Roast of Dennis McTavish all by themselves.”

  He sighed and wished he hadn’t passed out.

  “They started out laughing about your goofy reaction to the meds. You do realize you told me to get in bed with you, right?”

  He vaguely recalled that. “Yeah.”

  “Well, after you passed out, your mom started laughing until she cried. Your father said, well, the boy gets it honest!”

  Den shook his head and winced again. He was lucky if his parents didn’t embarrass the hell out of him while he was unconscious.

  “Then she told me about how you ruined her couch.”

  Den sighed. That was a really mortifying moment from his childhood.

  “That was a riot! How in the world do you fall asleep on a sofa and shove your head through the side rails?”

  “It could happen,” he grumbled.

  “Really?”

  He would never forget that moment for as long as he lived.

  At lunchtime, after he ate and fell asleep on the sofa he awoke to the realization that he couldn’t get up.

  His dad was in the fields, working on a tractor, but his mom heard him and came running. When she got there, she looked at him and tilted her head.

  “How in the heck did you get stuck in my sofa?”

  After several failed attempts by his mother, his father came inside and simply tugged the wooden spindles apart with his bare hands.

  After that, he never took a nap on that sofa, ever again.

  But the worst part?

  His mom had taken pictures. There was a Polaroid of it and to this day, he tried to destroy it on sight, but his mom watched that album with an eagle eye.

  “Did she pull out the scrapbook?” he asked, even though he really didn’t want to hear her say yes. His parents rode in the RV, there was no telling what had made it up the road with them.

  “There’s a scrapbook!” Sidonie jiggled with excitement.

  “You’ll never see it.”

  “I think your mom likes me. She’ll show it to me.”

  “My dad does, too,” Den said and she looked at him oddly.

  “Do you really think so?”

  “Yeah. He wouldn’t talk to you if he didn’t like you.” His father must have adored the woman for her to get that many sentences out of him. The man perfected fifty types of grunting for everything.

  “I’m glad, ’cause I like them, too.” She blushed, a cute pop of color in her cheeks.

  That made him really happy. His ex “liked” his parents, but it was more by association and not because she enjoyed them as people. But he could see that his parents really liked Sidonie and she really liked them.

  He could see her including them in a way that even he hadn’t the last few years after they moved for sunny skies and rainforest temperatures. Den sighed. Even if he was the butt of their jokes, their camaraderie was only a good thing.

  Sidonie stood up and he watched her walk into the bathroom with the same small bag she carried on the weekends to his place.

  He flipped channels on the TV.

  There was a knock on the door and his chief walked in with an obnoxiously large bouquet complete with balloons. The man looked down at him and shook his head. “You look like shit, McTavish.”

  “Yeah, well try being shot and run over. Makes you feel like shit, too.”

  The man chuckled. “I’ll bet it does. I’ve taken a bullet or two, but haven’t been run over yet.”

  “Add it to your bucket list.”

  “Uh, nah.”

  “Thought not. Wasn’t on mine either.”

  “I brought you some flowers from the others.”

  “What did y’all do? Take money out of your pensions?”

  “It cost enough.” The other man chuckled and sat the monstrosity by the window.

  It was pretty enough, even if flowers weren’t his thing.

  The chief cleared his throat. “So I wanted to let you know we got ’em. Well, two of ’em anyway.”

  He blinked. “What happened to the third one?”

  “Suicide by cop. The other two had dropped their weapons and laid out for the cuffs. The third one wouldn’t surrender and shot at us from behind a dumpster. When he ran out of bullets, he ran at Richards with a knife and took a slug to the chest. He died before the ambulance arrived.”

  “Interesting.” He knew the men were not interested in going to jail. No one was. But he would probably prefer that to death.

  “Well, I have to be back at the precinct for roll call. Did that girl of yours show up?”

  He frowned. “How’d you know about Sidonie?”

  “You called her name the entire ambulance ride and all the way through the hallway. Half the world heard ya.”

  “Oh.” He’d wondered how she had found out, but forgot to even mention it.

  “Not ta’ mention, I heard about your little dust up with a noise complaint a few weeks ago.”

  “You have no life.”

  “I do. Just not as interesting as yours.”

  Den lifted the good hand and turned his middle finger up.

  When the chief turned back to the door, he gave a middle finger salute of his own. Sidonie popped out of the bathroom and almost ran into the man on his way out.

  “Sorry, sir,” she mumbled.

  “No problem, little lady. You wouldn’t happen to be Sidonie, would you?”

  “Yes, sir I am.”

  “Keep this boy under control for me.”

  She chuckled. “Will do.”

  Chapter Thirteen:

  SIDetracked

  Sidonie sat at Den’s bedside for most of the day. The doctor came in and checked on him, nothing major, just a look at the wound, which seemed gruesome due to the mangled skin
and hole that surrounded the area. After a few embarrassing questions, the man nodded and left.

  She called her office and worked on some schematics for the bracelet prototype with her tablet. She checked on the kids with short messages on occasion.

  They had breakfast and, of course, he was spoiled enough to want her to feed him.

  At noon, she had repacked her bag and prepared to leave. She would stay for a little longer, but she needed to be out of the lot by two thirty.

  Before she left, Sidonie made reservations at Ruth Chris’s for dinner. The place was a bit pricey, but seeing how she had to run off, her kids deserved a treat.

  “What time are you leaving?” he asked her and she could hear the complaint in his tone.

  “Uh, two thirtyish.”

  “You have the worst sense of time ever,” he grumbled.

  “Well, when you live like I do, you learn to be flexible.” Sidonie winked.

  “Are you going to come back?”

  “Well, doesn’t seem like there would be a point. You should be able to go home tomorrow. I can pick you up then.”

  “Come on. You’re ditching me.”

  “Never that.”

  “Then come back tonight.”

  Sidonie sighed and caved as she sent her BFF yet another message that she would require her again that night, but there would be no carpool and copious amounts of Chinese delivery as a bribe.

  The response was quick and thankfully a resounding yes from her girlfriend. “Okay, but I can’t do anymore sleepovers this week.”

  “You’ll change your mind.”

  “I can’t.” She had promised them a fun weekend in exchange for the good report cards she had received.

  “Fine.” He was pouting, but she had two pouting kids at home waiting for her to return.

  “So what are you going to do when you leave here?”

  “Uh, I made reservations at Ruth Chris’s for seven and I’m going to drop by the office to check the bracelet.”

  “Can you take my parents?”

  She was stunned. “Really?”

  “Yeah, they would like it and I can’t take ’em for myself.”

  “Okay. I’ll call the house and ask if they want to go.”

  “Make sure that dad doesn’t add any salt.”

  “All right.”

  She put on her makeup while Den watched.

  “Interesting much?”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  When she finished, he grabbed her fingers and she curled them into his.

  “What’s up?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Welcome.”

  They sat there in silence as she looked at the odds and ends that formed his room. It was newly painted from the gleam on the walls. There was a small table by the window, where a huge arrangement sat.

  Dang, she should have gotten him some flowers or something. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Where you headed?”

  “Downstairs. I want some coffee.”

  “The nurse could get it.”

  “The nurse is not a maid or a servant. I’m not asking her to fetch me a cup of Joe. Stop being a brat.”

  “I am not being a brat.”

  “Listen to yourself.”

  Sidonie left to the sound of him sputtering.

  When she went downstairs, she looked around for the perfect thing. He already had flowers and balloons, so her options felt limited.

  But when she saw a huge floppy octopus she grinned and bought it on sight.

  She even found little sachets that the stuffed animal could be filled with and bought two, one in vanilla and another in eucalyptus.

  She added a card and grinned at the idea that she was about to give him yet another. And she would get to see his reaction this time for herself.

  Instead of a signature, she pressed a kiss on it that showed up really well between the blue cardstock and the red color she’d slicked on when she put on her makeup earlier.

  When she walked back into the room, she held the octopus out so he would catch a good look at it. She popped her head around the four foot long, stuffed, tentacled animal and grinned. “You like?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thought you could cuddle him while I was gone.” Sidonie winked and laid the huge blue creature next to him.

  “I think I would like a kiss since you’re determined to unman me.”

  “I think you deserve one, too.” She leaned over and planted a hand at the top of the bed, next to his head.

  “And I want tongue,” he muttered before her mouth landed atop his.

  He kissed her like nothing had changed, as if he wasn’t in the hospital at all, as if this was just a normal night with the two of them. His teeth nipped her and soothed her with a rasp of tongue. When he sucked the lower lip into his mouth she gasped.

  If he kept it up, she was about to climb on top of him, injured or no.

  Sidonie pulled her lips from his. “Damn. You have to stop, boy.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re starting stuff that I’ll have to finish alone.”

  “Don’t have to be alone. I like to watch.”

  She huffed. Damn, he was a temptation that she didn’t want to resist.

  The man was shot and run over, calm down!

  It took her a minute to stop savoring the taste of his skin and even longer for her to relax enough to dismiss her libido.

  “Get my debit card from the bag in the closet. It should be in a black wallet,” Den said with a hint of strain in his tone that made her wonder if she needed to make him take his meds again.

  “What do you need me to get for you?”

  “It’s to pay for dinner.”

  “I’ve got dinner.”

  “For five people? Yeah, that place is expensive.”

  “I make good money.”

  He frowned as if he took exception to his statement. “And I don’t?”

  “Probably not like I do,” Sidonie offered up honestly.

  “You’re probably right. But still, they are my folks.”

  “You’ve paid for almost everything this last bit. Let me do this.” He rolled his eyes, but the silence that accompanied it let her know she had won.

  When Den’s parents arrive back at two, Sidonie took the opportunity to invite them to dinner.

  “Den wanted me to see if you would like to have dinner with me and my kids tonight.”

  Mrs. McTavish’s eyes lit up. “That sounds wonderful. Where at?”

  “Ruth Chris’s.”

  “Oh, Earl, we haven’t had a meal there in years!” Mr. McTavish shook his head and grunted. His wife nodded and looked back at Sidonie. “We would love to go. What time?”

  “Seven.”

  “All right then, we’ll be there!”

  “I have to go, but I’ll be back to pick the two of you up at six thirty. Do you want me to come to Den’s or here?”

  “I have to get dolled up, so get us from his place.” His mother winked and gave a little dance.

  She popped out of the parking lot with a list of things to do.

  She had to get the kids first and since she was a bit early, she would sign them out. Then she needed to stop at her office to look at the prototype. Something about the pictures they sent over wasn’t jiving with the way she had designed the original and she needed to see what it was.

  After that, she had to get herself ready and make sure the kids were presentable.

  When she picked up her babies from school, they practically skipped all the way to the car. Leaving early wasn’t a habit she had fostered and the only time they usually did was for the odd doctor’s appointment that she couldn’t schedule after school or for sickness.

  But today was a special occasion of sorts…

  Or that was the reasoning she gave herself when she clicked the computer to check them out.

  By the time they left school, she pulled into her parking space at work and ushered the pair inside
. They had been to her job a time or two, but not very often.

  They loved the development room, though. There were lots of toys the engineers put together between projects for the fun of it and there was a huge mechanical grasshopper that they could program to do stuff, like hop onto the walls and bounce around.

  “Before you play with that grasshopper, do your homework!” She called out before she left them to their own devices.

  If she was lucky they would listen to her, otherwise it was going to be a long night.

  She let them have their time with the mechanical insect while she checked the prototype. When she looked it over, it was larger than she had originally accounted for.

  The band was an inch wider and the “display” was five inches from top to bottom.

  It was a bit too big for practical wear though as she put it on and saw how high the display was off the arm.

  There had to be a way to slim that down a bit.

  She looked at the computer and checked the schematic again.

  She noticed that the actual model had an extra chip in it that hers had not.

  “What’s this chip for?” she wondered aloud.

  “It’s for the Braille reader.”

  “But the original only had one chip. Why two?”

  “Because the one only would do English. This allows for French and Spanish, too.”

  “Ah.” That would put her back at the drawing board.

  Either she would need to draw up more than one design for each language or she had to reorganize the circuitry.

  “I’ll have to find a way to remove some of the bulk.”

  “I knew you were going to say that.” Elisha sighed. “By the way, what happened yesterday?”

  “I’m good friends with the officer that was shot.”

  “Good friends, huh?”

  “Yeah. He helped me when my car was broken into last month.”

  “Really and that was enough to have you pass out? Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you have been using personal time like it’s going out of style and you took the last two days off.”

  “Fine, you caught me. We’re dating.” Not true, of course, but better the small lie than the crazy truth.