In Rides Trouble (Black Knights Inc. #2)(73)
Goddamnit, whatever happened to doctor/patient confidentiality? Did that have no bearing on nurses? If not, someone should really inform patients of that very salient little fact. Shit!
“Because of the terrible look on your face when you realized she wasn’t here,” Shell continued. “And ever since the guys told you she’d stop by later, you’ve checked the clock on the wall every two minutes.”
Okay, so he’d apparently been playing the role of Captain Obvious.
“I’m just worried about her, he hedged.” I can’t shake the feeling we haven’t seen the last of the pirate who got away.”
“Bullshit, Frank.” Shell grabbed his good arm, squeezing gently. “It’s an easy enough question. Do you love her?.”
For a split second, he considered lying…No, I don’t love her. I care about her like I do all the guys but…No. He’d never lied to Shell before, and he wasn’t about to start. Oh, not because he was opposed to lying as a general rule. In his line of work, he told more untruths than truths. Hell, come to think of it, his whole life basically was one giant untruth, so, no, lying wasn’t the issue. It was the lying to his sister that was the issue.
“Yeah,” he sighed heavily against the restraint of his half-body cast, and the motion caused his newly rebuilt shoulder to grumble in protest. “Yeah, I love her.”
It was the first time he’d admitted it aloud. The first time he’d ever really admitted it to himself.
And the truth will set you free? Whoever came up with that gargantuan load of bullshit was a frickin’ jackass, because now that the truth was out there—just hanging out there like a whore’s underpants on a hot Friday night—he felt so, so much worse. Because Shell was going to feel bad for ever making him—
“So what’s the problem?”
He turned to gape at her. “You know what the problem is. She’s barely twenty-six!”
“So?” Shell shrugged. “Last I checked, twenty-six is officially considered way past the age of consent in every state in the union.”
Well, thank God for that, because even if twenty-six wasn’t past the age of consent, he didn’t think he’d have been able to resist Becky last night. Not when she whipped off her clothes and stood in front of him so naked and…
No, she hadn’t been naked. Naked was a way to describe any Joe Shmoe sans a good set of threads. When he shucked his clothes, he was naked, all hairy ass and knobby knees and wrinkly balls hanging out for the world to see. But Becky…man, Becky had been nude.
Wonderfully, perfectly, artistically nude.
Kee-rist. What the hell had he been thinking? What the hell was Shell thinking now?
“Have you completely forgotten my promise?” he bellowed and then flinched when Franklin stirred sleepily, rooting around his fist for his thumb. When the little guy found it, he shoved it into his soft, cherubic mouth and settled back into sleep with a shaky sigh.
“I haven’t forgotten one word you’ve ever said to me,” Shell whispered, tucking a thin hospital blanket around Franklin’s sturdy little shoulders. “But I have no idea what you’re talking about now.”
“I promised you I wouldn’t turn out like him, and, by God, I won’t! I refuse to!”
“For the love of…Frank, would you please start making sense?”
“I promised I wouldn’t turn out like Dad, and I don’t—”
“Wait.” She held up a hand, interrupting him. “Wait just a minute. How does your loving Becky have anything to do with your promise not to turn out like our father?”
“Because she’s so much younger than me, and she’s so—”
“Dad’s lady friends,” Shell made the quote signs with her fingers while rolling her eyes, “were young?”
Frank frowned, nodding. Of course they were young…
“You never told me that.”
He hadn’t? So then…
“How young were they? No—” She held up that hand again, shaking her head. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. I have a lifetime’s worth of disgust for that douche bag already. No need to add more fuel to the fire.”
“So then what did you mean when you asked me to make that promise?”
The look she gave him clearly questioned his mental acuity. “I meant I wanted you to swear that when you grew up, when you became a man, you’d find someone to love. Someone you could give your whole heart to without ever looking back, without ever having regrets. Someone you wouldn’t be tempted to cheat on. I meant simply that you should be a good man. A good husband. And a good father, if it ever came to that.”
“Yeah, I got all that. But I also thought it had to do with his particular penchant for younger women.”
She slapped him on the back of the head.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“For being a jackass. Why would I have you promise not to date younger women? That’s absurd!”
“I was only twelve, Shell,” he mumbled in his own defense, rubbing at his sore noggin. “Jesus, you think you’d have more sympathy for a man fresh from surgery.”
“I have very little sympathy for fools, fresh from surgery or not.”
For a moment, they sat in silence, each contemplating the ramifications of a promise made between two kids, two siblings who’d had nothing but each other to depend on after their father disappeared and their mother decided to hide her shame behind contiguous bottles of Stoli.