It's Complicated (50 page)

“I think we should call 911,” Joe declared.

“Ah, God, no.” Alex struggled to sit up as Josie gingerly pulled the gauze back. The bleeding was slowing down. “No 911. I’m fine.”

“Dude, you are
so
not fine,” Trevor said, bending down to help Alex sit up.

“They say doctors make the worst patients,” Darla announced.

Her guys looked at her, puzzled.

“You know him?” Joe asked, one eyebrow cocked.

“Josie does.” Darla smirked.

“Shut the fuck up,” Josie hissed. Darla’s smile drained, and she pulled Trevor and Joe aside.

Alex couldn’t balance in a sitting position, and his left arm stretched down in a funny way. Eyes closed, he rested with his head between his knees. Josie hadn’t seen whether he hit his head.

“Alex? Did you hit your head?” Waving Darla over, she gestured for her to take over with the pressure. Carefully, Josie pulled Alex’s head up to make eye contact.

“Alex? Honey? Open your eyes so I can see you,” she crooned, the voice natural and flowing. The last person she called “honey” was probably some asshole who’d cut her off on Western Avenue, adding in a one-finger salute for good measure. Terms of endearment weren’t her specialty.

Yet it felt right.

Hazy and unfocused, his eye contact was poor but improved within seconds. “Josie? Shit. What happened? Did I run into a car?”

“Parking sign,” Joe explained.

“Not you,” Alex groaned.

“What did I do?” Joe asked, palms up.

Alex’s eyes shifted from Joe to Josie. “Don’t touch him,” he said.

“Why are you talking about yourself in the third person? Are you the Queen of England? Bob Dole?”

“I’m not,” Alex growled.

“He’s talking about Joe,” Darla whispered.

“Joe? What? I—” And then it hit her. The long, soulful look from Alex. His repeated loops around the park. He was checking out the situation on her porch, worried she’d moved on and was dating someone.

He was
worried
.

That meant he hadn’t written her off.

“You’re fast for an old guy,” Trevor said, a tone of respect in his voice.

Alex winced, trying to steady himself without using his hands, but needing Trevor to support him. “Uh, thanks.”

“Pain that bad?”

“No. Being called an ‘old guy.’ How old are
you
, anyway?” He gave Trevor a resentful side-eye.

Josie pulled the gauze back and searched for antiseptic solution. Alex gingerly moved his right arm, trying to wave her off. “You can stop. I’m fine. I’ll dress it at home.”

“You’re not fine,” she said, relief flooding her. “I got the bleeding stopped, but you need to go to an ER. It looks like you hurt your shoulder and maybe your hip.”

“You called me ‘honey,’” he said, smiling, then frowning, then struggling not to move his face muscles.

“I do that to all the guys who run into
No Parking
signs around here.”

“I like it.”

“You like hurting yourself?”

“Josie,” he said softly, exhaling slowly. Was that a begging, a pleading in his voice? Or more of a reproachful tone? Was she ruining this moment—or should there even
be
a moment when he was injured and bleeding?

She would have to remember to ponder, sometime, how it was that they had moments during what were usually considered emergent situations—births, accidental traumas. No time for that speculation now—or for the possibility that the emergency at hand might, indirectly, be her fault.

Struggling to stand, Alex put his weight on his right leg, Trevor supporting him as Darla crouched, then stood, continuing pressure on the wound.

“I’m fine,” he groused.

And then nearly fell as his left hip went on him. Only Trevor’s strength kept him upright.

“Let’s get you over to Josie’s,” Trevor said in a low, authoritative voice. It made Josie’s backbone straighten, and Darla’s eyes flashed with surprise.

The biggest shock was that Alex acquiesced, regarding Trevor a second time, now with some respect. Hopping at first, by the time they crossed the street and made it to Josie’s steps, Alex had modest control of his left leg.

“I don’t think I fractured anything,” he stated.

“You couldn’t walk if you had,” Josie answered, carrying the first-aid kit and thunking it on the porch.

“Actually, I’ve seen patients who could walk with hairline hip fractures,” Alex replied, his voice taking on that doctor tone Josie had come to associate with rolled eyes.

Her own eyes, that is.

“Your X-ray vision powers are duly noted, doctor. If you ever leave medicine you can always go into a career as a medical intuitive. Or Superman.”

“I’m
fine
.”

Josie fished around in the first-aid kit and—ah, yes. There it was. A small mirror. Holding it up to his cheek, she gestured to Darla to peel back the gauze.

Alex’s eyes searched the mirror. “Fuck,” he rasped.

“You need medical attention,” Josie insisted.

“I
am
getting medical attention,” Alex said. “From you.”

“But I’m not a
doctor
,” she said, acid in her voice.

Alex winced again.

Pride goeth before a fall. If only his ego had been there to catch him. He’d have landed on a bloated sack of overinflated importance the size of Cleveland.

What the hell had he been thinking? Between going for a fourth lap, staring down the dark-haired dude as if he could crush his trachea with his corneas, and not paying attention to where he was going, he’d not only made a complete ass of himself, and caused moderate injuries to his face, hip, and shoulder, but he’d inadvertently reminded Josie of why she had reason to be pissed at him. And efficiently set her up to skewer and disembowel him with a barb from his own big fat stupid mouth—mere moments after she’d used a lovely little term of endearment.

That was some skill.

“Let’s get you in my apartment and we can start icing your hip and shoulder. And wait for an ambulance,” Josie said, nudging the blonde guy to help support Alex.

“No,” he said, turning lamely toward the sidewalk that led to his house. God, this hurt. He wanted to rage and cry at the pain coursing through him. He must have fallen on his left side, because his shoulder was throbbing like a bitch and his hip was a solid chunk of pain-filled granite.

But the hands were fine.

Mission accomplished.

“Alex, you’re acting like a petulant schoolboy.” He froze. The words, the tone—it was like she’d channeled his mother.

Dear God.

“Then I’m a petulant schoolboy who is a board-certified physician and who can take care of himself,” he said stiffly, acutely conscious of not-whining. “What’s your name?” he asked blonde dude.

“Trevor.”

“I’m Alex. And who’s the other guy?”

“Joe.”

“And you are…?” The words came out in a menacing tone. He kind of liked that.

“Darla’s boyfriends.”

“Boyfriend...zzz...?” Alex looked at Josie. If it wouldn't have caused searing pain, his eyebrows would be at his hairline. “You have a thing for threesomes?”

“No, my friends and relatives have a thing for threesomes,” Josie retorted. Trevor looked extremely uncertain and pulled back.

“And her new job’s all about—” Darla piped up.

“SHUT UP, DARLA!” Josie shouted. Darla wandered into the apartment building, muttering under her breath.

Motioning for Trevor to help him limp home, they made it about twenty feet before Josie huffed and caught up to them, carrying her first-aid kit.

“You’re impossible.”

“Then we’re a match,” he shot back.

“Seriously? C’mon, Alex. This is about your permanent health. You need to go to an ER.”

“I need to get home. My first-aid kit is better—it has way more supplies.”

“Size matters. Who knew,” Josie cracked.

The blonde guy snorted, but stopped when Alex glared at him. “Do you have Lidocaine in there?” Alex’s tone was supercilious, and he knew it, but he just wanted to get out from under the humiliation and pain. Being at home would help. He could make real decisions there, with his own kit, good lighting, and away from the ongoing misery that being so stupid was shelling out.

“Why would I?”

“I’ll need it to stitch this up.”

“You’re going to sew your own face? Hardcore, old man,” Trevor said in awe.

“Shut up,” Josie and Alex said in unison.

“I know!
Shut up
. Who does that? Who stitches their own flesh? It’s like that old movie from the 1960s—
Rambo
?” Trevor reached around Alex to shake his good hand.

“Really,” Alex frowned at him. It hurt his eye. “Seriously, how old are you?"

“We meant shut up as in stop talking.” Josie cleared her throat. “Darla, can you go get my keys? We need to get Alex down the street to his apartment.”

“You want to fold me into your little car? Like this? Absolutely not. Just get me home.” Lurching down the sidewalk with Rambo-lover his only support wasn’t cutting it.

“What do you suggest? We prop you up on a skateboard and roll you home?”

“Mama actually won one for us, Josie!” Darla said excitedly, coming out of the apartment holding a glass of water for Alex. “Drink this. You need it.” She turned around and rushed back inside.

“You are not putting me on a skateboard and rolling me home. That would be unsafe.”

“I know!” Josie exclaimed. “You might, oh, hit a sign or something!”

Like a zombie in a cheesy film, Alex began the slow drag home, making it half a block before Josie buzzed around him again, nattering on about the ER.

“You are the worst patient!” she said, nearly bursting into tears. Something in her voice broke, though she didn’t actually cry. She didn’t have to. He understood emotional pain all too well.

Oh, fuck.

Darla came running outside, a red and black thing that loosely resembled a skateboard in her hands. “Here!”

“Darla, that’s a
ripstick
,” Trevor said, laughing.

“It’s a skateboard!”

“No, it’s not,” Joe added. “It’s two diamonds with wheels, connected in the center. He’d be on his ass in three seconds if he tried to roll down the block on a ripstick.”

“Shit,” Darla said, staring at it. “Now there are different
kinds
of skateboards? How am I supposed to know this?”

“Did your mom win you a Segway? Because that could help,” Joe asked.

Josie waved them off. “You guys go back to…whatever you were doing. I’ll take care of Alex.” They complied, Trevor saying something that made Darla burst into giggles.

“You will?” Alex asked, starting to pant from pain and exertion. How could he go from barreling along at a fast clip to this? Being out of breath from a snail’s pace? Pain radiated through his hip and his shoulder ached. The wound on his face was crying, blood coagulating, and the throb of a new gash set in.

“If you’re too stupid to get to an ER, then you leave me no choice, dumbass.”

“Hey! Watch the name-calling. I’m not dumb.”

“Okay, asshat.”

“Much better.”

Lurch. Pause. Lurch. Pause
. He couldn’t lean on her—she’d snap in two. A few parked cars gave him relief, a place to pause. Regretting the move to dismiss Trevor, he forced himself to keep going. Once he was sequestered in his own little apartment he would be able to get some mastery over this mess.

“You are the most stubborn jackass I have ever met.”

“I consider that a compliment, coming from you. Where do you hide your Olympic gold medal in obstinance, Josie?”

“With my sex toys.”

“So you can view it daily?”

“Hey!” she barked. “That’s low.”

“But true.”

“Okay. True, but low. It’s not my fault the only form of affection I get these days comes from molded BPA-free plastic.”

“It’s
my
fault?” At his driveway, he could see the end of this torture. The pain part.

“It just
is
, Alex. Like your wound. And it needs to be dealt with.”

“You can’t fix my gash with a sex toy.”

She laughed. “I might be stubborn enough to try.”

“See? You beat me there. You’re the Stubborn Champion.”

“Right now I want to be the nurse who convinces you to get proper care.” Her voice was weary, filled with sadness. She lent him a hand as he bobbled to his door.

He felt his pockets for his keys. Shit. No keys. Phone? No phone.

“I lost my—”

Trevor appeared suddenly, both in hand. “Here!” he said, breathing hard. “Darla found them on the sidewalk. Had me run them over.”

Grateful, Alex took the keys, while Josie reached for the phone. Opening his door, he hobbled in, opened the apartment door, and collapsed on the couch.

Josie fished around in his fridge and came back with an ice pack and a glass of water. “Nice ice wrap,” she said as she handed it to Alex, who carefully slid his arm through the wrap’s hole. The wraparound shoulder ice pack had come in handy over the years with rotator cuff injuries. Boy, was he glad it had been in the freezer. The cold gave him instant relief.

“What about your ass?” Josie asked.

“What about it? Do you like it? I embedded gravel and added a few red scrapes to it just for you.”