Give Me the Greenlight, Mr. Clifford

Ch 7 - That Hair, Though

Naturally, I was up before my alarm even went off. I was awake every single hour through the night. Nothing new. However, I had never gotten ready for work so quickly. I didn't want to get there too early and look desperate, so I decided I'd sit down and eat before I left. I had a cherry Pop Tart and a Coke, the breakfast of champions.

I was actually in too much of a hurry getting ready for work to check my phone until then. I started scrolling through my notifications until I saw that Michael had tweeted around 1:00 a.m., just after I had decided to call it a night. It said, "Sorry I haven't been on. I'm ok, but need a little time to heal. I'm sorry for the cancelled shows." It was followed by a sad face emoji.

Typical Michael, apologizing for something he shouldn't even be worried about. But I got why he felt the need to do so. Many fans were actually complaining about the shows that had to be cancelled, even though they'd be rescheduled later. Idiots.

I still got to work ten minutes early. Not too bad. Michael was sleeping, which was a good thing. Beth told me he had an uneventful night, with stable vital signs and his circulation remained normal. She had given him two doses of morphine through the night and he had mostly slept. She also said that she and Danny had helped Michael with a sponge bath around bedtime. But she said, "That hair though... I thought I'd let you deal with that today." That sounded like a fair trade to me. Helping Michael with a bath was the last thing I wanted to do. I'd be petrified.

So I basically sat around for two hours, having a brief conversation with Danny once. He asked if it would be okay for Luke, Ashton, and Calum to visit. Yes, please! I thought, but instead said, "Yeah, I think Michael would like that." As if I knew what Michael would like.

He asked what a good time for them to visit would be, and I told him probably just after lunch. I knew that the physical therapist would be there later in the morning and again in the late afternoon. So that narrowed down Michael's free time.

When breakfast arrived, I opened Michael's door to take it in to him. How was it possible for someone to look so amazing with zero effort? And especially in that situation? It was unreal. Though I must say, the hair was out of control.

I tried to sit the tray down on the table quietly, but in typical Dani fashion, I nearly dropped it and it made a loud noise, which of course woke up Michael. He looked at me, and stretched, grimacing a bit.

"Good morning sunshine." My heart did a back handspring in my chest and I knew I was blushing again. "How was your night?" he asked me.

"Same old, same old. Oh, except this guy in this band that I like followed me on Twitter. That was pretty exciting, so yeah." I was smiling way bigger than I should have been.

"Holy balls, that's amazing," he played along, pretending to be impressed.

"For real though, my night was pretty lame, as usual. Beth said she thought you rested well. Did you?" I questioned.

"Yeah, off and on. I'm just getting bored lying here. It'll be better once I can get a phone, I hope."

I almost offered to let him use mine, but remembered the billion pictures of him and the band that I had saved. My luck, he'd go exploring, and that would be a wee bit embarrassing.

"Well, the physical therapist will be here in a little bit. That sure won't be boring. I'm going to give you some oral pain medicine after you eat. It'll kick in good around the time they get here, and will last longer than the IV medication. It's still going to be a little rough, but you'll do fine," I explained.

Michael mumbled something to himself that I couldn't fully understand. I did hear a few choice curse words, though.

I helped him get situated for his meal. While doing so, I commented that I would help him get his hair washed after breakfast if he'd like.