Looking after the damsel in distress.

“Alright, alright. Give me five minutes to pull my truck around and I’ll take you there myself,” Vinny told Carly in his most comforting voice.

Her words seemed to relax her and she took in a series of deep breaths and tried to compose herself. Vinny felt for her. It looked to be a nasty break and he could only imagine the amount of pain she must be in right now.

A few minutes later he came back into the gym, his truck running just outside the entrance. They’d managed to get Carly closer to the doors and she was waiting for him on a plastic chair. Easing himself under her arm Vinny steadied her and began to lead her outside.

Before they were gone, the owner of the gym yelled out to Vinny, “and organise another ring girl!”

“I’ll handle it!” Vinny yelled back. The old man was one of the most unsympathetic old pricks he’d ever met.

At the Emergency Department, Carly was seen quickly by the doctors but it still took some hours for her to be x-rayed and then to have her ankle put into a plaster cast. They then had to wait for it to set properly before they could leave. By the time they’d got out it was way too late for Carly to catch the last train out of the city, plus Vinny didn’t want her to try and get back home on her own.

Vinny had an apartment in a converted loft that he offered to let Carly spent the night with him and then arrange for her Mom or someone to come and pick her up the next day after they’d slept. Vinny only had the one double bed that he offered to Carly which himself taking the couch.

“No Vinny, sleep with me,” Carly protested when he put her into his bed. The pills they’d given her for the pain were starting to take effect and her words were getting drawn out and a little slurry.

“I’ll be right there on the couch,” he told her reassuringly.

“Nooo… Have you ever had sex with some with one in a cast?” she asked him in a voice drifting further into sleep and unconsciousness.

“I’ve had sex when I was in a cast,” he told her with a laugh. In about his sixth or seventh fight, he’d ended up breaking some small bones in his right wrist as well as rupturing the tendons in one of his knees. A pair of casts hadn’t stopped him celebrating after managing to pull out an unlikely victory.

With that Carly finally fell asleep and Vinny was able to get his hand back from where she’d been clutching it to make sure he didn’t leave her. He put her arm down beside her side and rearranged the blankets around her neatly.

Getting up he checked the orange bottle of tablets beside her purse to see what they had given her to take home. They’d done the trick on Carly. ‘Mmm Percocets. Tasty,’ Vinny thought to himself. He uncapped the bottle and shook out two for himself and swallowed. Walking back around the other side of the bed, away from her broken ankle, Vinny gently climbed into bed and lay down beside her and closed his eyes.

Opening his eyes what felt like five minutes later, Vinny looked at the alarm clock and saw with horror that it was nearly 4:30 in the afternoon. They’d slept nearly the entire day! He rolled over to Carly where she was fast asleep beside him.

“Carly. Carly. I’m going to need you to call your Mom,” he said gently shaking her to wake up.

Doors were due to open at the gym for the boxing night in just over an hour. His former trainer and the owner would be freaking out that Vinny wasn’t there already. Getting dressed as fast as he could back into the same jeans and shirt as yesterday Vinny came to say goodbye to Carly before he left.

“Will you be alright by yourself? I have to get back to the gym,” he asked her as he kissed her on the forehead.

“I’ll be fine. Thank you for looking after me Vinny,” Carly told him.

Grabbing a jacket from the back of a chair at the table, Vinny picked up his keys and was out the door. On the dash to his car, Vinny suddenly realised with horror that he was supposed to organise for someone to take Carly’s place tonight. In a moment of pure hope, Vinny opened Melissa's message from yesterday and deleted what he’d gone to send her before. Retyping his message Vinny entered the address of the gym then, “Be there ASAP! And bring a bikini.”