by Nikki Ashton
“I think he may be,” I replied and wagged a finger at him. “But you need to be restrained. Not everyone is like you; out and proud. Let him have his privacy if that’s what he wants.”
Davis rolled his eyes. “I know, I hear you, Momma.”
“I’m serious.”
He nodded and actually looked genuine. “I know. I’ll dial it down, I swear.” He yawned again.
“Now, go home and get some sleep.” I looked up at the big red and yellow clock on the wall. “It’s thirty minutes after your shift ended.”
“I know and I’m going. Joella is sitting with Bobby by the way. He had a bad dream.”
My heart hurt as I thought about the four kids we currently had on our ward. The youngest was only three and the eldest was Millie at seven. Their parents were allowed to stay with them, but Bobby’s mom was a single mom. She had temporarily swapped to a night shift at the canning factory in Jenningstown so that she could be with Bobby in the day while he got over his appendectomy.
“He goes home the day after tomorrow, doesn’t he?”
Davis nodded and smiled. “Yeah, but I’ll miss the little guy. That smile of his is beautiful. He’s such a happy little thing.”
I agreed. It was real hard to see the kids in hospital, but it was also difficult to say goodbye to a lot of them too.
“Right, go.” I pointed to the door.
Davis saluted me and turned on his heel. He was about to disappear into the locker room when the buzzer went on the ward door.
“I’ll go,” he sighed. “The intercom is faulty.”
“Really? Do Maintenance know?” I looked down at the intercom console on the desk to see he was right, there was no light of any color shining from it.
“Yeah,” Davis called over his shoulder. “They’re coming tomorrow.”
While he moved out of sight, around the corner, I busied myself with reading the medication list for the night-time meds round. I was beginning to think Davis had got rid of whoever it was and then gone off home, when a large hand smacked down on the desk. My eyes shot up from the sheet I was reading to be met with gorgeous pools of chocolate brown.
“What are you doing here?” I hissed, as I craned to look behind Hunter.
“Came to see you.” He crossed his arms over his chest, and I could see he was full of determination. “We have things to discuss.”
What he was determined about, I had no idea, but the narrow eyes, straight back and slight tilt to the head told me that he was.
“W-what about?” I whispered hoping just a little bit that he wanted to discuss his penis.
He bent over at the waist and put his mouth close to my ear.
“Davis is in the locker room, so you don’t have to whisper.”
“He has the hearing of a bat. I think I do. Now what do you want?”
I could feel his breath on my cheek, and I could smell his soap and cologne and damn it, I wished I could turn the clock back twenty-four hours. I wouldn’t change a damn thing, except maybe savor the hot sex a little bit more. Oh, and maybe take a photograph of his huge wang.
“Like I said, we need to talk.”
Hunter straightened up again and shoved his hands into his jeans’ pockets. He still had a steely look in his eyes, but he didn’t have the Hunter Delaney confidence I’d grown used too.
“Nothing to talk about.” I wheeled my chair away from the desk and put the meds list into the top tier of a yellow tray and then wheeled further back to flick the switch to dim the ward lights.
“Ellie, stop messing around back there and get back here now.”
He pointed a finger down at the desk and let out a long, slow exhale.
“Messing around?” I asked, trying hard to regulate my breathing. “I happen to be working not messing around.”
Hunter let his head drop back onto his shoulders for a moment and let out a groan.
“You know what I fucking meant,” he replied, shifting his gaze back to me. “Now move that cute little ass of yours back here so I can talk to you.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but the locker room door burst open and Davis swanned out ready to go home.
“Okay, I’m off home to dream about a certain someone.” He wiggled his eyebrows and leaned in closer to Hunter. “Please don’t tell her you’ve changed your mind about the calendar shoot. She’s in a strange mood already tonight, so poor Joella doesn’t need you spreading bad vibes around.”
“I’m not,” Hunter retorted with his eyes on me. “Quite the opposite.”
I frowned, but Hunter carried on talking and saved me the trouble of working out what he meant.
“I’m offering to do two pictures, three if necessary. That way you won’t have to ask Delphine’s nephew. Him not being a local and all.”
“Delphine has a nephew?” Davis asked, eyes wide. “Is he cute? We need to get her fixed up with someone cute.” He pointed at me.
“Oh yeah,” I replied enthusiastically. “He’s real cute.”
“Why do we need to fix her up with someone? And did you not hear me say, he’s not local.” Hunter practically added ‘duh’ to the end of the sentence, he was so agitated.
Davis didn’t bite but grinned at me. “He kinda has a point. Would Mrs. Callahan be happy with looking at someone she doesn’t know throughout the month of May? I think not. You know how she likes to perv on all the local boys.”
Hunter shuddered. “She’s eighty.”
“Seventy-six,” Davis corrected. “But the point is, she’s excited to see the flesh of the locals, so that she doesn’t have to imagine it when they visit her gas station. Some non-local won’t give her that joy, Ellie.”
“Yeah, what Davis said,” Hunter agreed with a grin.
“I promised Delphine and I don’t go back on my promises. Now,” I said turning to Hunter. “If there’s nothing else I have work to do. Davis can walk you out.”
Hunter glanced at Davis and then shook his head. “Nope. I have other stuff we need to discuss. Night, Davis.”
Hunter eyes were firmly back on me, so my colleague took the hint and flicked his scarf over his shoulder.
“See you tomorrow then,” he said to me with a look that said: ‘what the hell is going on and I will interrogate you when we meet again’.
I didn’t have chance to argue because he was gone.
“Right,” Hunter growled. “Let’s get to it.”
I had no idea why suddenly I’d caught a load of weird feelings about Hunter, but I was pretty sure his ability to make me wet just by the sound of his voice meant I was in real trouble. That and his… okay, so I was obsessed!
“To what?” I asked, just so he’d speak or growl again.
“Talking about me and you and the sex we had last night.”
I clenched my thighs and wondered whether it was medically possible to orgasm by speech alone. Maybe I’d Google it later, along with ‘which is the biggest penis in the USA?’, but in the meantime, I had one moody cowboy to listen to.
Hunter
“I’m working, Hunter. I don’t have time to talk.” Ellie waved a hand over her shoulder without even turning around. “Sorry.”
There was not one ounce of her that was damn sorry. Still, her walking away at least gave me a great view of her ass in her scrubs.
“Fucking pain in my—”
I didn’t say anything else because her colleague, who I think was called Joella came from the direction Ellie had gone. She smiled at me and it was one of those ‘hey handsome, want some company?’ smiles, so I left, determined to get fucking Nurse Maples to talk to me at some point.
No sooner was I back in my truck than my phone buzzed. When I fished it out of my pocket, I was surprised to see it was a text from Ellie.
“What the actual…”
She couldn’t discuss the sex we’d had but she could text me damn instructions on ‘our plan’ the minute I left the hospital building.
Ellie: Call Carter and get him to meet you at
Stars & Stripes tomorrow night. I have a plan
Hunter: Bossy much!
Ellie: Someone has to be if this plan is going to work. Will you do it?
I had to be some sort of sap, because after a couple of minutes of sulking and pretending to myself that I wouldn’t, I texted her back a simple OK.
Now we were in the bar and I handed my card to Penny while she gave me a knowing smile.
“What’s got into her?” Carter asked as he took one of the bottles that Penny had placed on the bar. “She looks like she’s got trapped gas.”
I cleared my throat and hoped to hell Penny stuck to her word regarding keeping mine and Ellie’s storeroom ‘meeting’ to herself. All I wanted was a drink with my buddy, not to end the night in a punch up with him.
“There you go, honey,” Penny said, giving me back my card. She then turned to Carter. “How’s your sister doing?”
I cleared my throat as Carter frowned, his beer paused halfway to his mouth. “Err, okay.”
“That’s good.” Penny winked at me and then walked away to another customer, chuckling to herself.
“I thought you and Ellie were in here the other night, when you were apologizing for being a dick to her – not that I thought you were of course.” Carter grinned and took a long swig.
“Yeah we were. Just having a friendly drink, me apologizing like you said.”
“So, why’s Penny asking after her?”
I shrugged and started to walk toward the tables at the back of the bar. When I reached an empty one, I dragged out a chair for Carter and then one for myself.
“Pretty busy in here tonight,” I said to change the subject.
“Yeah,” Carter replied. “I guess everyone is building up for Thanksgiving. Getting in the mood, you know.”
“It’s two weeks off yet and what the hell is there to build up to?”
“You have to prepare for Thanksgiving,” Carter replied, frowning at me. “Get in some training for all the alcohol you’ll be drinking.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “So, your sole purpose of Thanksgiving is to get wasted?”
“Well, yeah. I’ll stay over at Mom and Dad’s as per, get up around ten for Dad’s pancakes, eggs and bacon and then I’ll sit and watch TV with Dad, drinking beer, while Mom and Ellie make dinner.”
I slowly blinked, twice. “Carter, you did that when we were teenagers. You don’t still do that do you?”
He didn’t answer but shrugged again.
“How the fuck did you even graduate Kindy, never mind High School or Veterinary School?”
He grinned at me and winked. “That my friend is a total fucking mystery.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at him, feeling myself relax a little. That was until my phone buzzed and I saw it was Ellie with instructions for her diabolical plan.
She was like a damn chicken pecking at my head.
Ellie: Okay, I’m with Bronte. Send a text from Carter’s phone saying something nice to her so I can gauge how she reacts. He has her number under Annoying Blonde
I sighed and was just about to put my phone back in my pocket when another text came in.
Ellie: And make it snappy
Why the hell I had thought for one second I wanted to talk to her and suggest we could date, I had no damn idea. Maybe I’d wanted to talk to her about it at the hospital, but that idea was now something I’d filed under ‘Bad move, don’t fucking think about it’, in my head. She was bossy enough without me being romantically involved with her. I imagined if we did date, she’d be ten times worse. Shit, I’d be visiting garden centers and shopping malls every weekend without any choice in the matter.
I looked up at Carter, who funnily enough was scrolling through his own phone. I guessed it was as good as time as any.
“Hey, can I check your phone out? I want to see if I should get one.”
He frowned, pressed at his screen, and passed it to me. “You do know that Cell Center at the mall lets you try them out? And they have experts who know abso-fucking-lutely everything there is to know about phones.”
“Yeah, but I can get it online if I know what I want. You want to get another beer by the way?” I showed him my half empty bottle.
“Okay, Mr. Impatient.”
Once he’d left the table I clicked on the screen, only to find he’d locked it. I thought about what he might have as his passcode and typed it in.
Blake Lively’s birthday. It had to be. He’d told me often enough what it was and that they were compatible star signs. He was obsessed with her and even had a framed picture of her next to his bed. At times I wondered why I was actually friends with the damn weirdo.
I typed in 08-25-87. Bingo!
I didn’t have much time, so typed out the text message to Bronte, the first thing that came into my head.
Carter: Bronte, I really liked the shoes you were wearing last time we spoke
Quickly, I put the phone back onto the table and then realized I’d better delete the message, so snatched it back up again.
“For fuck’s sake,” I muttered to myself, not for the first time wondering how I’d let Ellie get me involved in her crap.
Anxious at being caught, I looked up, but Carter was still at the bar. He’d been stopped by Jim Wickerson a local pig farmer. He was no doubt discussing his veterinary bills and trying to get Carter to give him a discount. The mean old coot did it every time we saw him. Grateful for once that Jim was as tight as a newborn’s exit path, I put Carter’s phone down, determined not to touch it again.
I wasn’t so damn lucky. My phone buzzed.
Ellie: Shoes! Shoes! Frickin’ Shoes. You dick!
“I’m a dick?” I muttered as I stared down at my phone.
“Kinda,” Carter said surprising me. “Not all the time, but why’d you ask?”
My gaze shot up to him and I ground out a smile. “Oh nothing, just thinking about something I said to my pop.”
Carter frowned, like he really didn’t believe me, but like the self-centered prick he could be, he didn’t question me any further and started going on about how busy his day had been. His commentary of his last twelve hours had reached between the hours of ten a.m. and eleven when both of our phones buzzed at the same time. Instantly I knew it had to be Ellie. Eyeing Carter warily, I picked up my phone and read the text.
Ellie: Look and learn mother fucker, look and learn
I looked over to Carter who was reading his text and grinning before he let out a huge belly laugh. After a few seconds of looking down at his text, he locked the screen and dropped it into the pocket of his jacket, which was hanging off the back of his chair.
Hunter: What did you send him? He’s laughing
Ten seconds later.
Ellie: Your hair looked real sexy today
Really?
Hunter: Hair! Hair! Frickin’ hair! You dick!
Ellie: Abort mission. You obviously have no idea how to sext and are just embarrassing yourself
Was she for fucking real? I had no idea how to sext. Did she not remember I was famous in high school for bringing Rhian Cade to orgasm during French class in our sophomore year? Admittedly it wasn’t by sexting, and it involved her pink pen with a feather on the end, but if I had those skills then I could damn well sext. I was determined I’d show her so tapped out a message back to Ellie.
Hunter: You know I’d like to lick your pussy and then kiss you so you can taste yourself before I push inside you
I threw my phone down and sat back in my chair, feeling pretty proud of myself. No way would she be able to resist that. I was almost sure at that moment she was pushing her thighs together to ease the ache I caused her. She didn’t think I knew, but I’d seen her do it before – many times.
“How come you’re looking like you’ve just grown another dick?” Carter asked as he looked over at the door where two girls who I didn’t know had walked in.
“Nothing, just thinking about the calf we had born yesterday.”
Carter gave me a funny look and then shook his head. “You’re fucking weird tonight. And who the hell keeps texting you?” he asked as my phone buzzed again.
I shifted, feeling a little uncomfortable, but just smiled. “My pop. Think there’s another calf on the way.”
“We need to go and help?” he asked, half out of his seat.
“Nah, he’s got it.”
Carter nodded and sat back down, glancing over at the two girls while I checked my phone.
Ellie: You dick!
I couldn’t help but laugh. She was such a little turd at times, yet her breaking apart and screaming through her orgasm, was pretty much the only thought I’d had for the last forty-eight hours.
Hunter: You have the most amazing tits and perfect nipples. In fact, your whole body is out of this fucking world
When a girl sends you a smiley face and a kiss in response to a text about her tits and nipples, you know you’re a damn God in the sexting stakes.
Ellie
“What do you think?” Jacob Crowne from the print shop asked as he pinned up the final backdrop for the calendar.
“Oh my God, they’re amazing,” I replied as my eyes scanned over the beautiful scene of snow-covered hills and pine trees. “You really didn’t have to.”
Jacob shook his head. “My pleasure, Ellie. The proceeds from the sale all go to a good cause. I’m glad to help.”
