Page 5 of George’s Big Day

The crossed arms were a bad sign, so I promised quickly. I didn’t want him thinking about my ankle too hard, so anything to bring an end to the conversation about it was good. Because I really didn’t want to confess that I was lucky to have a functioning limb. Nothing good could come of telling the whole truth. Reiterating that it was broken was enough. Since the operation had been classified, I figured that not sharing all the pertinent points with him was okay. It was how I rationalized always leaving out all the big life-and-death details. And again, this went back to not wanting him wondering if marrying me was, in fact, the best thing for him. Planting that thought in his head had no upside.

I took a long, hot shower, and though I had plans to ravish him when I got out, instead, he was there to dry my hair, pull the tape and bag off my cast, put something on my face that cooled my wind-chafed, sunburned skin, then steered me to the bed.

“You need to lie down so I can have my wicked way with you,” I mumbled, sounding a bit whiny—which wasn’t surprising, given that my ankle still twinged and I hadn’t slept in over seventy-two hours.

He chuckled, put the covers over me, and kissed my forehead.

“No, really. Been thinkin’ about you.”

“I would hope so,” he soothed, hand in my hair, then rose off the bed.

I was going to get up and grab him, but my cat, Bubs—Beelzebub—flopped down against my back—delicate he was not—and started purring. He sounded like an outboard motor, but it was like a constant hum, and that was it. I was out like a light.

I did not enjoy dreaming, so I was happy I hadn’t. I had been told that everyone dreamed every night, but sometimes when you woke up, you simply didn’t remember them. When I’d asked Kurt, who I figured would know, he couldn’t say for certain whether that was true or not. All I knew was that I went from being dead to the world to awake in seconds and could recall nothing.

What woke me was a weird noise. Not something scary, not someone walking nearby. Not the snap of a twig or a catch of breath, and not the slide of a pistol loading. The noise didn’t scare me, but it concerned me. It was halfway between a whimper and a soft growl. Again, because I was still in deployment mode, not having had enough time to return to home mode yet, my eyes snapped open and I sat up.

I was glad Kurt wasn’t in the room. He didn’t like it when I woke up like that. He called it my vampire rising, and he was not a fan.

Since this was March, and it was dark, and in Chicago we had returned to spring forward with daylight saving time, that meant it was late. Evidently, I’d been comatose for hours. But at the moment, my stomach was trying to eat itself, and the door, strangely, was closed. I didn’t like to be quartered off when I was at home, and Kurt knew that. Even if I got woken up, that was preferable to not being able to hear what was going on around me.

Turning on the light on the nightstand, I found that Bubs was not next to me anymore, but instead at the French doors to the right of the bed, along with the dogs.

“What the hell are you guys doing in here?” I asked them as though they could answer. More importantly, they didn’t turn their heads to me.

That morning, when I’d limped through the door, they’d both been all over me, so happy I had returned, their little nubby tails going a million miles an hour as they whined and licked my face and hands. Now I was being completely ignored, which was weird.

Grabbing my crutches that were beside the bed, I walked over to where they were, looked outside, and after a moment, saw Kurt emerge from beside one of the many enormous oak trees in the backyard, hands flailing, which meant he was yelling, with a man following behind him. From where I was, it didn’t look scary or concerning, but the dogs were laser-focused on the guy, and that worried me. The likely reason for their heightened agitation was that they’d been closed in the room with me. The dogs were always allowed full run of the house. Same with the cat. If you were allergic or afraid or whatever, then you couldn’t come to our house. Those were the rules. So what were they doing sequestered with me? It made no sense.

“You two are freaking me out,” I advised them, grabbing my crutches and crossing over to my Mission Antique chest of drawers Kurt had bought me to match his.

Rummaging, I shed my sleep shorts, pulled on briefs, joggers, and a T-shirt, then ordered the dogs to follow as I grabbed the crutches again and briskly left the room.

We all went downstairs together, and I could see the living room as I slowly descended. Several people were drinking wine and picking at charcuterie boards.

“Hi,” Alice called to me. I liked her and her husband, Derek. Actually, I liked all Kurt’s friends. “You’re up. Should you be up?”

“Shit,” Derek said, sounding worried. “Were we too loud? Did we wake you?”

“Are you okay coming down the stairs on your crutches?” Javier asked.

It was a lot of questions at once.

“I’m really good with crutches,” I responded to Javier, one of Kurt’s oldest friends in Chicago. “Unfortunately, I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“Which is so not great.”

“It happens.”

“We did wake you, didn’t we?” Alice sounded remorseful as she looked at the others. “We’re bad people. Worse—bad friends.”

“No, not at all. The dogs were in the room with me, and they wanted out.”

“See? I told you,” Brian said to the group. “Baylor was being an ass. Why couldn’t he let the dogs go outside with them?”

So some guy named Baylor was the man Kurt was yelling at. “Baylor who?” I asked.

“Baylor Donovan,” Alice advised me.