"Sure, maybe you could give me a hand …" he said as he started to pull himself over.
"Yes, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for you to do it yourself. I don’t know what I was thinking," I said as I pushed his hip over so that he was laying on his side. I was acting like a teenager and I was ashamed of myself.
I finished washing Brody’s backside, then let him down easy so that he was laying on his back again, but now I was faced with the dreaded area again. And to my complete horror when I placed the wet washcloth over his penis he started to get hard.
"Sorry about that. You know what warm water and gentle hands can do to a guy," he said with a soft laugh and when I looked up into his eyes they were almost completely black. He was staring at me so intently that I almost couldn’t look away, but I forced myself to. I made myself run the warm washcloth up and down the length of his hard cock and down around his balls without going into cardiac arrest. I didn’t say another word or look back up into his eyes while I dried him off and pulled his gown down. I covered him up with the blankets and dumped the basin in the bathroom, then grabbed the laundry bin and walked out the door.
It took me almost five minutes to catch my breath once I ducked into the utility closet to dispose of the basin and the laundry bag. I stood there against the wall shaking and holding my chest, trying to figure out why that man had such a strong effect on me.
Chapter 8
Brody
"Gentlemen, I would like you all to step out into the hall right now," the lady doctor said after she opened the door to my room and found the two cops and the goddamned owner of the resort hovering over my bed. I really liked the way she talked to those guys. She didn’t take any shit from them and I knew that I was at least somewhat safe while I was still weak enough to stay in the ICU.
Jess had been in earlier trying to get them to leave but they didn’t give a shit about what some nurse said to them, but luckily she had found the doctor. I had no interest in talking to that Vinnie DiFazio asshole. He didn’t say much, he didn’t even tell the cops that he knew who I was, but he knew alright, and now that he had seen my face I knew that I was one hundred percent screwed.
"Gentlemen…" she said as she gestured for the three men to precede them out into the hall.
"I'll be right back in, Brody. Can I get you anything?" Jess asked as she stood by the door. It was so good to see her beautiful face that though I was feeling like total shit, I told her no.
"I'm fine," I said, my voice sounding like it was being scraped up off the bottom of a quarry. Jess looked at me with concern in her eyes and told me again that she would be right back.
"You are clearly disregarding my orders and jeopardizing the health of my patient. Every time you’ve come in here I have given you the benefit of the doubt because of your claims about Mr. Carmichael, but all of that ends today."
I could hear the doctor clearly even with the door closed. She didn’t seem even remotely concerned about how loud her voice was or who heard her telling off those cops.
"Dr. Maxwell, we have reason to believe that the man in there has ties to a very dangerous organized crime group and we are simply trying to get some form of identification on him. This man is the owner of the resort where the suspect was apprehended and we were simply trying to find out …"
"You will not use this hospital for one of your lineups, detective. And you will not harass my patient any longer. That man is under my care and he is still recovering, in fact, by the looks of him his recovery has been set back by this little stunt of yours. If either of you disobey my orders one more time I will have you banned from this hospital."
"You have no idea how big of a mistake you’re making, doctor, but it's your funeral. If that man kills anyone in this hospital, it'll be on your head."
All I heard next was Jess saying something to the doctor, then the door opened and she came back into the room.
"How are you feeling today?" she asked with a furrowed brow while she touched her hand to my forehead. "You look a little pale."
She walked across the room and took the thermometer out of a drawer and put a plastic cover over it.
"Not too bad. A little weak, I guess," I said as she slipped the thermometer into my mouth.
She put the blood pressure cuff around my arm and typed some information into her tablet then pulled my gown up over my wound. She didn’t seem shy about it at all like she had the other day. In fact, she was very serious and had a worried look in her eyes.
The doctor walked into the room and Jess immediately started talking to her.
"His temperature is two degrees above normal and his blood pressure is slightly elevated. There’s also visible irritation around the wound."
"Let’s start him on an iv drip of vancomycin and see if we can reduce the inflammation. Also, get me a CBC and CMP and I’ll be back later to check on them."
"Right away, doctor," Jess said as she put a new bandage on my stomach.
"We’re going to run some tests. It looks like we might need to put you on a different string of antibiotics. Maybe intravenously so that it will stop any problems quickly,” she said as she pulled my gown back down, then pulled the covers up over me. She could see that I was shivering.
"Let me get you another blanket," she said but I grabbed her arm before she could leave the side of the bed.
"I'm scared, Jess. I can’t go to prison. Do you know what they're going to do to me in there?" I said, terrified of letting her go. In that moment, I realized she was all I had. There was no one else that cared whether I lived or died. Not in this goddamned hospital and not in my whole life. Sure, the doctor wanted to make sure I lived, but that was her job. But Jess actually seemed to care, I could see it in her eyes. And her caring about me suddenly seemed like the only thing that was keeping me alive.
"They can’t put you in prison for a crime you didn't commit, Brody. There's going to be a trial and the jury will see that there isn’t enough evidence to convict you. But it might not even get that far. They could still find the guy who killed the cop and then they’ll have to let you go," she said as she wrapped both of her hands around mine.
"Do you really believe that, Jess?" I asked, wanting to believe her but knowing how easy it would be for them to just throw me behind bars and forget about me.
"I don’t know," she said as she looked down at my handcuffed to the side of the bed. "Part of me wants to, but another part of me knows that it doesn’t always work out the way it’s supposed to."
"I can't go to prison, Jess. I can't. I don't know if I should tell you this but I feel like I can trust you. Maybe it's because you’ve defended me against those cops that keep coming in here and harassing me, or maybe it’s because you’re such a kind person …"
"Yes, of course, you can trust me," she said, her eyes widening.
"I haven’t been taking the antibiotics. I stopped yesterday. That's why they don’t seem like they're working. I figured … if I could stay in here a little bit longer … if I could stay away from wherever they're gonna lock me up … that I might have a chance. But if they take me out of here, Jess, I'm dead."
"What do you mean you haven’t been taking them?"
"I put them under my tongue and spit them back out after I swallowed the water. It’s an old trick."
"Brody, do you have any idea how dangerous that is? You have a serious wound you're recovering from. An infection could easily lead to sepsis. And sepsis could lead to death. The doctor is starting you on the intravenous antibiotics immediately. I know you're scared, Brody, but …"
"You have to help me, Jess," I said as I put my other hand on her arm and pulled her closer to me. "Please help me."
"I’m doing everything I can to help you, Brody. I want to see you get better and get out of here. What else do you want me to do?"
I let go of her hands and turned my head toward the window trying to figure out how to ask her.
"I don't know, Jess. I don't know anything anymore. My lif
e wasn’t anything special. I was still trying to figure a lot of it out and I thought maybe … I mean, I’ve never even been married, Jess," I said as I looked back at her, "and I don't have any kids and I’ve thought that those were things I’d really like someday. But now … my life is over, Jess. I won’t get to do any of those things. I’m going to prison for the rest of my life and I’ll never know what it’s like to hold my own baby in my arms. I just keep thinking over and over … if I just hadn't gotten so drunk and made that bad decision. All it took was one bad decision …"
"Brody, I'm so sorry," she said as tears rolled down her cheeks.
"Do you think I'm a bad person, Jess? Do you think that I'm just a worthless criminal?" I asked as I put my hand over hers again. "Because I don't feel like a bad guy. But maybe I've been wrong all these years and I'm getting exactly what I deserve."
"I don't think you're a bad guy. I mean, what you did was wrong. You did intend to commit a crime, but I don't think you’re a worthless criminal. I don't think anyone's worthless and I don't think anyone's beyond saving."
"How can I possibly hope to be saved if I wind up in a place that’s full of other guys that have done way worse than me? They’re gonna find out real quick that I don't belong there and you know what’s going to happen to me? I’ll be at the very bottom of the heap, Jess. I won’t be able to fight off those guys."
"What do you want me to do, Brody? I want to help you in any way I can, but I don’t know what you want."
I looked up into her eyes and knew that I could trust her. Maybe I just wanted to believe it because she was literally my only hope, but I believed that she really wanted to help me.
"Help me get out here, Jess."
Chapter 9
Jess
I avoided talking to Brody for the rest of the day. Whenever I went in there to check his vitals or his IV, I kept contact to a minimum and just answered him with a yes or a no. He was still incredibly weak so he wasn’t talking much, but I didn't know what to think about what he had asked of me.
I wanted to believe that he was a good guy and that what happened at the resort was all just a big mistake, I really wanted to believe that. And when I looked into his eyes, when he was telling me about wanting a family and a life, I did believe him. But I was also scared now. I was scared of what he was asking me to do and I was scared that he might be using me to escape.
I had never done anything wrong in my life. Not intentionally, anyway. I was always the perfect daughter and the perfect employee and now I was being asked to go against all that and break the law. I didn’t understand how he expected me to help him escape from a room where he was being guarded twenty-four hours a day, and I was afraid to find out.
I decided to text Madonna and see if she was up for a drink after work. I really needed to talk to someone and even though I knew she usually gave really stern advice, I needed someone to help me think this through. I wasn’t even sure how much I was going to tell her but I figured even a little bit was better than having these crazy circular thoughts spinning through my head over and over.
Everything Brody had said to me kept playing in my head like a broken record and all I could see were his eyes when he asked me to help him. But he didn’t just ask me, he begged me. The fear in his eyes sent chills down my spine and no matter what I did for the rest of the day I could not get that image out of my head.
Before I left for the evening I stopped in to make sure that Brody was set for the night.
"Can I get you anything before I leave tonight?" I asked as I checked the chart to see if the newest test results were in.
"It looks like the new antibiotics are really kicking in. Your white cell count is already down," I said as I smiled at him, trying to comfort him a bit. But he didn’t look at me at all. He just stared out the window.
"Thanks, Jess," he said with a weak voice, but I knew that it wasn’t the infection that had taken away his spirit, though.
"That's a good thing, Brody. It's good that you’re getting better," I said as I put the chart down.
"I really do appreciate everything that you've done for me, Jess, but I just don't see the point. I just can't get my mind around the fact that my life is over so what does it matter which way it ends," he said as he looked up at me. His eyes looked sunken in and dark like he had already wished himself halfway to death.
"Don't talk like that, Brody. You don’t know what's going to happen. You have no way of knowing how a jury is going to see your case and you have no idea what could happen after that."
"Yeah, you're right. Thanks, Jess," he said, looking away from me again. I felt horrible. The logical part of my brain was still trying to convince me that, if he were truly innocent, he wouldn’t wind up in jail, but my emotions were telling me something different. When I looked into his eyes I saw the sadness and the fear and I was filled with a horrible feeling that he might be right. He could very easily wind up in prison, and if he did his life really would be over.
It didn’t matter to the detectives whether Brody had actually shot that cop or not. They had already made up their minds about him and were going to make sure someone paid for that crime, whether they could prove he had actually done it or not. And sending Brody to prison was basically like taking him off the antibiotics and letting him die a slow, painful death.
"I'll be back in the morning, Brody. Please, try to get some sleep and try to eat something," I said as I touched the arm that was cuffed to the bed. "The night nurse should be in in a little while and I'm going to leave instructions for her to bring you something easy to digest," I said as I turned to leave.
"Jess." I stopped walking but I kept my back turned to Brody. I felt like I was going to start crying at any second and I didn’t want to do that in front of him. I needed to be strong. He was my patient and crying in front of him would just make everything worse.
"I really do appreciate everything you've done for me. I want you to know that. It means a lot to me that you … that you seem to care what happens to me. I’m not saying this so that you will feel sorry for me or … I’m not saying this for any reason other than I want you to know. I don’t have anyone else in my life that would give a shit if I went to prison or died and everything you have done for me has really meant a lot to me. Thank you, Jess."
I looked back at him and the sadness in his eyes made my heart break.
"I’ll see you in the morning, ok?" I said as I touched his arm again, then I walked out the door.
***
"So what's been going on with you? Have you been seeing someone I don't know about? Don’t tell me, it’s that new EMT. That dude is hot, and he really had some big eyes for you the other night," Madonna said as she finished off the last of her hurricane.
"No," I said as I looked down at my drink, "nothing like that."
But after I said it I realized that it wasn't far from the truth. Over the last few days, I had actually begun to feel like I was seeing someone. I'd been spending so much time and having such intimate conversations with Brody that I felt like I knew him better than most of the people that had been in my life for years.
"Then what’s going on? It sure as hell seems like it’s about a guy cause if I didn’t know you better I’d say you’re blushing right now, girl," she said as she waved the bartender over to us.
"Two more?" he asked and Madonna gave him her sexiest smile and nod while she looked him up and down. He almost fell over a case of beer as he walked backward wearing a goofy smile on his face on his way to the blender.
"Well, this is a little embarrassing but I really do need your advice."
"Ok, tell me what’s going on, sweetie. You know I’m always here for you."
"Well, you know that patient that's been in the ICU this week, the one that came in with a gunshot wound …?"
"You mean the mobster?"
"He's not a mobster, Maddy. At least, I don't think he is. From what he's told me, he got involved in something that was way over his hea
d. He made a really bad decision and now he’s being blamed for all of it."
"Well, wait, that’s not what I’ve heard. Haven’t the police been here repeatedly to talk to him? Isn’t he the one that’s handcuffed to the bed?"
"Yeah, they've been here every day harassing him."
"What do you mean harassing him? Isn’t he a criminal?"
"Well, they're not paying attention to Dr. Maxwell's orders at all. They keep coming in and getting Brody all worked up which isn't good for him. He needs time to recover and they just don’t seem willing to give it to him. And then today, they brought in some guy from the resort where the robbery took place to see if he recognized Brody and Dr. Maxwell just flipped. She said she wasn't going to let them back into the hospital if they pulled anything like that again."
"Whoa, that's crazy. What a bunch of drama. But it sounds like the cops are pretty serious, though. Does this Brody guy have a record?"
"No, that's the thing. The detectives can't find anything on him. They want to minimize the amount of people that come into contact with him, so I've been on the day shift every day and I've got one of my nurses on the night shift. We’re the only ones that are allowed in there at all, other than Dr. Maxwell.
I don’t know what to believe, Maddy. He told me that he had been really down on his luck and had a few too many drinks at a bar when he got into a conversation with some guy that told him he could make a lot of money in just a couple of hours. That it would be a piece of cake and no big deal and Brody says it was the worst decision he has ever made in his life.
He says the guy that organized everything, the guy that the cops are after, who they say is a mobster, got away and Brody is terrified that he's going to be blamed for the cop’s murder. He’s sure he's going to go to prison for the rest of his life and he scared to death, Madonna. I feel so sorry for him and I don’t know what to do."
"Holy shit, Jess. He told you all that? But what do you mean you don’t know what to do? There’s nothing for you to do. You’re just his nurse, right? I mean, when he gets better he’s going to be taken away and the cops or whoever is going to figure out if he really did it or not. You don’t have anything to do with any of this."
I Need A Bad Boy: A Collection of Bad Boy Romances Page 5
