I crawled into the bed and pulled the blankets over me. Sleep came on fast and I was drifting off as soon as I closed my eyes and my head touched the pillow.

The sound of my name being called, woke me up. But it wasn’t the name-calling that really slammed me awake, it was the solid pain. Completely unmedicated. I honestly thought I might cry from the pain. I took a few of the different pain pills I had in the bedroom that I could take together and waited for the pills to kick in.

Ryer was on the other side of the door still speaking my name.

“Sasha, don’t ignore me. We need to talk now.” His tone of voice suggested he was annoyed with me still.

Finally, feeling able to speak without crying out, I told him to go the hell away. He didn’t respond well to that. He threw the door open then, his face held irritation until he noticed I was in pain and my teeth were clenched slightly. I didn’t mean to be nasty to him this time; I was just in a massive amount of pain.

“Sasha are you—-”

“Go away. Please.”

“Sasha.”

“I don’t need your help. Go nurse your hangover and let me sleep, please.” I said softly my voice just slightly above a whisper. I was in pain and I just wanted to sleep.

“Sasha, we still need to talk.”

“Ryer. Later. Please,”

He stepped out of the room and closed the door. I heard him walking around for a bit before I fell back asleep. It took the pain pills kicking in; me getting comfortable and warm again and trying my hardest to relax for me to actually fall asleep.

Again, I woke up to Ryer calling my name, this time it was for dinner. I checked my watch as I groaned in frustration. It was five at night. I was still tired.

“I’ve made dinner, please get up and eat something.”

“Fine.”

I heard his footsteps leaving the door and drug myself out of the bed and stood up. It took me a moment to get my legs to move the way I wanted, but I made my way out to the kitchen. He had all kinds of things cooked and laid out on the table.

“Sit down and help yourself.”

“Right.”

I sat down in the kitchen chair and slowly put a few things on my plate. I really wasn’t hungry because I had only just woken up, but I picked at the food, regardless. Ryer caught me off guard by speaking to me.

“What did Alexi and you do yesterday?”

“We drove around and talked.”

“Right, that sounds... pleasant.”

“It helped me think about things, What did you do yesterday?”

“Worked.”

“Hm. Yes, I figured that.”

I chewed the chuck of meat slowly, waiting for him to respond, but he was also chewing. I swallowed what was in my mouth before deciding this was the point of which I needed to apologise to him.

“Ryer, I’m sorry for my behaviour, since I got back from the hospital.”

He nodded, still chewing. He sipped his water after he swallowed before he spoke again.

“I also have some things to apologise for. So, I'm sorry about everything.”

I nodded. Picking away at the food again. Ryer pushed a different plate closer to me, it held some thin noodles in a thick dark sauce with broccoli.

“Try this, I’m positive you will like it.”

Using the fork on the plate I moved some noodles and broccoli to my plate. I could smell the sweet garlic sauce on my from where I was.

“Thank you.”

I picked up a forkful of the noodles and shoved them into my mouth. The sweet flavour with the garlic in the noodles nicely balanced the whole dish. The broccoli was not overcooked and also was really nice tossed with the sauce. I could eat a tone of this, it was delicious.

“I hope I wasn’t too much trouble for you early this morning. I didn’t mean to make you have to stay up to make sure I didn’t die. I had a few too many drinks last night.”

“No worries, I’ve made more trouble for you than you did me this morning.”

This was me trying to be accepting about not wanting to be here and it was hard for me, But Alexi’s words hang in my head. He wanted me to get along with Ryer even if only for a little while, it would make it easier for both of us.

“Sasha about me telling you to get the fuck out of my way this morning, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry about that. But also I’m really sorry I woke you up only an hour later, it wasn’t until after I left your room that I realised you probably had sat up all night watching over me.”

“Someone had to make sure you wouldn't choke to death on your own vomit. Andrei would not do it, hell, he was ok with you choking to death.”

“Yes, He was still unhappy with me when I spoke to him a little while ago.”

I shoved more noodles into my mouth nodding and chewing. It did not surprise me that Andrei was still upset about last night. Ryer got up and started to clean up some of the empty plates and pans.

“Here let me help,” I said, going to stand up.

“No, no, don’t worry about it. I got it.”

“Are you sure there is nothing I can help you with?”

“Here let me grab some storage containers and you can put the leftovers away, that ok?”

“Yeah, I’ll do that.”

He brought me some containers, and I scraped all the leftovers into their own containers. There was more food left than I thought there was. I got up, carried a few of the containers and took them to the fridge. Opening it and tucking them inside. It took me two trips, but I got everything into the fridge with little pain and struggle.

“Oh Sasha, I could have put them away.”

“Hey, I got it. I’m not that useless.” I chuckled.

“I think next week, I would like to start some physio on your back. Some stretching and movement-based actions. I can gauge what we need to work on after that.”

“I’ll do whatever you think is best, you're the one with the papers in that field, after all.”

Ryer chuckled, drying his hands off before he pulled all the ice packs and a towel again.

“Go lay down on the couch and get comfortable.”

“Now?”

“Yeah, right now. You were in massive amounts of pain earlier, I saw it before you asked me to go away.”

“I took pain pills, I was fine after that.”

“Just go lay down please.”

“Alright.”

I limped to the couch and carefully laid down. Ryer pulled up my shirt, his fingers pressing into my back.

“You are so tense back here.”

“Hm.”

His fingers pushed deeper into my skin, he was massaging the tissue and I could feel him getting the muscles to relax before he covered my back with the towel and covered me with all kinds of ice packs. I expected him to leave me there but rather he didn’t. He moved the coffee table into the middle of the room and sat on the floor up by my fave, his legs crossed and he relaxed.

“How come you didn’t pick up my calls yesterday?” Ryer asked. His eyes locked right on mine.

“I didn’t want to. I figured you were going to be pissed and honestly I needed to just get out and away.”

“Away from what Sasha?”

“You. But not because——”

“Shh, Sasha, relax, I’m not upset about your answer.”

“I don’t want you to think that I don’t like you. I don’t like what you did to me.”

“Right, the kiss and the bite,”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry again about that Sasha, I was out of line there.”

“It’s fine,”

“Sasha, we need some ground rules. Alright.”

“Mhmm.”

“I won’t touch you with letting you know or getting your permission and you won’t just leave or ignore my phone calls.”

“Deal.”

Ryer closed his eyes well he laid back on the floor and I took this time once again to look him over. He was attractive, If I felt like ending my dry spell he might very well end up on the shortlist of those who might just be the one. Hell, I didn’t even know if I could have sex again, with what happened to my spine.

Focusing on Ryer again, I watched him sit back up, and open his eyes again. I was sure he felt me staring at him, but he didn’t make a comment as I found myself wondering all about the pre-mafia version of him before he became this Ryer when he was still Ryerson Kelly. There was just so much about him that I didn’t know that I wanted to.

“They axed me from my job as an agent because the gun I had jammed and I couldn’t take a shot on the guy planting a bomb. I used my handgun and fired into the crowded square to get everyone to run away. They left the square, and no one was hurt, but the bomber got away and they deemed my actions are careless and dangerous. But I live by the fact alone that no one died from his bomb that day.” I muttered against the couch cushion, flicking my eyes closed, reliving the event again, right to all the insignificant details.