A single tear rolled down her face. From what Ethan’s captain had told Daisy, he’d done everything right. He’d protected the target at the risk of his own life. And his partner had done the same. But his partner hadn’t made it.
Jess felt a stabbing pain of guilt that she’d been relieved when the doctor had come out with a grave expression and walked towards Carter’s wife and not Daisy. She shouldn’t have been relieved that he hadn’t been updating them about Ethan, but she was. At the same time she was devastated for Lori and the girls.
Another tear fell down Jess’s cheek as she stared at Ethan’s scraped-up face, the IV in his hand, the bandage peeking out of his hospital gown. It was hard to believe that just twenty-four hours ago she’d been waiting for him to come over after her naughty text.
She’d peeked through her curtains and watched him walk up her porch steps, taking two at a time, looking larger than life. She remembered thinking that he looked every bit the part of the superhero that his dad had predicted he’d be when he talked about his origin story. He was dominant, powerful, and indestructible.
Now, as she gazed down at him, the fragility of his life was all she could see.
Her phone buzzed and she saw that it was her dad, asking if she needed anything and if she was okay. She typed back that she was fine and that she didn’t need anything. She told him that she wasn’t sure how long she’d be and they could go home and she’d catch a ride from someone else.
She barely pressed send when her dad’s response came through. He told her that they were staying and they’d be in the waiting room if she needed anything.
Her parents hadn’t left her side since arriving at the hospital. She knew that if it were up to her dad, he would’ve come back with her to see Ethan. He’d been hovering over her in worry, asking her if she needed him to get her something to drink or eat. Telling her he could go grab anything from her house that she needed and run it back to her. And for the first time in her life, she hadn’t felt smothered by her father’s doting. She felt loved and taken care of.
The door opened and she glanced over her shoulder to see Chad, the nurse. She’d told him that she loved the skull and roses that were inked on his forearm and he’d complimented her dress, immediately recognizing it from Dirty Dancing. Their rapport was instant and it reminded her a lot of the first time she’d met Kingston.
Chad waved as he came in and changed out a clear plastic bag hanging on his IV. He took a barcode scanner that hung on his waist and held it to the bottom of the new bag before replacing the old one.
“I bet he was happy to see you,” Chad spoke in a low whisper.
Well, you would’ve lost money on that one.
“He must’ve said your name a hundred times when he was going in and out of consciousness.”
She wished that he’d said it when he was awake. Another tear started to fall down her face and Chad patted her shoulder.
“I’m on for the next six hours. Let me know if you need anything.”
“Thanks, I will.”
When he left and she found herself alone with Ethan, she scooted closer to him and placed her hand over his chest so she could feel his heartbeat, like he’d had her do at the dance lesson. He was alive. That was all that mattered. Nothing else.
CHAPTER 22
“Okay, Mister Steele.” The day nurse, Rita, entered the room waving Ethan’s release papers in her hand. “I just need your John Hancock and I can get you out of here.”
Thank God.
Ethan couldn’t wait to sleep in his bed again. To take a shower in his shower. To not be woken up every few hours to have blood drawn or his blood pressure taken. What should’ve been a two-day hospital stay, at most, turned into a six-day stint after an MRI that revealed inflammation in his brain. When he’d fallen down, he’d hit his head on a rock and it had caused cranial swelling. Nana kept making the same joke that he wasn’t as hardheaded as she’d thought.
He took the pen and signed where the green and red arrows indicated.
“Boy, things sure are going to be a lot quieter on the floor without you here. It’s been like Grand Central Station in here. You are quite a popular guy.”
That was another reason he was looking forward to getting home. When he was home he could not answer the door. Here, anyone that stopped by had access to him. He supposed he could’ve requested not to have visitors, but he’d felt bad that people were driving all the way from Whisper Lake to see him. It was more than two hours round trip.
“Where is that beautiful girlfriend of yours?”
“Work.” Ethan didn’t look up from the paperwork.
Everyone at the hospital loved Jess. And why wouldn’t they? She was, as everyone was saying, “a breath of fresh air,” and “as funny as she is smart and pretty.” Also she was “the total package” and had “hutzpa and class, a winning combination.” The entire medical staff at Grace Memorial seemed to be smitten over his fake girlfriend that he really loved and knew now that he should never be with.
Just another reason that he was ready to get out of here. If he heard that he should “lock that down” or “put a ring on it” one more time from virtual strangers, he was going to lose it.
Ethan had never been under the illusion that life was fair. He’d been found in an alley when he was less than a week old. His first few years were spent in not-so-nice foster homes. The only parent he’d ever known died just as he was becoming a man. One of his best friends, Patrick, died of a freak brain aneurysm, leaving his sister Ali to raise his twin sons. Jess had spent most of her life unable to breathe. Carter was gone, leaving Lori to raise Carly and Jilly alone.
There were worse things in the world than his realizing that he and Jess could never be together, but right now it was ranking pretty high in the life-isn’t-fair category.
He knew he was feeling sorry for himself and taking it out on people that were doing their jobs, like Rita, or going out of their way to support him, like Jess, who’d been at the hospital every day. She worked in the mornings and cleared her schedule in the afternoons to come and see him. And each time she did, he told her she didn’t need to come and he hardly spoke to her.
He’d tried to “break up” with her, several times. But she wasn’t having it. She said that if they broke up now, everyone would feel sorry for him and assume that she was the girl that bailed on her hero boyfriend.
It wasn’t a secret that Jess was a force to be reckoned with, he just never thought that she’d be using her forces to try and keep them together and he’d be the one trying to separate them. Sooner rather than later he knew that he needed to have a serious conversation and end whatever it was they were, he just hadn’t found the right words yet.
Or, more likely, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“Well, I bet that lovely girlfriend of yours is happy to finally get you home.”
“We don’t live together,” he snapped.
“Yet.” Ethan heard a familiar female voice.
He looked up and saw Jess standing in the doorway. It was barely nine a.m. He’d made sure to get discharged right after morning rounds so that no one, especially not Jess, would be here. He was going to Uber home and then hole up in his house. He knew that he’d be facing Nana, since she had a key, but everyone else he’d planned on ignoring completely.
“But you never know what the future holds.” She smiled, and to anyone that didn’t know her, they’d think it was a happy, genuine smile. He knew it was a challenge.
“What are you doing here?” his gruff voice did nothing to hide his irritation.
“Good morning to you, too, Mr. Sunshine.” Her voice dripping with sweet saccharin sarcasm. “I’m coming to take you home.”
* * *
Jess was trying to keep a positive attitude and not take Ethan’s attitude personally but he was really testing her patience.
He’d spent six days in the hospital and in that time she’d tried everything to lighten the mood, from
her usual dry sarcasm to just all-out jokes. It hadn’t worked to put a dent in his shitty demeanor but it at least amused her and the nurses. She’d hoped that his overwhelming negativity would improve when he was released. So far, not looking good.
She glanced over at him and saw he was rocking his perma-scowl as he stared out the window. They were close to an hour into his freedom ride and he’d barely spoken three words. And those words were, “I’ve got it” when Jess tried to help him with his seat belt.
“So, I’ll drop you off, get you settled, and then go and get your prescriptions.”
“I don’t need you to get them.”
“It’s not a problem,” she chirped in as cheery a voice as she could manage.
He survived a traumatic event.
He lost his partner.
He was in pain, even though he wouldn’t admit it.
He was shot.
Twice.
He had broken bones.
He had a swollen brain.
These were all things she’d been repeating to herself the entire week. Her mantras of patience, if you will. This caretaker thing was still new for her, but she was doing the best she could. He certainly wasn’t making things any easier for her.
“I didn’t need you to pick me up, either.”
“Well, you couldn’t drive yourself home so you needed someone to pick you up.” The happy was slipping and she could feel herself about to get real if he didn’t change his tune.
“I could’ve gotten another ride.”
“Or you could just say thank you and appreciate all the nice things I’m doing for you.”
She kept reminding herself not to take his mood personally. She wasn’t the only one he was being cranky with. He’d been short with the doctors, nurses, and most of his visitors, with a few exceptions.
He inhaled deeply before he said, “Or you could also just leave me alone when I ask you to.”
Her fingers gripped tightly around the steering wheel and she jerked the car to the right, pulling off to the side of the highway. Ethan reached out and braced his hand on the dashboard, looking over at her like she was crazy. And she was…crazy done with his bad mood.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
“I’m facilitating your come to Jesus moment.” She put her car in park and turned toward him, looked him directly in the eye, and said, “Listen, I get that you’re going through a lot right now. And I understand your instinct to push people away. I did the same thing…when I was five.” It was more like up until her mid-twenties but five sounded better. “If I was the only one you were pulling this shit on, fine, I would take it. I have thick skin. But you’ve been snapping at the hospital staff and barely congenial to the people that have visited you this week. The only people you’ve been even close to civil with is Daisy, your captain, Lori and my parents.” Which she appreciated.
Ethan was staring at Jess with his jaw tensed and his nostrils flaring. He was seething. It was obvious that nothing she was saying was getting through to him.
So she pulled a move that her mom had done to her when she was around twelve and giving her all kinds of preteen attitude. Reaching across the console, she flipped down the sun visor, exposing the mirror that was on the backside.
“Look at yourself.”
He continued to stare at her.
“I’m serious, look.” She pointed to the small, rectangular mirror.
He turned his head slightly, and she saw his eyes raise so that he could see his reflection.
Feeling filled with righteous indignation, she repeated, verbatim, the speech that her mom had once given her. “That is the look that you’re giving someone that is trying to take care of you. Someone that only wants the best for you. Someone that loves you.”
The final sentence was out of her mouth before she even realized she’d said it. She may not have meant to say it but it certainly did get his attention.
His eyes flew to hers and although she couldn’t quite put her finger on the expression that he now had on his face, it wasn’t the anger that had been there moments ago. Maybe confusion mixed with some fear? Yep, that was it. That’s what her declaration had just inspired.
A small voice in the back of her head asked, What if Ali is wrong and he really did ask you to pretend to be his girlfriend because he knew that you wouldn’t get attached?
And to that voice, she answered, well…tough shit.
If that were the case then his plan backfired. And, this may not have been exactly the way she would’ve wanted to tell him how she felt, but it was the truth and she wasn’t about to apologize for it.
Still, just because she wasn’t willing to apologize for her feelings, that didn’t mean that she just wanted them hanging out in the air.
So she acted as if she hadn’t just confessed her love to him and continued her lecture. “And in about five minutes, we’re going to arrive at your house and there’s going to be some people waiting for you.”
“How many people?”
Seriously?!
“I don’t know.”
“Is it a couple or-”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you invite them?”
“No.”
“Who invited them?”
“Your grandma.”
She stared at him in challenge, just waiting for him to say something, anything, to give her an excuse to continue lecturing him. Her mom was the Queen of Lectures. Bonnie Myers was the most patient, understanding, even-tempered, and easy-going woman in the world, but if you pushed her too far, there was no going back. If it got to the point where she was upset, the only thing to do was hunker down and get comfortable because no amount of “I’m sorrys” were going to stop the Lecture Train once it left the station.
That’s exactly how Jess felt now. She had on her conductor hat and her hand on the cord ready to pull the whistle. The train was about to leave the station and it had plenty of coal to stoke the fire. She realized that for the first time since all of these role-reversal situations started popping up in her life, she was enjoying the phenomenon. It was much better being the lecturer and not the lectured.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on whose perspective you were looking at it from, Ethan didn’t comment any further on the welcome home reception that Daisy had put together.
When Daisy first brought up the idea, Jess had thought about trying to talk her out of it, but she decided against it. Ethan may not want to come home to a house full of people, but that’s the price one pays for having a lot of people that care about and love them.
“So this is what is going to happen. We’re going to pull into your garage. You’re going to get out of the car, and when I open the door you’re going to act happy to see the people that are waiting in your house. Once they leave, you can go back to being Mr. Sunshine. Got it?”
His face no longer looked freaked out, or mad at…whatever he was mad at. Now, his expression was blank. Unreadable. Which was fine by her. If he stayed like this, she’d just tell people he was stoned on pain killers.
He didn’t answer, he just leaned back in his chair. She took that as him being on board, even if he wasn’t happy about it. As she pulled back onto the highway, she reminded herself of the relief she’d felt the week before. He was alive, that was all that mattered.
CHAPTER 23
Two more weeks.
Ethan stared at the paperwork he’d gotten from the doctor the day before. He’d been home from the hospital for two weeks and he wasn’t cleared to return to duty for another two weeks. It was also “strongly suggested” that he start seeing a grief counselor.
He would do it, just like he’d gone to see a therapist after he lost his dad, but he doubted it was going to go any better now than it had then. His therapist, or he should say therapists, plural, had tried so many different ways to get Ethan to open up. To express himself. To communicate what he was feeling. None of it worked. But Nana had insisted that he keep going. Then, his
junior year of high school, she’d finally let him stop because he played two sports, had a part-time job, and he’d told her that it was too much and he needed to maintain his 4.0 GPA.
It was one of the only times he’d lied to his grandmother. With the exception of his fake relationship with Jess. But he didn’t count that because it was real to him.
“Hello!”
Speaking of Nana…
“I’m in here.”
His grandma was here for her daily visit and he knew that he needed to man up and have the conversation that he’d been putting off having. He’d been spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to break it to the woman that raised him that he and Jess weren’t going to make it, but he still hadn’t come up with the right words to say. Maybe the problem was that he needed to find the right words to say to Jess first. He’d tried to tell her but she insisted that if they broke up the town would turn on her and she’d lose business.
Ethan wasn’t sure if he believed that was true or not, or if he was just going along with that story because that meant he would still see her. But either way, it was time to end it. He couldn’t let things keep going the way they were now that he knew they didn’t, they couldn’t have a future, no matter how much he wished they could.
For the past couple of weeks he’d been allowing himself the luxury of spending time with Jess, but the more time they spent together, the harder it was going to be to do what he knew he had to do.
She’d told him that she loved him on the car ride home from the hospital. It had shocked him but he’d told himself that she just meant as a friend. But then something happened last night. They were binge-watching the American version of The Office and she fell asleep, curled up beside him. He’d stared at her. She was sleeping so peacefully. Something about the moment made him tell her that he loved her. He had to say the words out loud to her, just once, even if she was unaware. He had to.
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