Chapter 3

Logan awoke to find his undressed body wrapped around a fully clothed sleeping female. He tensed and carefully extracted his arm from hers and rolled onto his back trying to put all the pieces together. The last thing he remembered was following Maxie to his bed after he got home from the hospital. But now the apartment was dark except for the soft glow from the light over the stove in the kitchen, which he never left on.

He glanced over at the alarm, 3:30am and struggled to fill in the lost time.
"Don't burn your brain out; you've been asleep since you got home from the hospital this afternoon." She croaked and rolled onto her stomach to look at him, her face illuminated by the glow of his clock radio.

"How long have I been out?" he asked.

"I left you around 2:30 this afternoon but I woke you up a few times for your medicine, but all you wanted to do was go back to sleep afterwards." She finished rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

Logan eyed Maxie dubiously, faintly recalling the feel cool liquid being pressed to his lips. "That doesn't explain why you are still here or in bed with me."

"Oh don't get your panties in a bunch." She snorted, throwing off the afghan she had covered herself up with and fumbled for her shoes. "Patrick said it was important for you to keep your meds on a tight time schedule and that you really shouldn't be home alone for the first few days."

"I have a couch you know." He retorted.

"Yeah right, that thing you call a couch was so uncomfortable we ended up having sex on the floor instead, and you expect me to sleep on it? Guess again buddy, I'd rather take the chance of you molesting me in my sleep."

He watched her as she smoothed down her hair and adjusted her shirt, wondering what was exactly going on with her. Something was definitely up…

"Are you hungry? I can get you something to eat." She said glancing at the clock on the nightstand, "Plus your due for some more medication in a half hour." Maxie added fidgeting at the end of his bed.

He laughed and answered her, "I don't have anything here to eat."

"Uh yes you do, I grabbed a few things when I picked up your prescriptions this afternoon. Oh and by the way, I had to tell the pharmacist that I was your wife or he wasn't going to let me pick them up for you."

He sat up and scrutinized the petite blonde in front of him. "Wow, I don't know what to say except who are you and where is the real Maxie?"He asked swinging his feet down to land on the cold floor.

He swayed a little and she moved to take his arm. "Are you alright?" she asked with concern.

"Yeah just a little whoozy. Patrick said it would pass in time."

"Well what do you need? Can I get it for you." She pressed with genuine concern in her voice.

"Sorry Maxie, but unfortunately there are something you can't do for me." He replied as he slowly made his way to the bathroom.

The dull headache still lingered and when he flipped the light on in the small bathroom, it grew to a more prominent throb. He splashed water on his face and glared at his reflection in the mirror. His cheeks seemed sunken in, his skin was pale and he desperately needed a shave. "Damn" he groused realizing he hadn't even looked this bad when he got back from Iraq.

"Screw it." He muttered and flipped the shower on and waited for the water the heat up, right now he didn't care if the sound of shower woke up his neighbors. When it was hot enough he slipped behind the shower door and let the steam wrap around him. He sighed as he slipped the bar of soap over his body washing away the smell of hospitals and disinfectants.

He heard the click of the bathroom door lock as he turned off the water and slowly shook his head, "Sorry to disappoint you but it looks like I won't be needing that sponge bath tonight so why don't you just run along home and bother someone else."

"As if you'd be so lucky. Looking for one of these?" she asked tossing a towel over the steamed up shower door. "I them this afternoon and washed them with the rest of your stuff, how is it that you only own two towels?"

"Well because I'm a guy and I only need one towel at time." He replied drying his face and then shifting the towel to wrap it low around his hips before he slid the door open.

He found her leaning against the sink with her arms crossed in front of her chest as her gaze flicked appraisingly over his bare chest. "What did you do for your precious Lulu? Oh yeah that's right she's with Johnny now, I bet it's because he has more than two towels in that big old mansion."

"I knew this new side of Maxie had to be too good to be true." He muttered while not so gently nudging her aside so he could get to the mirror to shave. Her words caught up with him and he stopped, putting his razor back down turning to her. "Wait a minute, you did my laundry?"

"Yep, cute boxers by the way. Hope you don't mind the starch." She answered and left the small bathroom to leave him more confused ever.