Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 131916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
I blinked the impulse away, and the smile that climbed to my face didn’t feel so faked. “Hi, Nolan.”
“Are you my doctor?”
“No, I’m Charleigh, the medical assistant who’s going to get you ready to see the doctor.”
I refused to let that sting.
I glanced at his father who was watching me as if he didn’t know how to process my presence, either. His big body vibrated with that severity that clouded my senses.
“Hey, Charleigh…” He issued it like a question, his voice that low scrape, and I wanted to stomp on the stupid flutter of glee that lit inside me that he remembered me.
“Hi.” I managed not to stammer it like a schoolgirl with a crush. But that might as well have been what I was with the way he made me feel. A clueless, silly schoolgirl who didn’t recognize when she was about to get maimed. “Come on back.”
Forcing myself to go professional, I held open the door so they could pass.
Maybe I really had been hiding out in my apartment for too long. An hour interlude with a stranger who’d given me a simple tattoo should not make an impact.
Raven was right.
I needed to get out more. Interact like a normal human being so I didn’t go around forming crazy attachments to people who didn’t mean anything to me.
I cleared my throat of the rioting of emotion and did my best to smile, to act the same as I would with any other patient as the door swept closed behind us. “You’re Nolan’s father?”
The man hesitated for a second before he grunted, “Yeah.”
I was an idiot for glancing at the chart, seeing if there was another parent listed.
Even more foolish was the relief I felt when I found that there wasn’t.
God, I was teetering some strange, hazardous line.
I turned to the little boy and tried to keep my voice from shaking. “I hear you had a little accident today.”
It only barely cracked.
I called that a win.
“I knocked my toof clean out,” the little boy said, tripping over the words as he contorted his bottom lip so I could see that extra-large gap that had been left on his lower gums. I took note that his lip was also split where his tooth had likely made contact and was now purple and swollen.
But he seemed in good spirits, so I let my smile widen at the adorableness that was this child.
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that.” I kept my voice light as I gestured for them to walk ahead of me. I held my breath as they passed, trying to avoid inhaling the aura of the man.
Leather and ink and wicked things.
“How did you do that?” I managed as I came up beside them to lead them down the hall. Each of the man’s steps reverberated the floor, tremors beneath my feet.
Nolan grinned over at me. “Well, my dad was supposed to go to work so he can make some money because he’s got a whole lotta bills he’s gotta pay, and I had to get my bag with all my favorite things in it so I could go to Miss Liberty’s house so she could take care of me, and I’m not supposed to be runnin’ on the stairs, but sometimes I just gotta hurry because I’m always makin’ him late.”
It spilled out in a garble.
My heart panged in my chest.
His dad grunted, though somehow, it was an affectionate sound, and I stole a peek that way, getting stuck on the way River ran a tattooed hand down the back of the child’s head.
Gently.
Tenderly.
“But you don’t need to be hurrying so fast that you take a tumble, now, do you?” he said in his gruff voice.
The little boy tsked. “Whelp, I guess some days I just got bad choices.”
River grunted again, and I slowed, waving a hand at the scale that sat outside the room. “Can he stand? I need to get his weight.”
The chart only said he had a mouth injury, but I wasn’t sure if he’d been hurt in any other way.
“Of course, I can stand. I’m already all the way five,” Nolan cut in, tossing a hand with all five fingers spread wide.
A twinge of wistfulness swept in, a dull, bitter ache, and I blinked back the burn at the back of my eyes. Lifting my chin, I angled my head at the scale. “Well, you’d better hop on then.”
His father seemed reluctant to set him down, glancing at me with those storm-cloud eyes, the gray toiling with the black, before he carefully placed the little boy onto his feet. He towered over him, like he was terrified the child might disappear if he let too much distance separate them.
My spirit thrashed, and there was a very stupid part of me that wanted to reach out and touch the horrifying designs that writhed over the bunching muscles of his arms, whisper my fingertips across his demons, and promise him I understood.