It was almost two in the morning when Paris walked in the hospital room, shooting his gaze around before they settled on Riley.
She was sound asleep on the armchair, curled up like a tiny kitten.
He sighed, stepping out of the room.
“Nurse!” he called.
A singular girl came running toward him. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” Paris responded, “I just wanted to know where her mother was.”
“Oh, she’s on vacation.”
“No,” he said before she could walk away, “the other girl, Riley.”
“Oh, her friend? Her mom went home, I think. She told the doctors it was okay for her to sleep with her friend tonight.” The nurse looked back to Riley. “After what happened, I don’t think I’d want to leave my friend either.”
“What happened?” Paris pressed.
The nurse gazed up at him. “Are you a family member?”
“Yes,” he lied, “yes, I am.”
She eyed him curiously for a moment before shrugging, clearly thinking this was none of her business.
“Well… I think that girl on the couch there found the other one in an alley. She was critically injured. The girl who was injured almost died, but we actually saved her, she’ll be okay in a couple weeks. But she was stabbed and lost a lot of blood. The stores of where the alley she was in were both closed due to family emergencies; she was very lucky that Riley found her. If it was minutes later, she’d be dead.”
Paris looked to Riley through the room’s window and his eyes darkened.
Jesus… whoever was up to this was playing her sanity like a game.
He gazed back at he nurse before she walked away. “Ma’am, can we get a second bed in here?”
She nodded. “Yeah.” And walked off.
Almost twenty minutes later, there was a bed rolled in by two nurses.
One of them gazed up at Paris with a slight shock. “Oh!” he said. “You’re the volunteer, Paris, right?”
He nodded.
“Do you know them?” he said, the other nurse rolling her eyes and walking off.
“Yeah,” Paris responded.
“Did you hear what happened?” he questioned. “Poor thing,” he looked down to Riley, “that girl on the couch found her friend here.”
Paris guessed that the news was going around the entire hospital; that’s how they worked, anyway; all of them gossiping like teenagers.
“Yeah,” Paris said, “I heard.”
“Well…” the nurse said then, “we’re supposed to be monitoring her, so….”
“Yeah,” Paris said, “I’ll stay. I know what to report and stuff.”
“Thanks, Paris,” he said. “We need the extra help. We’re very packed and short staffed. So you being here is a saint.”
He walked off seconds later.
They weren’t really supposed to do that due to “conflict of interest,” but whatever, Paris wanted to be near Riley anyway.
“Wow…” he commented to himself, staring after the nurse, “they really don’t know I don’t have a college degree, do they? That sucks.”
Paris gazed down at Riley on the couch seconds later, sighing heavily.
And then he stepped over to her, pulling her arm so it wrapped around his neck and lifted her seconds later.
She groaned in annoyance, shifting in his grip.
“I know, I know,” he said, holding her tighter. “I’m disturbing your precious beauty sleep, but I don’t really care, so stop complaining.”
He lay her down on the bed, feeling her ease into the mattress when he gently draped the covers over her.
She shifted to her side, snuggling up with herself under the covers.
Paris smiled and stepped over to the couch, settling down on it seconds later.
He was going to be here for a while, but he didn’t really care.
This was his job, after all.
