Heart's Desire Ch 2

Chapter 2

Oh, My God! Those eyes!

Never in my life had I seen someone so...beautiful!

The normal person would have been taken aback by seeing a huge, 6’4” man with his body almost completely wrapped in plaster from his neck to his toes lying in a bed incased by a monstrous steel frame with bars, chains and straps keeping both legs, his right shoulder and arm suspended in mid air in a pose that could only be described has free falling. But those images barely registered in my mind as being seen at all. No, what caused my sudden intake of air when I cleared the privacy curtain just past his doorway was simply…him! His large frame almost completely dwarfed the hospital bed, yet somehow he looked tiny and defenseless lying there. But those eyes. I had never seen eyes quite that color before. Were they contacts? No. I don’t know how I was sure they weren’t but I just somehow knew he was not the type to indulge in such vanity. Here I stood completely mesmerized by beautiful, radiant pools of sapphires staring up at me with such sadness and vulnerability that I immediately felt the need to comfort him. But in the amount of time it took my audible gasp to leave my lips and reach his ears, they were gone; replaced only by cold, icy blue slits revealing nothing but anger and hurt.

I tried desperately to recover from my ill mannered reaction by plastering on my patented “Crazy Sookie” smile. Way to go Sookie Girl, that’s how you nail a first impression! My Gran would be so disappointed in my apparent lack of proper upbringing. Amelia seemed oblivious to our nanosecond interlude and went about pulling the adjustable table over to the side of the bed for me to place his lunch tray on.

“Mr. Northman, I’ll be back later this afternoon to check on you, in the meanwhile enjoy your lunch and let Sookie know if you need anything else”. Amelia barely finished her statement before she was out the door and headed down the hallway. Thanks Amelia, just leave your girl hanging out here.

I took a deep breath and exhaled.

“Well Eric, do you mind if I call you Eric? I don’t believe I’ve ever fed anyone before, but I’m sure we’ll figure this out.” I said while trying to look helpful and reassuring.

Eric had shifted his gaze and was staring straight ahead out the window. “If you don’t mind, let’s just get this over with.” He stated coldly without even bothering to look my direction.

Ouch!

OK, maybe I deserved that. I’m sure my initial reaction when I walked in the room pissed him off and left him with the wrong impression, but it’s not like I can say “I’m sorry I was so rude when we were first introduced, I thought ogling was the appropriate reaction when meeting a god!” No, I’ll just have to find another way to smooth things over between us; I just have to make it through lunch. Right? Right!

“Alright then, let’s get started.”

After washing my hands at the sink by his bed, I began removing the plastic lids and wraps from his lunch taking extra care not to inadvertently put my finger in something. Years of being a waitress had instilled the importance of cleanliness and being keenly aware of where my fingers were.

“Well, this doesn’t look too terribly awful. It appears that you have turkey and dressing, mashed potatoes, carrots with a dinner roll and for dessert, the Pièce de résistance…chocolate pudding!” You know it’s amazing anybody survives a stay in the hospital; the food alone is enough to make someone critically ill and if I wasn’t feeling bad for Eric before, I was now.

“Look Ms. Stackhouse.” Eric finally spoke, louder and definitely more agitated. “If it weren’t for the fact that without consuming the poor excuse for nourishment that this fine establishment you locals so lovingly call a hospital has to offer, I wouldn’t gain enough strength to get my ass discharged and back to Shreveport, we would just forgo this little exercise today. But as it is my most fervent wish to get out of here as quickly as possible, I would appreciate it if you would just cease with the narrations, get me fed and then get the hell out of here!”

Well damn.

“Well, let’s get started then.” I said void of as much emotion as possible.

Maneuvering around to find a comfortable way to do this was not going to be easy. Because his right shoulder and arm were in traction, as well as his legs, I would have to approach him from his left side, which meant it was going to be difficult to feed him with my right hand and since I can barely wave with my left hand, this was not going to be easy but I was bound and determined to do this without causing him any further trauma.

“How do you prefer I do this, do you want one thing at a time or everything together?”

Eric’s eyes flew open wide with the look a shear panic on his face. Poor fella, for a moment there, he thought I was going to try to shove all of this food at him at once. I realized then just how dependent and at my mercy he was and I couldn’t help but feel a little sad for him again.

“No, silly,” I grinned trying to lighten the mood in the room, “I’m not going to heave all this food at you all at once, I was just asking if you preferred to eat one item at a time or would you like for me to rotate the items?”

Eric’s face relaxed somewhat but there was no reprieve in his voice. “Ms. Stackhouse, just put the damn food in my mouth already!”

Alright, now he was pissin’ me off! I knew I had made a bad first impression, but what was his problem? I mean damn, I was volunteering to feed his ass; he didn’t need to go all psycho and shit.

I decided to pull myself together, I was truly too tired to get worked up over this any further. I’m not arrogant, but I have pretty good people skills and now that I’m older people generally like me; I thought his reaction was probably the result of all the medication he was on. At least I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I took a fork full of turkey and dressing and leaned over him to begin feeding and was instantly aware that I was still wearing the exact same close I had been wearing for the last 30 some hours. Well Mr. Wonderful was just going to have to get over it if I didn’t smell like the first rose of spring today.

In order to reach his mouth, I had to lean over the side of the bed somewhat and I could feel the heat from his body up against mine. Nice. Each time I brought the fork to his mouth, I could feel his soft breath on my hand. Sookie, what the hell is your problem? The man’s an invalid for piss-sake. Get it together!

He ate in silence while I watched his mouth slowly and rhythmically chew every bite with fascination. It only took about 15 minutes for him to finish his lunch. I tried to pace each bite so he had ample time to chew and swallow without feeling rushed. It was when we got to dessert that I wished I had spent more time babysitting or feeding babies during my teenage years, maybe then I would have mastered the “spoon swipe”. You know the thing mothers do after they pull the spoon out of the food, where they kind of wipe the bottom of the spoon along the edge of the container to remove any remnant that would drop off? Yeah, that. Well I did not possess that skill yet so the very first spoonful of pudding that I pull out of the bowl was followed with a loud “splat”! Did I mention that Eric is lying in bed without a shirt or hospital gown on? I looked down in complete embarrassment at the large brown splatter on his chest. Well no good deed goes unpunished.

Apparently I had been staring longer than I realized because it took Eric’s voice to break my distraction.

“Ms. Stackhouse, in the name of all that is Holy; will you please get this off of me and then get the hell out of my room?”

“Oh Eric, I’m so sorry! I will get that off of you right away, just let me get a wash cloth so you don’t end up with a sticky spot.” Great, and just when we were becoming such good friends. Will this day never end?

I quickly got him cleaned up. I moved the table back over to the wall and picked up the tray and walked to the door.

“Eric again, I am so sorry for spilling the pudding, I hope you’ll forgive me.” I really did want him to forgive me, it was an accident, but he had obviously been through enough lately without having something as stupid as this happen to him.

“Ms. Stackhouse, Leave!”

TBC