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“I should have, what?” I snapped, taking my hand away from my eyes to scowl at him. “I should have called the doctor I’d fully humiliated myself in front of?”

Cal didn’t stop working, ripping open packages and placing them in a neat little row along the edge of the couch. But he gave me a gentle glance. “You didn’t embarrass yourself. I don’t know why you were scared, but I understood it. You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Ruth. Your boundaries are yours to make.”

“It wasn’t a boundary,” I muttered, and despite my fever, I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. “It was just a… weird hiccup. I don’t know. But I did… like it. Our date.”

“I see,” he said slowly, his brows furrowing a little as he pulled a pair of latex gloves from his bag. He blinked rapidly like he was banishing a thought, and pulling in a breath, he slipped the gloves on. “I did wash my hands,” he offered with a half-smile, “when I first found you.”

“Oh good,” I croaked. “You saw my dishes then.”

“Underwear,” he grinned crookedly. “I used your bathroom.”

“Fuck me,” I groaned.

Cal quirked a brow. “Not in my usual list of services.”

“On second thought, maybe you should let me die.”

Cal puffed out a laugh, and laying my arm out again, he wrapped a rubber tourniquet just above my elbow. With the blue vein on the inside of my arm glowing through my pale skin, he swabbed the area with disinfectant. “After you just told me you enjoyed our date, now you want me to let you die? I don’t think so.” He tossed the swab aside and palpated the vein with his black-gloved fingers. His eyes seemed focused on my vein, but he murmured, “And what about our kiss?”

I started, but he kept my arm still. “Oh, uh,” I swallowed hard. “Is this really a good time?”

“What, stabbings aren’t romantic?” he asked, holding up the IV set in its package. I let out a high-pitched sound of uncertainty. Cal’s face broke into a grin, and he peeled the backing off the package. “It’s probably better if you don’t answer that. I’m not sure my ego can take it.” He tore off the rubber tourniquet, and with gentle fingers, he aligned the IV needle with my vein. “Fast pinch.”

I screwed my eyes shut, but he was quick, and in a rapid succession of practiced movements, he had the IV catheter inserted, the needle discarded in a plastic bin at his side, and the tubing taped to my arm. I watched him fiddle with the tubing and a portable, retracting IV stand that he set up a little higher than the couch. He hung a saline bag from it, his face pinched with concentration.

“I liked it,” I saidsuddenly.

Cal paused, lowering his hands from the bag. His gaze fused to mine. “Did you?” he asked softly.

I swallowed hard. Nodding, I whispered, “I did.”

Cal removed his gloves, bending to one knee beside me again. He tossed the gloves into the plastic receptacle and leaned his arm on his bent knee. “And why are you telling me that now?”

I threaded my bottom lip through my teeth. “I’m just worried about your ego.”

He fought a smile. “Okay. I’ll worry about your body, and you worry about my ego. Sounds like a fair trade.”

“You’re an excellent doctor,” I told him primly. “Amazing. I’d be dead without you.”

“Why is that working?” he murmured, letting the smile escape his tightened lips. He reached up and pushed a stray curl away from my cheek. “Just sit tight for a minute while I get you set up with some broad-spectrum antibiotics.” He grimaced and added, “And on that note, I’ll need to poke you again. Sorry. I want to get CRP and CBR tests to make sure we get you the right antibiotics to fight the infection.”

“I take it back,” I said with fake solemnity. “You are the worst doctor.”

Cal-the-Worst-Doctor actually ended up being anything but. He found me a blanket from my messy bedroom, but I was so grateful to feel a little more comfortable that I didn’t think too hard about what he’d seen. He drew blood samples in tubes topped with purple and red caps, and then he added antibiotics to my IV line. More and more, my living room started to looklike a pseudo-hospital setup with the IV bag on its stand, and then Cal dragged over my small plastic table from the dining area. He laid out disposable blue medical sheets over the surface and arranged things from his bag on it so they weren’t sitting on the carpet.

My heart clenched with discomfort at the tang of disinfectant in the air and the sight of all that blue and silver, but the fact that it was in my living room did take the edge off. By the time half my IV bag had emptied, Cal had brought over a dining room chair to sit between the couch and the table. He’d also washed his hands again, and with a sigh, he gave me a resigned look. “Okay, Shortstop. Let’s fix your knee.”

“You don’t look very happy about it,” I observed, reclining on the couch and feeling weirdly lightheaded from the painkillers he’d added to the IV line. “Should I be worried?”

“I’d much rather do this in the center,” he admitted with a squint of one eye. “But I think your answer to that is probably ‘no.’”

“Very smart, Doctor.”

Sighing again, he stood from the chair, and moving it further down the length of the couch, he lifted a tray with supplies from the dining room table and placed it on the seat. Then he gently slid his arm under my legs, and I did my best to raise them up for him while he sat on the couch. He placed my knees on his lap and gave me an amused glance. “This is not considered best practice. Just so you know.”

I salutedhim. “I won’t tell.”

He angled his body toward me, making it easier to reach the instruments on the chair. My hands trembled as I realized he was actually going to touch that inflamed area, and it was likely going to hurt like a son of a bitch. Cal pulled on another pair of black gloves, and his attention fixed on my knee as his fingers tenderly probed the area. Sharp pain cracked up my thigh and down to my toes.