The guys were currently discussing slang for vagina. Rookie running back Tom Kelly had asked, of course. That boy loved to stir up a hornet’s nest.
“In bed I always say cunt,” Tom said. “I’ve had women take objection to that one.”
“Honeypot,” Jo Jo said. “They love that. Sounds all sweet and shit.”
“Fanny,” Nigel said. Everyone turned to look at him.
“That’s ass, man,” Darius told him.
“No, now see, that’s where you’re wrong,” Nigel said, sitting up and resting his wrists on his knees. He’d been doing crunches on the mat. “Back home, that’s what we call it. Fanny. So if you see me snickering like a little boy when someone says ‘fanny pack,’ you’ll know why.” He lay down and went back to his crunches while everyone else laughed.
“Pepa,” placekicker Ricardo Rivera said. He growled and licked his lips.
“Si,” Javier Arias, the punter and Ricardo’s best friend, agreed. “Conejo.” He kissed his fingers like a Frenchman and they all laughed again.
When his phone rang, King waited for a nod from Sam before he stepped back and checked the screen. It was his sister. “Malo, Tali,” he said, watching Sam lift. “ ’Ua a?”
“Not good,” she answered tearfully. “Mika fell and I think he broke his arm.” She hiccupped as she cried. “He cut it, too, and hit his head. We’re at the hospital. Lelei doesn’t know what to do and mother is upset. Mika wants Sam.”
“What hospital?” King asked, motioning for Sam to stop. He tucked the phone between his chin and shoulder as he helped Sam cradle the barbell.
“Grandview,” Talia said.
“We’re on our way,” King told her. “It may be half an hour.”
“They took him for X-rays,” Talia said. “Lelei went with him. I’m supposed to be filling out this paperwork, but I don’t know anything.”
“Okay, okay,” King said. “On our way. No worries.”
“Thanks, King,” Talia said with relief. “Just tell them you’re with us when you get here.”
“What’s wrong?” Sam asked, sitting up and grabbing his towel.
“Mika may have broken his arm,” King said. “They’re at the hospital and he’s crying for you.”
“Shit,” Sam said, standing. “Let’s go. Poor kid.”
While King was worried about his family, he couldn’t help but think how nice it was to have Sam act like part of it this way, rushing off to comfort Mika when he was hurt. He couldn’t risk that by forcing his feelings on Sam. Sharing the good times and the bad like this helped King feel they had a life together as friends, if nothing else. Too bad they couldn’t find a woman like Jane for more than one night. A situation like that would be perfect, for him and for Sam.
Chapter 10
Jane was exhausted. She was watching her neighbor’s dog and the little schnauzer had run away this morning. She barely made it to work on time. Her shift had been crazy all day, which was strange for a Tuesday, and she was halfway into Lenore’s shift, which she’d agreed to cover. Last week, when she’d agreed to do it, she’d assumed it would be a typical Tuesday and doing a double shift would be a piece of cake. Life was throwing curveballs today, so she was on the alert. Everything came in threes. She was on the lookout for the third disaster.
“Little boy with a broken arm and possible head wound in room four,” Cathy told her as soon as she stopped at the desk. “This one is pretty normal. Thought you’d appreciate that after the construction accident.”
“You are an angel of mercy,” Jane said gratefully. “Call X-ray and tell them to expect us.”
“You got it,” Cathy said as she picked up the phone. “I think he needs stitches, too. Got a cut on his arm. Triage packed it with ice.”
“Nurse Jane to the rescue,” she called out as she walked toward room four.
Little Mika Tau was cute as a button, with café au lait skin and dark, curly hair. He had beautiful, big, brown eyes that reminded Jane of one of the guys from Orange Beach, King Ulupoka. She’d looked both of them up after she’d gotten home. She felt like an idiot that she hadn’t known who they were, especially King. He’d been on the cover of ESPN The Magazine last year, for Christ’s sake. Naked. After seeing that, she regretted even more that she hadn’t gotten him naked along with Sam. Oh well; water under the bridge.
“We’re just going to take a little trip to X-ray,” she told Mika as she looked at his arm. Yep, that sucker was broken. But she wasn’t going to say anything until they had the pictures. She looked at the bump on his head. It didn’t look too serious, but they’d be taking pictures of that, too. She looked over at Mika’s mom. “You can come, too, Mom,” she said with a reassuring smile. “Field trip!” Mika looked relieved that his mom was going with them. According to his chart he was eight, still young enough to want his mom around. “Can Auntie fill out the paperwork?” she asked, taking the clipboard from Mika’s mom and handing it to the twenty-something woman who looked so much like the other woman they had to be sisters. The quiet older lady must be their mom, Mika’s grandma. They were all so exotically beautiful they made Jane feel like the ugly duckling in the pond.
“Sure,” Mika’s aunt said. “I’m Talia, by the way.” She kissed the top of Mika’s head. “Lucky you,” she told him with a grin. “You get a field trip, and I get homework.” Jane could see the worry in her eyes.
“Nothing to worry about,” Jane told them all. “The X-rays will show us exactly what’s going on in there, and then we fix it. Easy peasy.”
“Lemon squeezy,” Mika said in a weak little voice. Jane had to hand it to him, the kid had game.
“You got it,” she said, adjusting the wheels on the bed for rolling. “Hold on, we’re going for a ride. It’s not the roller coaster at the amusement park, but I’ve got some moves.”
X-rays took a couple of hours. They were backed up due to the weird alignment of the planets, or whatever it was that was making this day crazy. By the time they exited the elevator at Emergency again, Mika was cranky, his mom was tired and frustrated, and Jane was dead on her feet. She wearily pushed the bed down the hall to the room Mika had been assigned when they’d first arrived. Somehow she managed to muster a grin. “Next stop, Hawaii,” she teased Mika.
“I wish. I want to go back home to Samoa,” Mika whined. Jane blinked in surprise.
“I didn’t know that’s where you were from,” she said, her mind reeling. The only person she’d ever met from Samoa was King.
“Sam!” Mike screeched as a man stepped out of his room to make way for them. Jane’s heart stopped and then began to beat triple time. When she looked up at his face she was still surprised to see Sam Taylor. And right behind him was King Ulupoka. Oh, God. Well at least now she could stop looking for that third disaster.
—
Sam’s head was spinning. Jane. Here. He thought he’d never see her again. She was from Birmingham? Why hadn’t she told him that night? Probably because she didn’t want to see him again. Ouch.
“Sam,” she said, regaining her voice first. “How unexpected.” She looked behind him. “King.” She was blushing furiously, her cheeks bright red, making her freckles disappear. “It’s nice to see you both again.”
“You know each other?” Talia asked suspiciously. She pushed past King and slid her arm through Sam’s. “You didn’t tell me about her.”
Sam tried to extricate himself from Talia. She’d become possessive and jealous the last couple of months, as if she and Sam were dating or something, which they weren’t. She was a nice girl, but Sam wasn’t going to get involved with King’s little sister. He felt the same way about her he felt about De La Cruz. “We met at the beach. Over the summer,” he said. He couldn’t stop staring at Jane. Even in rumpled scrubs she was a knockout. Had he really slept with her? It seemed like a dream now. “Jane,” he finally said, trying to introduce her to everyone. His mind went blank on her last name.
“Foster,” King said quietly from be
hind him. “It’s good to see you, too, Jane. How are you?”
“Better than this little guy,” Jane said, putting the focus back on Mika. “He’s been a real champ, putting up with all our poking and prodding and X-rays. Right?”
Mika nodded, but he was pouting. “Sam, come with me,” he whined. Sam tried to get his head on straight. Seeing Jane had thrown him for a loop.
“Yeah, okay, little buddy,” he said.
“Oh, Sam,” Lelei said with relief. “He’s been crying for you. Thank you for coming.” She took Sam’s hand in hers gratefully. “I don’t know what we would do without you.”
“Malo, pele,” King said, bending over and touching his forehead to Mika’s. “ ’Ua a?”
“My arm is broken, brah,” Mika said, pushing him away. “Not good.” King laughed.
“Your uncle is no good no more,” he said, “now that you got Sam.”
“I’m going to be as tough as he is,” Mika said. “He got all shot up in Afghanistan and he’s cool now.” Sam started in surprise. Was that how Mika saw him? As some kind of Superman?
“I am definitely not cool,” Sam told him. King frowned at him and he let it go.
Jane pushed Mika’s bed into the room and locked the wheels. “We need to stitch up that cut on his arm and then we need to put a splint on it,” she said. “He’s got a buckle fracture. He’s going to need to see an orthopedic surgeon as soon as possible to confirm the diagnosis and to determine whether or not he needs a cast.”
“What about his head?” King asked.
“Hard as a rock,” she said, smiling at Mika, who smiled back. Sam didn’t blame him. He wanted more of Jane’s smiles, too. “Seriously, it’s fine. No swelling in the brain, no signs of a concussion. Just a regular old bump.”
“Thank God,” Mika’s grandmother said, making praying hands.
“I’m sorry I had Talia call you, King,” Lelei said. “I was in a panic. It’s not so bad. We could have handled it.”
“I wanted Sam,” Mika protested.
“Sam was at practice,” Talia snapped. “That’s more important.” She tried to grab his arm again, but he stepped over to Mika’s bedside.
“No problem,” he told Lelei. “Practice was over. We were just in the weight room.” He tried and failed not to follow Jane’s every move as she bustled around.
“What Sam said.” King settled back in the chair next to his mother. “It was boring. Sitting around the hospital is more fun. Right, Sam?”
Sam made a face. “Sorry. Not a fan of hospitals.” That was an understatement. The smell of the hospital alone nearly had him whimpering in the corner. Jane glanced at him over her shoulder and then snapped back around when she caught him looking at her.
“Doctor Patel will be in here shortly to stitch up that arm,” she told Mika and Lelei. “I’m afraid we may have to clear some space in here for her to work. So, who gets to stay and who has to go?” She made a show of peering around the room. “This place isn’t exactly the Taj Mahal.”
“Sam stays,” Mika said quickly. “Yeah, Sam? And Tin’a.” He raised tear-filled eyes to Lelei, who rushed over to his side.
“Of course, pele,” she said.
“Okay, okay, we’ll clear out,” King said good-naturedly. “Come on Tali, Tin’a.” Mrs. Ulupoka stood up. When Talia crossed her arms stubbornly and started to move over to Sam’s side, King’s mom said something in Samoan and motioned her out. Talia didn’t dare cross her mom, so with a huff, she stomped out of the room.
“Thanks,” he mouthed to King, who just waved and closed the door behind them. That left just him, Jane, and Lelei with Mika.
Sam’s throat began to close with nerves. What was he supposed to say to her now? Hey, I’ve been thinking a lot about you since I boned your brains out in our kinky one-night stand. Yeah, that would be smooth.
“How have you been?” he said awkwardly when she rolled a cart with medical supplies over next to him. It looked like stuff they needed to stitch Mika up. Sam recognized a lot of it and he had to do a few deep breaths.
“Fine,” Jane said politely. “And you?” She wouldn’t meet his eyes and she was blushing.
“Good,” he said. “Good.” He was nodding like an idiot and, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lelei watching them avidly. Mika was, too.
“Sam broke his arm in Afghanistan,” Mika told Jane.
“Did he?” Jane asked with mild interest, clearly humoring the kid.
“In an explosion,” Mika said, as if getting blown up was something to be proud of.
“Ouch,” was all Jane said as she picked up the remote and lowered the head of Mika’s bed.
“And he was on fire, too,” Mika added, as if trying to get some sort of reaction from her.
“I wasn’t on fire,” Sam clarified. “The heat of the door burned me.” He kept his tone informational, as if he talked about this shit every day. How the hell did Mika know so much?
“Double ouch,” Jane said, with a smile for Mika. “Did he hit his head, too?”
“No,” Mika said. “His friend Carmina did, though. She’s nice. And pretty.” This was news to Sam. He didn’t realize Mika had paid that much attention when he’d brought Carmina over to dinner after she moved to Birmingham.
Jane’s smile dropped a notch. “Good for her,” she said with a stiff smile. Before Sam could say anything—not that he knew how to follow that—the doctor came in.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m Dr. Patel. Now, who am I sewing back together today?”
Chapter 11
Jane leaned against the wall of the hallway, down from Mika’s room, around the corner. She was hiding. There was no use trying to pretend otherwise. What were the chances of running into Sam and King again like this? A million to one? Of all the hospitals in all the world, they walk into hers. “Ugh,” she groaned as she closed her eyes and bounced her head back against the wall. One minute it was hard wall and the next it was soft hand. Her eyes flew open and she stared into King’s smiling face.
“I like it round,” he said.
“What?”
“Your head,” he told her. “I like it round. If you keep doing that, it will be flat and that would be a shame.”
“I can’t do this,” she blurted out. She closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands. “This is mortifying.”
“Why?” King sounded so confused she pulled her hands away and stared at him incredulously.
“Why? Because I acted like a complete ho with you guys,” she whispered furiously, looking up and down the hallway to make sure no one could hear her. King stepped in front of her, standing very close, protecting her from prying eyes.
“And?” he said with that infuriating smile.
“And I never thought I’d see you again,” she said, letting her exasperation show. “I mean, what are the odds? Really? But to have to face you. God, this is awful.” She dropped her forehead onto his big chest. He smelled delicious. She could feel the heat of his skin through his T-shirt, and an image of his naked ESPN The Magazine cover flashed through her mind. Not now, she told her wayward imagination.
“I hoped we’d see you again,” he said, disconcerting her. “We’ve both been thinking a lot about you.”
She looked up at him in shock. “You have?” she asked stupidly. He laughed. God, she remembered that laugh.
I like this watching, he’d said. She shivered at the memory.
“Of course,” he said. “We acted like hos, too.” He winked. “We never did that before you, you know.”
“I know.” Did she sound as dumb to King as she did to herself?
“So we don’t think bad of you,” he explained slowly. “Only good.”
“I’m having a terrible day,” she blurted out, unable to comprehend what he was saying. “I can’t do this right now.” He frowned and gently took her shoulders in his hands as he leaned down to put his face level with hers.
“You okay?” he asked with genuine concern. To her u
tter dismay, her eyes filled with tears.
“I’m so tired,” she admitted. “This is my second shift today. Earlier, I had a construction-accident victim. He lost his leg and broke his back and almost died. We had to use the crash cart.” She looked down at her rumpled, pink scrub top with the emojis all over it. “I had to change.”
Very slowly, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her. “Poor Jane,” he said, rocking her in his arms. “Seeing us again after all that was the last straw, right? Are you done?”
She sniffed. “Not yet. Two more hours. I just need to go home and sleep.” She pushed herself away from the comfort of his arms, but he didn’t let her go completely. He kept his hands on her waist and she let him, because it felt good to be touched by him. He was a rock, and she felt pretty damn unsteady. “Sorry for the mental breakdown. I didn’t sleep very well last night and I think I just hit the wall for a second there.”
“Have you had dinner?” King asked, frowning again.
“I did,” she lied. His concern touched something deep inside her that she didn’t want to acknowledge. It had been a long time since someone had cared enough to worry about her. “I had a sandwich. I’m good. Thanks.” She wiped a hand under each eye. “Fatigue gets you sometimes around here. So, Mika should be good to go in a few minutes. We’re just finishing the paperwork.”
“King?”
Jane looked over and saw Sam standing at the corner, not entering the hallway, as if he were giving them privacy. King quickly stepped back and she immediately missed the warmth of his hands.
“Everyone is ready to go,” Sam said.
“Oh, good,” Jane said with false brightness. “I’ll just get a wheelchair and meet you in the room.”
“I’m going to go get the car,” Sam said stiffly. “Mika asked if I could drive him home. Him and Lelei.”
Jane was confused about who Sam was with. Mika seemed to think Carmina was his girlfriend, and clearly Talia thought she was his girlfriend, but now he seemed to be paired up with Lelei as if he was Mika’s dad. Jane totally got the attraction for all three women; Sam was hot and sweet and vulnerable, the male trifecta to any breathing female. And both Talia and Lelei were gorgeous. She didn’t know about Carmina, who must be De La Cruz, from the dream. But Sam had been dreaming about her, right? That said a lot about his feelings.
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