Break the Rules by Leighton Greene

Author:Leighton Greene [Greene, Leighton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Leighton Greene

She smiles. “My husband likes to call me his Belle Dame sans Merci,” she says unexpectedly, and Ben blinks. She’s married?

Then it hits him. “Did I say that out loud?”

“You did. Now, Benjamin—are you sure you don’t want to make a police report about this incident?”

“No,” he says. “I don’t want to. It would just be…I’m well known. It would turn into a thing.”

“Alright; as you wish. But if you are comfortable, I’d still like to know his name and any details you can tell me.”

“Why?”

“Because if there’s someone out there doing this, the rest of the community needs to be warned, even if you don’t go to the police.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Sometimes, it’s not all about you, Benjamin.” But she’s smiling at him. It would be impossible to take offense. And so Ben smiles back and tells her all the information he has, and she writes it down in neat, blocked letters on her notepad.

“I’m going to clean your face,” she tells him. “Your nose is, thankfully, unbroken, but you’ll be quite sore for a few days. You’ll have to take over-the-counter painkillers for that. I don’t want to give you a prescription, because I’m sure—” She stops, gives a rueful shrug. “I’m sure you’ve had enough pills and potions to last a lifetime.”

“Not quite a lifetime. As it turned out.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, touching his shoulder. “We all thought you and he—well, it doesn’t matter what we thought. You lasted as long as you could.”

“What do you mean?” Ben frowns. “No. He broke up with me.”

Ben is pretty sure the Doctor isn’t used to being shocked, because the way she stops and stares at him lacks any of her natural grace. “I beg your pardon?”

“He broke up with me.”

“Are you sure?”

Ben gives a sharp laugh. “Uh, yeah. Pretty damn sure.” He can’t really blame everyone for finding it so surprising. It came out of the blue for him, too.

The Doctor says, “Of course. Forgive me. It’s absolutely none of my business, in any case.” She pulls on a white medical coat, snaps on latex gloves and busies herself with cotton pads to clear his face of blood and sweat. After his face is clean, she begins to tend the mark on his back, and her fingers are as sure and gentle as Xander’s ever were. Ben bites down on his lip to distract himself.

“If you pass any blood in your urine over the next few days, you will need to go to the ER. But it seems to me that he missed your vital organs. Did you have intercourse?” she asks.

“No. God, no, nothing like that.” He’s doubly glad now, because he really couldn’t take having his asshole examined by her, not again. He sees a brief flash of humor cross her face in the mirror.

“All done,” she says eventually, disposing of her gloves. “You can put your shirt back on. And here—you’ve been such a good boy. Have a lollipop.”

She holds out a small jar towards him, and Ben grins, winces at the resulting pain in his nose.

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