Grave Phantoms (Roaring Twenties #3)(45)

Le-Ann shrugged and asked Astrid another question in Cantonese.

Astrid tried to interpret it. “Maybe you’re wondering why I’m here this time of night with Bo—er, Bo-Sing,” she corrected. “It’s a long story, but I’ll be straight with you. I’ve been positively moonstruck over him for years. And I’m fairly certain he feels the same way about me, but there are so many obstacles. I don’t know what to do about it, but I can’t do nothing anymore. Would you do nothing if you were me? If Dr. Moon were a French man, say, would the two of you be together now?”

Le-Ann ran a hand over her dark, sleek hair as she answered in Chinese. It sounded sympathetic.

“Whenever I’ve asked my friends for advice, they’ve been positively scandalized and told me I’m going through a phase. That I’ll get over him. But I can’t, because my feelings for him are . . . sempiternal. That’s probably the only word I learned my entire semester of college.” Angry tears welled. “And I have to go back to that stupid school after the holidays, and it won’t stop raining, and there’s some crazy occultist chasing after us, and Bo’s getting stabbed, and all I want is for us to be left alone for ten minutes. Is that too much to ask?”

Le-Ann made a soft snort.

“All right, ten minutes isn’t long enough, but you get my meaning. Or you don’t. Ugh. I wish I knew more Cantonese. I wish . . .” She glanced toward the room where Bo was getting doctored. “He’s going to be fine, right? Your husband is a good doctor? Winter says half the doctors in San Francisco are quacks. What if Bo is bleeding on the inside? I heard about a boy at school who was in a train accident and they thought he was fine, so he came back to school and attended classes, but he didn’t know he was bleeding inside and d-died a week later.”

It was humiliating to cry in front of a stranger, but Le-Ann, being a doctor’s wife, was either used to it or she was just a kindhearted person, because she knelt down in front of Astrid and patted her legs, speaking in a steady, low voice that calmed Astrid’s overflowing emotion. She offered Astrid a white handkerchief embroidered in the corner with a small blue butterfly, which Astrid accepted and used to dab her eyes and wipe her running nose.

“M’goi,” Astrid said. Thank you. One of the first phrases Bo had ever taught her.

Le-Ann smiled, flashing pearly teeth, and gave her hand a little squeeze at the same moment that a shadow fell across the room.

Astrid looked up to see a bare-chested Bo leaning against the doorway with a large white bandage wound around his midsection. Seeing all that skin took her breath away. Just for a moment. Then worry crashed down like a cold bucket of water over her head.

“Bo!”

“Good as new,” he announced with a dopey smile.

She jumped to her feet and stopped in front of him. His eyes looked a little funny, as if he were exhausted. He smelled of antiseptic and the soap he’d used to wash up. His black hair was damp and looked as though it had been loosely combed back with his fingers.

Dr. Moon walked into the room, wiping his hands on a towel. “It was a clean cut, not too deep,” the doctor reported. “He’s had seven stitches and lost a fair amount of blood. The morphine will wear off in a few hours, and then he’ll be sore as hell.”

“In a few hours?” Bo said. “I’m sore as hell now.”

“That’s your own fault for being too stubborn to accept a shot. The pills aren’t as strong.”

“I don’t trust you not to put me to sleep,” Bo argued. “But if you want me hanging around and spending the night on your sofa, go right ahead and shoot me up.”

The doctor ignored Bo and handed Astrid a small envelope. “There’s two more tablets in here. Give him one if he can’t sleep later, and another in the morning. No lifting anything heavy for a couple days or he’ll tear it right back open. No boxing, either. Make him rest tomorrow and change the bandage. With his luck, he’ll be back to normal by the end of the week.”

“Good as new,” Bo repeated.

Dr. Moon shook his head. “Stupid, lucky bastard. If that knife had hit you an inch to the side, you might be dead.”

“He’s exaggerating,” Bo assured her. “He always sees the worst in every situation. Everyone calls him Dr. Doom.”

Le-Ann chuckled at this. Maybe she’d heard it before.

Bo looked at the doctor’s unhappy face and recanted his statement. “All right, maybe I’m the only one who calls you that, but you have to admit—you are always telling me people are about to die and they never do.”

“Next time I won’t answer the door,” Dr. Moon said in a huff, but Astrid didn’t think he really meant it. “Meanwhile, you’ve made me late for my shift at the hospital. You need iron, and there’s beef broth in the kitchen, so feel free to enjoy my dinner until you’re able to walk out of here without tripping down the stairs. But if you are still here when I get back, I will stab you on your other side.”

“Your bedside manner is deplorable,” Bo said, and Astrid noticed just how hard he was struggling to stand.

Stupid man.

She slipped her arm around his uninjured side, touching the warm skin of his back—Bo’s bare skin! And stars, he really was nothing but muscle—and encouraged him to put his arm around her shoulder like he had outside. He didn’t reject the help.