A Chip and a Chair (Seven of Spades, #5)(45)
Still, he almost preferred pain to the lingering effects of the medication. He’d never understood how people took opiates to get high; they always knocked him right the fuck out and gave him a weird hangover afterward. Even after a full night’s sleep, he felt woozy and gross, hating the heaviness in his muscles and the dulled edges of his thoughts.
It reminded him of the months he’d spent recovering in a narcotic haze after being nearly beaten to death in college. He was lucky he’d come away from that without a chemical dependency.
Those unpleasant memories triggered a cascade of worse ones in his jumbled brain: The explosion. The video. Utopia.
God, how long had he been asleep? What might have happened to Las Vegas in the meantime?
He tried and failed to sit up, too enervated to coordinate his muscles, and the attempt only made him dizzier. He couldn’t defend himself like this-and while Rebel might be here, Dominic wasn’t. That left him vulnerable. Helpless. He couldn’t stand being helpless.
His breathing went shallow, his pulse fluttering madly. He struggled again to push himself upright, a panicked gasp escaping him when he couldn’t manage it. He couldn’t just lay here like a child, God, he had to get out of this bed—
Rebel climbed halfway into his lap, heavy and solid and real, licking his jaw with her rough tongue. Levi sank his hands into her fur and let her presence ground him. He wasn’t in any danger. Dominic would never have left him alone in the apartment while he was injured and coming off of strong painkillers.
Even as he thought it, he heard a distant knock on the front door, Dominic’s deep bass rumble in response, and the sound of the door opening and closing. A new voice joined the mix-one Levi vaguely recognized but couldn’t place.
A few moments later, Dominic rapped on the bedroom door and cracked it open. “Baby, you awake?”
“Yeah.”
Dominic swung the door inward and stepped back to let someone else in first. It was a man Levi hadn’t seen in at least a year, gray-haired and well-dressed, his posture no less dignified for his slight limp.
Levi blinked, wondering if opiates could make him hallucinate this long after he’d taken them. “Dr. Feinberg? What are you doing here?”
“I’m told you had a close brush with death yesterday.” Feinberg’s gaze swept the bed, keen and assessing, and Levi scowled.
“I’m fine.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Feinberg set his case-an old-fashioned doctor’s bag straight out of the 1800s-on the nightstand and waved an imperious hand at the desk chair. Dominic quickly brought it over for him.
Feinberg was a concierge doctor, a private physician to Las Vegas’s wealthiest citizens, as renowned for his discretion as for his brusqueness. He’d treated Levi a couple of times when Levi had been living with Stanton.
Dominic caught the look Levi was throwing him. “Stanton asked the doc to pay you a visit.”
“You talked to Stanton?” Levi cooperated as Feinberg shooed Rebel back, helped him sit up, and palpated his neck. “How is he?”
“Fine. His hotel is a mile north of the Mirage.”
“Why-” Levi grunted when Feinberg, apparently confident that he had no spinal damage, pulled his head around by the chin and shone a penlight into his eyes without warning. “Why would you call him?”
Dominic crossed his arms. “Let me get this straight. It’s fine for me to call the one-night-stand you don’t even like for legal advice, but it’s weird for me to call the serious ex you still care about to check in after a terrorist attack?”
Flushing, Levi glanced sideways at Feinberg, but Feinberg just clipped a pulse ox monitor to Levi’s finger and began unwrapping his bandages.
“I didn’t call Stanton, anyway,” Dominic said. “I was planning on it, but he called me first. He was worried when he couldn’t get through to you after the cellular networks were restored.”
“Oh.” Levi ducked his head, watching Feinberg wrap a blood pressure cuff around his upper arm. Fortunately, the burns didn’t extend that far.
“I told him about your phone being broken when you were injured. He knew there was almost no chance of you getting to see a doctor today, so he said he’d ask Dr. Feinberg to stop by and take a look at you.”
What did that mean? Why wouldn’t Levi have been able to see a doctor today?
His heart rate spiked just as Feinberg was inflating the cuff. Feinberg sighed, deflated it, and plucked his stethoscope out of his ears before turning an icy look on Dominic.
“A little privacy, please?”
“Sure.” Dominic slapped his thigh to summon Rebel and left the room, closing the door behind them.
Feinberg gave Levi a few minutes to calm down, dressing and re-bandaging the burns in the meantime. Still, he shook his head disapprovingly after he took a second reading. “Your blood pressure is far too high for a man your age in otherwise excellent physical shape.”
“You say that every time,” Levi muttered.
“You need to stop drinking so much coffee.”
Levi rolled his eyes.
After a thorough examination, Feinberg agreed with the paramedic’s conclusion that Levi’s injuries weren’t life-threatening, suggested an X-ray to check for cracked ribs, and recommended several days of quiet rest and recovery-though his dry tone during that last part made it clear how likely he thought it was that his advice would be followed. Then he scribbled on his prescription pad and ripped off the top sheet.