Chasing Bliss (29 page)

When he reached for her phone, Bliss held it away from her and put her hand on his chest.
“Don’t you come at me, Corey! You two are not doing anything! You can’t just let him lie there
like that. He needs a doctor…and I fucking know one.” She looked at J.T. “I’m calling Tasha. It’s
our blind luck that she’s a neurologist. One of you is gonna go get her, and I’m gonna go in there
and take care of my man.
I’m
making
this
decision, and I don’t want to hear shit about it.”

Corey frowned up. “
You
make the decision? You sound like his wife or somethin’.”

Bliss smirked at him. “Yeah, well, get used to it, Corey…because I
will
be.”

J.T. laughed and clapped his hands. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about.
Ride or die, Bliss!
Make
the call, and I’ll go get your girl.”

Bliss called Tasha, whose only complaint was that she was pulled out of sleep in the middle of
the night. J.T. left to get her, and Bliss and Corey went together to Chase’s bedroom.

When they got there, Chase wasn’t in his bed. They glanced at each other and followed the
path he’d left with one bloody footprint; it led to the bathroom. They found him on the floor of the
shower, kneeling with his hands against the wall. The cold water was on full blast, raining down on
him. Chase’s teeth were chattering, and blood swirled down the drain from a wound on his calf.

Bliss stepped into the shower, fully clothed, without a second thought, and turned the hot water
on until the water was warm. She got on her knees next to him and put her arm around his shoulders.
“Baby, it’s me. It’s Bliss.”

He opened his eyes and smiled at her. “Hey, baby.”

Bliss smiled back and kissed his cheek. “I got you, Chase. Don’t worry, it’s gonna be okay. Can
you stand up?”

He closed his eyes and frowned, then he stood, slowly, never taking his hands away from the
wall. “I’m okay. I can’t let go of the wall, though, ‘cause the room is spinning.”

Bliss let go of him long enough to push her hair out of her eyes. “Okay. You hold on to the wall
and I’ll clean you up. You think you can handle that, or do you want Corey to step in here and help
us?”

He frowned and blinked. “He’s in here?” He started to turn around, but that would have meant
letting go of the wall. “Get outta here, Corey,” he said. There was a smile in his voice that didn’t
quite make it to his lips.

“Fuck
that!
I’m makin’ popcorn. You all right, Chase?”

“No, but I’m not unconscious.”

“That’s a start. Holler if you need me,” Corey said before he stepped out of the bathroom and
left them alone.

Bliss started to soap him up. “I called Tasha. J.T. is going to get her.”

He smiled at her. “You did that for me?”

She squatted to wash his calf and took a moment to look at the wound. It was a really bad graze,
but it was obvious it had been made by a bullet. Bliss sucked her teeth. “There’s not very much I
wouldn’t do for you, Chase.” She paused to look at him. “You better not bring your ass back in here
shot and knocked out ever again though. I’m not playing with you!” she shouted at him.

Chase took one hand off the wall and reached for hers. “Bliss…”

She was crying again. She knocked his hand away and kept doing what she was doing. “
No
,
Chase. There’s nothing you can say to me right now to keep me from being mad at you, so don’t
even try. Just be quiet.” She stood back up and put her hands on his face. “Bend over so I can look
at that gash in your head.”

Chase looked at her for a moment, then did as he was told.

Bliss cleaned and inspected it as best as she could. She was gentle, but she knew it had to hurt,
even if Chase didn’t let on like it did. She got him out of the shower and into the bedroom and
dried him off. Working together, they managed to get him dressed in a pair of comfortable pajama
bottoms.

Bliss took her soaked clothes off and put on one of his T-shirts and a pair of his sweat pants. She
was brushing her hair when Corey knocked on the door.

“Hey…Tasha’s here.”

“Okay!” Bliss called back. She pulled a T-shirt carefully over Chase’s head.

“What’s this for?”

Bliss smiled. “That’s for Tasha.”

Chase looked at her funny. “She’s a doctor, Bliss.”

“She’s a
woman
, Chase, and I don’t want her looking at you like that. You’re real cute, you
know…and she already told me more than once how fine you are.”

He laughed. “Yeah? Right now I’m not.”

“Still cute as hell to me.” She kissed his forehead and went to the door.

Tasha walked in with J.T. and Corey in tow. She was carrying a small Prada train case. “Hey,
Bliss. Has he passed out again since he woke up?”

Bliss shook her head. “No. I gave him a shower. Maybe that kept him up?”

Tasha sat on the bed and opened her case. “I doubt it.” She took out a small pen light and smiled
at Chase. “How you doin’, slugger? Feel okay? Gotta throw up? Do you know who I am?”

Chase leaned back against the pillows and looked at her. “Yeah, you’re Tasha. I don’t think I’m
missin’ anything, but you are a little blurry.”

She got up and shined her light in his eyes. “Damn. Whoever hit you didn’t mean for you to
get up. You better be glad your head is so hard.” She stepped back, squirted hand sanitizer on her
hands, then slipped on rubber gloves. She thoroughly examined his skull, looking in his eyes again
and also in his ears. She looked at the wound and went into her case. “I’m gonna have to close that
up. Hope you’re not squeamish.”

Chase smiled. “Nope. I wouldn’t say I am.”

Tasha smirked and picked up her case. “I figured as much. Let’s go in the kitchen, and I’ll sew
you up.” Once everything was set up in the kitchen like a makeshift doctor’s office, Tasha cleaned
his wound properly and shot lydacaine into his scalp.

J.T. winced. “Damn, Chase. You want a drink?”

Tasha laughed and threaded her little curved needle. “He can’t have one. I’m gonna give him
something for the pain that’s gonna put him out.”

Chase shook his head slowly. “That’s okay. I don’t want it.”

Tasha looked at him sternly. “Well, too bad, cause you’re taking it. Why don’t you want it? You
plan on runnin’ out and gettin’ back at whoever it was that parted your scalp?”

Chase looked at the floor. “I ain’t gotta worry about him.”

Tasha looked at him for a moment, then turned to J.T. “
Okay.
I’ll take a double of whatever
you were gonna give him.” She took her time and sewed him up, while Bliss and Corey sat at the
breakfast bar and J.T. leaned over Chase and watched her handiwork with a great deal of interest.
She finished with a flourish and winked at J.T.

“Nice work, Doc,” he said, smiling at her.

Tasha smiled back and looked him over. “Thanks, but that’s not the best I can do.”

J.T. returned the look. “I’ll just bet it’s not. You flirtin’ with me, Tasha?”

“I’m tryin’.”

Corey got up impatiently and raised the leg on Chase’s pants. “Well, before y’all get your freak
on, could you take a look at this?”

Tasha rolled her eyes at Corey, but she looked at Chase’s leg. “Damn, negro! You managed to
get yourself shot too?”

“It’s just a graze.”

She looked at him at him seriously. “Yeah, but it almost wasn’t.” She cleaned it and dressed it
and then gave him a shot of antibiotics.

“Thanks, Tasha,” Chase said as she gave him another shot—a painkiller.

She looked at him dubiously with her hand on her hip. “You’re a lucky guy, Chase. You could
have gotten yourself killed tonight.”

Chase blinked at her, and his mouth dropped open a little. “What did you just do?” He slumped
in his seat like somebody had hit him.

Bliss got up and went to him and put her hands on his face.

Tasha looked unfazed. “I just gave you something for the pain, that’s all.”

Chase stood up suddenly, knocking Bliss’s hands away. He teetered a little, and J.T. grabbed him and held
him steady.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” Bliss asked, surprised by his reaction and the panic on his face.

For once, Chase ignored her. He turned his head and talked to Tasha. “Don’t think I don’t
appreciate your help, Tasha. I do. I just wish you could have waited on that. I don’t need to be
feeling like this right now.”

J.T. patted his back. “It’s okay, Chase. Me and Corey ain’t goin’ nowhere. You got time to get
yourself together.”

Tasha looked at Bliss. “You want me to stay? He’s got a pretty nasty concussion. Whether I stay
or not, I want to see him in my office in the morning.”

Bliss nodded. “Yeah, if you can stay, that’d be great. I’m sorry, Tasha.”

Tasha smiled at her. “Fuck sorry. I’m your friend. Take your man to bed and watch him. You see
anything strange, hear any strange breathing, you holler, okay?”

“Thanks, Tasha.” Chase slurred, but he walked to the bedroom under his own power.

Bliss got him settled into bed with two pillows under his head. She snuggled in close to him
and closed her eyes.

Chase startled her when he spoke because she thought he was asleep. “I’m sorry for this, Bliss.
I’m really sorry.”

She turned over on her back and looked at him in the moonlight. He was frowning hard. She
touched his face. “What happened tonight, Chase?”

“I…I can’t tell you. It was something I don’t want to think about, but I’m sorry to you, Bliss, and I couldn’t
really stop it from happening.”

Bliss frowned. He
could have
stopped it. He didn’t have to go. He could have stayed right there
with her, and she told him as much.

Chase held her close, and she didn’t pull away. She couldn’t have if she’d wanted to. “I
had
to
go, Bliss. I know you don’t understand, and I don’t really expect you to…” He sounded like he was
drifting off, but he was talking, and Bliss wanted to hear what he had to say.

“You didn’t have to do whatever it was that you did tonight, Chase.” She said it quietly, with a
great amount of reproach in her voice.

Chase put his face very close to hers, like he was trying hard to see her in the dark. He said her
name with a sigh and put his cheek to hers. “I had to do that, too, Bliss. I
had
to. They were gonna
kill me, and I couldn’t let that happen, could I? I had to save myself, Bliss. I had to save me for
you
. I had to save me for
us.
”