by Denise Wells
Ethan is sitting by the bed, Sadie's hand in one of his, while his other brushes her hair back from her brow. Sadie looks wiped the fuck out. He stands and comes towards us. “Ten, thank you for coming. She’s doing better. We’ve got to monitor her and make sure she’s resting.”
“I can do that,” I tell him. I pull the phone charger out and hand it to him.
“Tenley, you are the best. Thank you so much. I owe you one.” Ethan moves to plug his phone in across the room.
“You owe me nothing except this chair,” I say as I steal his seat and sit with Sadie for a bit.
“Hey,” she says weakly.
“Hey, mama.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” she says, which makes me happy since I felt a little distant from her a lot of the time lately, since I’m not sharing in the baby thing. I’m sure it’s just me being insecure, but that doesn’t change the fact that I am. I can’t relate to her stories; I can’t give her advice on what to do. I’m more clueless than she is with it all. And our other friends, they all get it. They all know what she’s going through. It’s only natural they would all bond over it and I would get pushed to the side.
Pull your big girl panties up and support your friend.
I take Sadie’s hand in mine and give it a squeeze.
“He needs to go home and get some rest. Maybe you can talk him into it?” Sadie asks.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Get Brad to help you. I mean, really, there’s nothing any of you can do for me here, it’s silly. They’ve got me all hooked up and are monitoring everything little thing happening in my body.”
“I’m not leaving, woman. Get that through your pretty little head right now,” Ethan says from behind me. I can sense he wants his chair back, mostly because I can feel the tension radiating off him at not being immediately at her side.
I tuck the surrounding blankets, wishing I knew more of what to do for her, then lean in and kiss her cheek before giving Ethan back his chair. I make my way to the other side of the room where Brad is.
“Do you feel as unnecessary as I do?” I ask him, only half-joking.
“Worse.”
“At least you had a list of things to bring them,” I say.
“True,” he says. “But the phone charger was pretty fucking important, and that was all you.”
“Why, thank you, kind sir.” I bat my eyelashes at him in an exaggerated manner. “I feel much better now.”
He smiles at me and I smile back. It’s nice, almost like we might be friends.
Someday.
We stand there for a while longer, not talking or looking at one another. I notice Sadie has drifted to sleep, which is probably for the best. I should go too, so Ethan can do the same.
I tap him on the shoulder. He turns back to look at me. “I’m going to go,” I whisper.
“Thank you so much for everything. I’ll keep you posted on how she is.”
“Thank you.” I lean in and kiss his cheek, then do the same to Sadie’s forehead before straightening and heading for the door.
“Hang on,” Brad whispers. “I’ll walk out with you.” He says his goodbyes to Ethan and the two of us leave after barely having been there an hour. It’s amazing how freaked out you can get about someone’s health, only to find them doing better than you’d expected. I always assume the worse when someone is in the hospital. For me, hospitals mean death. But I suppose with this group of women I’ve been hanging around with lately, I should associate them with birth instead.
I laugh at my thoughts.
“What?” Brad asks.
“Oh, nothing.” I wave my hand dismissively.
“No, really, what? Why did you laugh?”
“It’s just, I usually associate hospitals with death, and I realized that with these girls in San Soloman all procreating so often, I should associate them with birth.” I know as I retell it, it’s not that funny, but he gives me a small courtesy laugh anyway.
It’s his own fault for asking.
Still, I feel as though I’m not interesting to him.
Get a grip, Tenley. You aren’t this girl. The one that worries that she can’t connect with her best friend any longer because of a pregnancy, or who isn’t found interesting by some random guy who doesn’t really matter.
I steel my shoulders and raise my head higher as we near the exit doors. The air outside still has a slight chill that will burn off soon with the mid-morning sun. Mostly, summer in San Soloman comprises mild temperatures, but every so often, we’ll get some hot days in the mid to upper nineties. It’s looking like today will be one of those days.
“Hey.” I nudge Brad with my elbow. “Do firemen still turn on the hydrants for kids to run through on hot summer days, like in the movies?”
“California is in a drought.”
“So, no?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“Where did that question come from anyway?”
“I don’t know. I was thinking about how it will probably be hot today and it reminded me of seeing that in movies, which then made me think of you being a firefighter and that you’d have the key to turn on the hydrant.”
“They don’t use a key.”
“Oh. Well, whatever then.”
“A pentagon-socket.”
I look at him, surprised he’s offering additional information.
He continues. “Most hydrants, definitely all the ones in San Soloman, require a pentagon-socket to open. And close.”
“Well, learn something new every day, I guess.” I smile.
“You haven’t eaten that yet?” He motions to the brown paper bag with the breakfast sandwich he’d bought for me.
“No. It felt weird eating it in the room. And now we’re here . . .” I offer by explanation.
He nods. “Want to go grab a bite to eat?”
“You mean, like breakfast?”
“Yeah.”
“With you?”
“Yeah.” He ducks his head, as though he’s feeling shy all of a sudden.
“Uh, sure?” I say it like a question, even though I meant for it to be an answer.
“We don’t have to.”
“No. I want to. Let’s go. Where’s good?”
“There’s a place up the street I like. Kind of hole-in-the wall, but the food is great.”
“Okay. Should I follow you?”
“Nah. My truck is right here. I’ll drive and bring you back when we’re through.”
“Okay.” I say okay. I even mean okay. I think. The thought of being inside Brad’s truck makes me a little nervous.
Wait. This isn’t a date, is it?
Before I can stop myself, I ask, “This isn’t a date, is it?”
He stops and looks at me. “Do you want it to be?” he asks after a moment, tossing his keys from one hand to another. The jingling noise echoes through the parking garage.
“Do you?” I return his question.
“Well, I do need a practice date.” He smiles.
“That’s it.” I turn to leave. I didn’t want to be his practice date before, and I certainly don’t want to be it now. Just when I thought we were kind of getting along. I don’t know why I keep thinking this guy is capable of normal human emotion when it’s clearly so out of his realm of attitudinal aptitude.
“Wait.” He reaches out to grab my upper arm. The heat from his touch sears through my clothing to my skin beneath. “I was just kidding, because I knew that pissed you off the other night.”
“I’m surprised you remember what you said the other night.”
“Why? I wasn’t drunk.”
“I assumed that was the only way someone could be so rude.”
“I apologize for that.” He steps back, his hand dropping back to his side.
“Why?”
“Why?” His eyebrows raise. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear he actually wasn’t sure why I was asking.
“Yeah, why are you apologizing?”
I cock my head to the side. I know I’m being a tad difficult, but at least my moods don’t swing back and forth between cold and arctic blizzard.
“Believe it or not, I can be a nice guy.”
I stay silent, waiting for him to continue.
“I’m just trying to make the best of the situation. We are working together on the recruitment fair, so obviously we will see each other. Plus, Ethan is my best friend. Sadie is your best friend. They are about to have a baby and we’ll be seeing more of each other with that.”
I nod, agreeing with him.
“And I’m hungry.” He smiles. It’s disarming. And charming as hell.
So, I smile back and gesture for him to lead the way to his truck.
“It’s just breakfast,” he says. But the way he says it, I’m not sure if he’s trying to reassure me or himself.
This will either go really well and maybe we can come away from it as friends. Or badly, in which case I’ll probably end up moving to another state.
14
Brad
I didn’t plan on inviting her to breakfast. Hell, I didn’t even plan on going out to breakfast. Usually I’m at the gym right about now. But I wasn’t lying when I said I was hungry. I also wasn’t lying when I suggested we make the best of the situation since it’s looking like we’ll be thrown together over the next few months. Or forever, thanks to Ethan and Sadie.
We continue the walk through the parking lot in silence. I point my truck out to her when the time comes, and she moves to wait by the passenger side. I click the fob to unlock the doors, then help her into the tall truck and wait until she’s settled before shutting the door after her.
I hop in on my side and turn the ignition. The truck purrs to life and the radio blasts classic rock. I reach to turn it down quickly.
“Sorry about that,” I say.
“That your jam?”
“What?”
“Aerosmith?”
I turn to look behind us as I back out of the spot. “I’d put them in my top ten, for sure. But is ‘Dream On’ my jam? Nah.”
“Favorite Aerosmith song then?” she asks.
I think about it as I pull out of the lot and on to the main road. “I’d say ‘Sweet Emotion.’”
“Oh yeah, that opening guitar riff is incredible,” she says.
“You play guitar?” I ask.
“No. I played the flute in high school, but that’s the extent of my musical instrument expertise.”
“What about you? Favorite Aerosmith song?”
“Hmm.” She taps her nose as she’s thinking. It’s cute.
Jesus, Brad. Get a grip. It’s not cute for fuck’s sake.
“‘Crazy.’”
“Oh god.” I roll my eyes.
“What? It’s a great song!”
“I know, but it’s the one all girls like.”
“No, they don’t.”
“Yes, they do. It’s from that space movie where Bruce Willis dies.”
“Armageddon. And that’s not the song from the movie.”
“That is definitely the song in that movie.”
“Fine, play it.” She points to the radio then crosses her arms across her chest. I use the controls on my steering wheel to click through the songs until it comes on.
She sings immediately, right from the first line, but stops before the chorus and turns to me. “Does that sound like a song that girls cry to?”
I nod.
She reaches over and uses the controls on the console to flip through the songs until she finds what she’s looking for.
“Then what’s this one?”
The soft sounds of the violins dance through the cab of my truck and I know immediately that this is the song from the movie and not the one she was singing. I can’t believe I mixed them up. Armageddon was one of Kat’s go-to flicks to watch when she felt down and wanted a good cry.
It’s only been three years; how can I already be forgetting such crucial details? My god, even if I ignore that, I’m a huge Bruce Willis fan. Well, technically John McClane, but they are practically the same person. I can’t believe I forgot the song. I curse myself silently then send an equally silent apology out to the universe, hoping Kat hears it.
So stupid.
I slam my hand against the power knob on the radio console and quiet fills the air between us. Tenley looks at me, eyebrows raised. I don’t meet her gaze, nor do I explain my actions.
“Note to self, do not play the Armageddon song in front of Brad,” Tenley mumbles.
I run a hand roughly across my forehead. I’m such an asshole.
“Sorry,” I offer. “The song has a lot of memories. Not all of them good.”
“I get it.” She nods. “Do you want to talk about her?”
My first impulse is to scream no. Talking about her makes it so much worse. The sense of loss so much more encompassing. The hurt overwhelming.
Instead, I look at her with a half-smile and shake my head. “It’s nice of you to offer, though.”
Because talk about the ultimate betrayal, talking about Kat to another woman I’m on a date with.
Although, who am I betraying with that? Not Kat, because I’d be talking about her. So, Tenley then? Do I really care if I’m betraying her? We aren’t involved. And, this isn’t a date. It’s just two friends having breakfast together after seeing two other friends. I move to turn the radio back on and find a morning news station. Can’t go wrong with that—no morning news will evoke crazy I-miss-Kat emotions.
We make it to the restaurant in a short amount of time. I haven’t been here in a while, but it has always been one of my favorites. It’s unassuming from the front, buried in a strip mall between a dry cleaner and a cell phone store. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly as I exit my truck then circle the front to help Tenley out. She’s tall enough she probably doesn’t need it, but even if I am an asshole, I still try to be a gentleman.
The aroma of fried potatoes and strong coffee tickle my senses when I open the door. “Two, please,” I tell the haggard-looking hostess/server, Rita, who greets us. She grabs two paper menus from a holder attached to the wall and shows us to a small table against the far wall. Her triangular paper-hat is askew, ponytail loose, and her old-school outfit—mustard yellow polyester dress with white-capped sleeves and collar, a white apron tied around her waist, and thick-soled white shoes—is slightly stained from today’s spills.
“I’ll bring you two some coffee. Cream? Sugar?”
“Black is fine,” I say.
“Do you have any sugar-free vanilla sweetener?” Tenley asks.
“We’ve got some of those little creamer cups that are vanilla, but they aren’t sugar-free,” Rita answers.
“Mmm, no thank you. Can I get a breve latte?”
“It’s just coffee here, sweetheart. I got cream, milk, sugar, and the pink sweetener.”
“Coffee with cream and sugar sounds great, thank you,” Tenley says.
“What the hell is a breve latte?” I ask when Rita leaves.
“It’s half milk and half cream,” Tenley says.
“And sugar-free vanilla sweetener? Does this place look like it would have that on hand?”
“It’s my usual order.”
“Your usual order is a breve latte with sugar-free sweetener?” I ask.
“Sort of.”
I watch her, waiting.
“What?”
“I’m waiting for you to tell me what it is,” I say.
“What what is? My coffee order?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Now I’m curious.” A half-smile creeps over my face.
“Okay. But no judging.” She blushes slightly. “It’s got to be the largest size they have, sugar-free vanilla latte, breve, extra shot of espresso, and a dash of cinnamon.”
“That’s quite a coffee,” I tell her.
“I know. I can’t help it. I’ve tried others, it’s just not the same. I never tire of
it. It’s what I was drinking this morning when I got to the hospital.”
“You make that at home?” I ask.
“Oh, gosh no. At home, I just have half-and-half, a teaspoon of honey, and a dash of cinnamon.”
“So, it’s only when you go out?” I confirm.
She nods.
“And you thought they could make that here?” I gesture to the restaurant because surely she can tell this is not a specialty coffee kind of establishment, with its Formica tables, hard orange booths, and flowered wallpaper.
“Can’t hurt to ask,” she says.
I nod once in response and look down at my menu.
“Here you go.” Rita is back with two cups of black coffee and a small carafe of creamer, a bowl filled with little cups of flavored creamer, sugar dispenser, assorted packets of sugar substitutes, and a small bear-shaped container of honey. “This is all I’ve got back there, sweetie. Hopefully, one of these will work.” She winks at Tenley. “I’ll be right back to take your order.”
Tenley blushes as she thanks Rita, then doctors her coffee with three of the small flavored creamers, a generous pour from the carafe, and a hefty squeeze from the honey bear. I watch as her coffee goes from black to a light, milky tan color. She brings it to her mouth to take a sip, then smiles big. “Oh, that’s good.”
I’ve yet to take a sip of mine. Something makes me want to try hers.
“Can I try it?” I ask, before I think too hard on it.
She slides her mug across the small table toward me, then watches as I take a drink. It tastes like lukewarm watered-down over-sweetened coffee. I shudder and push the mug back to her. “That’s disgusting.”
She points to my mug. “No, that is.”
I lift the black coffee to my lips and inhale the nutty fragrance. I take a large drink. It’s hot, strong, and delicious. “I’ve drunk mine black for as long as I can remember. My dad used to tell me it would put hair on my chest.”
“And I would want that, why?” She gestures to hers and I make the mistake of looking. Her t-shirt is tight and a tad on the sheer side. I can see the lacy bra she’s wearing beneath it and it stirs something in me. A glimmer of interest. I swear her nipples peak under my gaze. I look away and back to my coffee.
