Babygirl and the Mean Boss (4 page)

             
“You’re in the hospital.”  Marty said quietly.  She focused on him.  His eyes were red and glassy, his cheeks stubbly with a new growth of beard.  “Do you remember what happened?”

             
She licked her lips.  They were dry and hot.  “Water
..
.”  She croaked.

             
“No, Sweetie.  You can’t have anything to drink.  There was internal bleeding.  You can have a sponge in your mouth or ice.”  He reached for a small cup and pulled out a funny little blue object.  Carefully he put it in her mouth and it tasted like heaven.  She sucked on it,
until most of the dryness went away
.  He took the sponge out of her mouth and placed it back in the cup.

             
“More.”

             
“No, just one.”  He picked up a vial.  “This might help.”  He dabbed a finger into
the salve
and very carefully touched the finger to her lips.

             
Half asleep, the tip of
Nicole’s
tongue came out to explore his finger.  Marty’s eyes stared into hers
t
hen he
quickly
looked away.

             
“It
’
s lip balm.”  He
said clearing his throat.  Finally he looked at her again
.  “How do you feel?”

             
“Can I go back to sleep?”  She said oblivious to her actions.

             
He smiled.  “Ye
s
.” 

~***~

             
Later
Nicole opened her eyes and briefly remembered a different hospital and a different time—happier; a newborn baby in her arms.  Painfully she pushed the memory away. 

             
Where was Marty?  He
had been
here
, hadn’t he?
 
She vaguely remembered him taking away the awful thirst.  He had put something in her mouth…a sponge.  Nicole
licked her dry lips and looked around for the cup with the sponge.  There it was on the side table.  When she reached for it she discovered that her right arm was in a splint and sling.

             
With her good hand she touched the back of her head.  It was covered in a thick bandage
which made her head feel twice its normal weight
. 
Tentatively s
he touched her face.  One eye was swollen almost closed.  Her lips were swollen and she had scrapes on her forehead.
Damn, on her forehead?
She pressed her hand to her stomach and felt soreness.  She pulled down the bed sheet and blanket and lifted the gown slightly.  She was naked under the gown and there was
an incision covered by clear tape on her side. She studied it in awe before swallowing dryly and remembering
that she was thirsty. 
Noting that in addition to the sling on her right arm she had an IV in th
e back of her
left
hand.
She greedily stared at the cup wondering how she was going to manage it.
Carefully she sat up and when she didn’t black out she swung her legs over the edge of the bed so that she could reach the cup.

             
“Nicole!”  Marty was standing in the door holding a
Styrofoam
cup and a brown paper bag.  He hurried to the bed and put his things on the bedside table.  “What are you doing?  You have a concussion!”  He
frowned at her sternly.
  “Come on, lay back down.”  He took hold of the covers and lifted it just as she swung a leg back on
to
the bed.
             

             
Nicole was exposed from where she’d hiked her gown up to examine her belly and Marty got a perfect view of
Nicole’s
nudity
.  Quickly he
averted his
eyes, lowering
the covers
as soon as she had her legs back onto the bed
.

             
Nicole cringed inwardly feeling her face flame
in
embarrassment
. Not only had she not trimmed her crotch in ages, she also hadn’t shown it to a man in years—and then HE, of all people
,
gets an eyeful. S
he
quickly
reached beneath the covers and adjusted her gown a
s she
finished settling in the bed.  She
avoided meeting Marty’s eyes
.

             
When
she
finally did look at him,
she noted that his face
was
r
ed
, also
. 
He cleared his throat and tried to feign
nonchalance
as he p
ulled
a chair close
r
to the bed
.

             
“I had to leave for a minute to get coffee.”  He reached for
a cup
fill
ed
with
melting
ice.
 
“Ice?”

             
“Oh yes, Please.  I’m so thirsty.”

             
“
The medicine will make you feel
that way
.  You sure have had an awful lot of it
, too
.
”
It seemed as if she had been given everything including the kitchen sink.
He grasped a piece of ice and carefully slipped it into her mouth.

             
“Uhm.  That’s good.”  She sighed and savored it, licking her dry swollen lips.
  He
watched
mesmerized
,
eyes focused on her full lips and the way her tongue
ran over them,
knowing that she was
completely unaware of how delicious she made those lips look.  Marty silently watched her as he
fed her another piece
of ice
after
th
e
first
one melted.

             
For an instant Nicole forgot that this was the same Marty that she and Kendall had been
mercilessly
calling
names
.  She’d never seen him this nice to anyone.  He seemed like a different person.
  It made her lower her guard, something she would have never done with Marty in the past.
Swallowing past her earlier embarrassment, she swallowed the ice morsel.

             
“How long have I been here?  What did they do to me?”

             
Marty didn’t answer immediately.  He replaced the cup of ice and picked up his half forgotten coffee.  “Two days.  Today is Thursday.”

             
Nicole gasped.  “I don’t remember…”

             
“Why should you?  You’ve been unconscious.  You ha
ve
a really bad head injury Nicole.  Had you been wearing a helmet perhaps you’d be out of here
by
now.”  He gave her a stern look and the Marty that she was familiar with was back.  “You can
never
do that again.  If you ever crack your head in the same spot…”
 

Her eyes
widened
.
And then suddenly he blinked, and his
eyes
transformed from a dark storm to his more normal cold gray
. 
“You’re
going to be okay, Baby Girl.
”  He said
with a sigh.
  “The police need to know about the women who hit you.  I tried to give them some information…but I didn’t know very much.”

             
“
I don’t know much myself.  I just remember that she looked like a
nice, sweet, Mother
ly type
.”

             
“Anybody who’d hit a person on a bike then leave…
isn’t
nice.”  He said with forced control.
 

             
Nicole noted how his face instantly darkened
and how easily he angered.
She forced herself to remember the details so that she could give him the information he wanted.

“She w
as driving a red SUV.  That’s all I know.  She was a black lady, about
fifty-five or sixty
.”

             
Marty waited and when she didn’t continue he nodded.  “Well the police took some paint from your bike-
”

             
“Marty
?”
Something suddenly dawned on her
.
“
Who’s watching the restaurant?”

             
He didn’t answer right away.  “I closed it.”

             
“You closed it?  You didn’t even close it for Christmas.”  She knew first hand because she had worked it with him.
 
Did that mean that he’d been
here for the full two days?
  Somehow
that idea made her feel funny
.

             
A nurse walked in then and was pleased to see Nicole awake.  She wanted to take her vitals and when Marty moved to leave
,
the nurse
assured him that she wouldn’t be long.
 
She asked Nicole if she thought she could make it to the bathroom and
she responded that she
could.  Marty stood back and watched the nurse help Nicole to the small lavatory, averting his eyes
when her gown slipped open and exposed a bit of one milk chocolate butt cheek.  Nicole quickly looked over her shoulder to see if Marty had caught sight of that but he had been quicker and was already pretending to wat
ch the television screen that sa
t suspended on the adjacent wall.

             
Ten
minutes later she was in bed, settled and tucked in.  Her head pounded like tom toms from the effort
, though
.

             
“
Are you in any pain
?”  The nurse asked.

             
“Yes.”  She said between clenched teeth.

             
“I’m going to put some medicine in your I.V.  You’ll be sleeping like a baby in no time.”

             
Nicole watched the nurse inject the narcotic tensely. 
What was the protocol? Did she say no,
I’m a recovering addict? Please don’t give me that drug and make me remember how I used to crave that high…

             
The nurse
,
misunderstanding her agitation
,
gave her hand a brief pat.  “You’ll be better very soon.  I’ll send the doctor
to look in on you later.”  Then she left.

             
“Nicole,” Marty leaned forward.  “The other day when I asked you about family, you said that
you had none
.  What about friends?  Is there anybody that could take care of you when you get out of the hospital?”

             
“Take care of me?”  Her response was
surprised
.
  The concept was foreign since she’d been taking care of herself her entire life. 

             
“I don’t mean take care of you…I
just
mean
somebody to
keep an eye on you
.  You almost died…
I’m not trying to scare you, Nicole
, b
ut I do want you to understand how serious this is.”
  Marty’s eyes looked dis
tant.  “You lost so much blood-”