Bad Boy's Honor: An MMA Bad Boy Romance (25 page)

Me being knocked out must have confirmed every fear she’d had about me fighting. And yet here she was.  

I began to pick up more of the conversation taking place beside my bed. The other woman might not be a doctor after all. Nora and the woman were talking to each other like they were old friends.  

“So would you stay at home and wait for him to return beaten and bloody?” the stranger said.

“No,” Nora replied. She sounded exhausted.  

How long had I been here for?

“Then this can’t work,” the woman said. “I’m sorry, Nora, I really am.”

“It can work. It has to.”

“Why?”

“Because I love him.”

I already felt like I was floating. Now I felt like I’d just shot up through the ceiling.  

The beeping of the machine next to me sped up in response to my drastically escalated heart rate. Both the women approached, and I heard one of them press buttons on the machine, before taking my pulse at the wrist.

I sure hoped she was a doctor and not just some random friend of Nora’s.

One of my eyes opened sharply as the woman yanked my eyelid up. The light startled me, but my body didn’t move in response. The eyelid dropped shut, but then she opened it again and this time shone a light in my eye.

Okay, enough of this crap.

I forced my other eye open, and then blinked a few times to adjust to the light. I had to squint for the time being, but it was a start.

“Is he awake?” Nora asked excitedly.

“Yes,” the woman replied. I could make out the white jacket that doctors always wore, so she at least had some training, even if so far it only extended to blinding me.

“I didn’t think he’d wake up so quickly,” Nora said.  

“Neither did we. We gave him enough to knock him out for an entire day.”

I tried to talk, but my mouth was so dry that I had to peel my tongue off the roof of my mouth. The nurse quickly shoved a straw in between my lips and I slowly sucked up a few drips of precious liquid. I didn’t exactly feel thirsty—presumably one of the needles stuck in my arm was supplying me with fluids—but the water provided a natural comfort to my weary body and it meant I could move my dry tongue.

“Riker, it’s me,” Nora said softly.  

“Stand back please, Nora,” the doctor said. “We need to do some tests.”  

The doctor must have hit an alarm, because three other doctors streamed into the room and started poking and prodding at me.  

I lay there patiently and answered questions designed to test that I still had all my senses. I think I passed, but I wouldn’t know if I’d given the wrong answer.  

I might be imagining everything right now. Maybe I wasn’t really a fighter. Maybe in reality I worked a nice respectable office job, brought home a good salary, and had a mortgage. Nora might be my wife, not the woman I’d abandoned.

After an hour, the doctors left me alone and told me to get some sleep. I’d slept plenty, but I had to admit my body was tired.  

“Can I stay with him?” Nora asked.  

She was still here. I must be forgetting something, because I couldn’t remember a single reason why she would still be by my side right now.

“No, you need to leave. He’s going to fall asleep again soon.”

There was no way in hell I was going to fall asleep again now. I had to tell Nora how I really felt, before she came to her senses.  

The last thing I wanted was to—

“How is he?” Duke asked as I returned to the waiting area.  

Duke and Gayle had showed up after getting everyone out of the gym, and finishing up what sounded like a rather awkward conversation with the police.

“He woke up and the doctors ran some tests. They’re not telling me anything and now he’s asleep again.”

Gayle growled in frustration. “We tried to get details, but no one will tell us anything because we’re not family.”

“We’re the closest thing he has to family,” Duke snapped, blaming the messenger.

“I know that,” Gayle replied. “But they have so many fucking rules at these places.”

“I bet they’d let us pay the bill though, wouldn’t they?” Duke replied.

We sat there in silence, occasionally getting up to pace around the waiting room. Every time a doctor or nurse entered the room, we looked up expectantly hoping for news. Nothing.

The battery on my phone had died a long time ago, and I could only keep myself amused for so long with out-of-date women’s magazines.

I’d had enough. I stood up and stormed over to the reception desk. Just before I could make a scene and get myself kicked out, Alison came into the room and motioned for me to join her in a private room.

That couldn’t be good. What couldn’t she tell us in public?

I grabbed Gayle and Duke and the four of us stood in a small room looked a lot like it might be for grieving relatives.

“Tell us what’s going on,” Duke demanded as soon as the door was shut. “And don’t give us that BS about not being relatives because—”

“Duke, calm down. Alison is a friend.”

“This is Duke?” Alison asked.  

I nodded. “You can tell us, right?”  

“Yeah. I told the attending physician that you three were essentially family in all but name. Oh, and if he asks, Nora, you’re engaged to Riker.”

I nodded. I’d marry him right this second if I thought it would make difference.

“What’s the news?” Gayle asked nervously.

“He responded well to all the tests for brain damage. We won’t be able to say for sure for another few days, but he seems fine. Mentally.”

“Physically?” I asked.

“He’s got a few broken bones.”

“That’s normal after a fight,” Duke explained.

“There’s nothing normal about it,” Alison snapped back, forgetting the professional demeanor she’d been keeping in place so far. “He’s broken his nose, a couple of ribs, and he has fractures on his cheekbones. But that’s not the problem.”

“What is?” I asked. “You said he was going to be fine.”

“I said I thought he would be fine
mentally
. Physically, I’m concerned.”

“Broken bones always heal,” Duke said casually. “Trust me, that guy has had more broken bones than you’ll see in ten years on the job.”

“He has a subdural hematoma,” Alison said. “The blow to the head lead to a build up of blood beneath the skull. We drained a build up of blood to keep him out of immediate danger, but if he takes another knock like that he could suffer a stroke. Or worse.”

Gayle and I read between the lines a bit quicker than Duke, who was still trying to process everything he’d heard.

“So how long will that take to heal?” Duke asked. “I can guarantee you the first question he’s going to ask when he wakes up is ‘when can I have a rematch with Elliot?’”  

“The build up of blood is always going to be there,” Alison replied. “The risk of further damage is low enough that we don’t want to risk brain surgery. However, that means he must avoid any serious trauma to the head.”

“He’s a fighter,” Duke said. “How can he avoid serious trauma to the head?”

“By not fighting,” Alison replied impatiently. “Riker cannot fight again. Never.”

This was all my fault. I’d practically wished for this. I’d wanted him to stop fighting, and now he had no choice. All it took was a life-threatening injury.  

Riker would be devastated at this news. Fighting was his life, and I doubted I would be able to replace that role, no matter how much I wanted to.

“You should all go home and get some sleep,” Alison suggested. “He’s going to be out for hours.”

“I’m staying,” I replied immediately. “Can I wait in his room?”

Alison hesitated and then nodded. “Just you though. I don’t want too many people crowding over him when he wakes up.”

“You two should go home,” I said to Duke and Gayle. “I’ll call you if anything happens.”

“Your battery’s dead,” Gayle pointed out.  

“Oh shit, you’re right.”

“I have a charger in my locker,” Alison said. “I’ll go get it.”

“Thanks. You’re a lifesaver.”

“That’s the idea,” she replied, as she left the room.  

“He’s not going to take the news well,” Gayle said.  

“I’ll tell him,” I replied. “Better he hate me than either of you.”

“He’s not going to hate you,” Duke said. “Trust me on that.”

“We’ll see.”

I didn’t have Duke’s confidence. All this was my fault. I should never have gone to the fight. At one point, I thought he’d seen me, and I’d been a distraction, but I knew that couldn’t be the case.  

There’s no way he’d have been able to pick me out in the crowd while in the middle of the toughest fight of his career.

But I still felt guilty.  

I’d gotten what I wanted, but I’d never felt so empty.

I woke up to the sight of a drowsy looking Nora battling to stay awake by the side of my bed. 

She looked exhausted. Her face was pale, and there were large bags under her eyes. To me, she was still the most beautiful person I’d ever laid eyes on. There was no one else I’d rather be looking at right now.

My body quickly adapted to being awake this time. I could open my eyes without it blinding me, and after clearing my throat I could actually talk.

“You look as bad as I feel,” I said groggily. 

Nora jumped at the sound of my voice as if she’d previously been sleeping with her eyes open. 

“You’re awake.”

“More so than you by the looks of it.” 

I tried to sit up in bed, but the second I lifted my body from the mattress, the blood seemed to drain from my head and I became dizzy. 

At least my muscles seemed to work now. I moved all my limbs, and even made sure there was still life in my cock. Never hurt to check these things.

“Hang on,” Nora said, before pressing a button to raise the bed and tilt me into a half-sitting, half-laying position. 

“You’re here.”

“Yes, I am. There’s no problem with your eyes.” 

“Why?” I asked. 

“I went to the fight.”

I almost answered ‘I know,’ but stopped myself just in time. I didn’t want Nora to know I’d seen her in the crowd. If she knew that, she might work out why I was distracted just before I took the knock-out blow. 

I couldn’t let Nora blame herself for this mess.

“I thought you hated me fighting,” I replied.