by Ava Stone
The sincerity in his eyes weakened my resolve. It was really hard not to smile at him, but I managed to shake my head instead. “Wouldn’t it just be easier for you to go out with some girl who doesn’t have all my baggage?”
“Yep.” He didn’t hesitate to nod as he flashed me that smile once more. “But you’re the one I can’t stop thinking about. So…” He offered me the tulips. “I really am sorry.”
They were pretty. In fact, they were the prettiest flowers anyone had ever given me. It was a sweet but unnecessary gesture. And it would have been so much easier to stand my ground if his presence didn’t make my knees weak “I don’t have another night off until Sunday,” I heard myself say.
He nodded quickly, like he’d take anything I could offer. “Ok. Dinner Sunday?”
I shook my head. “Only if I can get my mom to watch Aiden. She might not be able to.”
He nodded once more. “What about Saturday afternoon, then? You could come hear us practice.”
I would like that. I’d love to hear them play. And Jason would be there, right? He’d have my back no matter what. “Ok.” I smiled. “Saturday afternoon before work.”
“And then dinner Sunday.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Maybe. We’ll have to see.”
“Deal.”
He had a look in his eyes that said if we were alone, and not in the middle of the ER waiting room, that he’d have kissed me again. I managed not to sigh. There was nothing in the world that was quite as soul searing as his kiss.
“You’re late!” Abby barked as she walked through the staff only door, frowning at me.
Shit.
“No, no, no.” Toni looked up at our supervisor and shook her head. “Leah was early, Abby. But Dr. Dearing wanted some coffee. So she went for it while I stayed here.”
“Oh. I guess that’s ok.” Then her brow creased even more as she looked from the tulips in my hands up at Brody beside me. “Who are you?”
He lifted up his right hand and said, “I was in the other night. Just wanted to thank Miss Willett for taking such good care of me.”
Please, God, don’t let him mention that I filled out his form or that I returned his driver’s license to him. She’ll send me right out the door. “He’s kidding,” I said, glaring up at him and hoping he got the message not to say another word. “He has a friend who came in for outpatient surgery and he’s looking for the room.”
“Right,” Toni agreed, taking up my lie and running with it. “What you do, Mr. Campbell, is go back out the doors you came in. The ER isn’t even close to outpatient surgery. Completely different parking lot.”
I nodded, gesturing to the main entrance. “You’ll go left out of here and then you’ll see the signs for the Cotheridge Building,” I continued.
“You’ll follow the road for about three tenths of a mile, and then Cotheridge will be on your left,” Toni added.
“And parking is right there,” I finished.
Brody looked like he might laugh at Toni’s and my back and forth, but he nodded as though he was really taking our directions to heart. “Yeah, ok. Left and left. Got it.” Then he pointed to the tulips I still held. “Why don’t you keep those? I think you’ll get more use out of them than my friend will.”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” I said and offered them back to him. After all, keeping the flowers didn’t really fit with the scenario Toni and I had just created.
“I insist.” Brody shook his head. “I’d have been lost without your help. The two of you should split them.” Then he started for the entrance without even a glance back over his shoulder.
As soon as he was gone, Abby heaved a long-suffering sigh. “No fraternizing with patients, Leah. You know the rules.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. But I couldn’t help but look back down at my pretty white flowers. Brody Campbell brought me flowers. I felt like a giddy schoolgirl with her first crush.
“He was lost Abby,” Toni grumbled. “Not the first time that’s happened, you know? Not even the first time today. The signs should be clearer. Everyone can find the ER, but—”
“Your shift is over, Toni,” Abby cut her off as she stepped back through the staff only doors.
But Toni didn’t make any sort of move to relinquish the reception desk. She did gesture me forward though, her dark eyes alight with joy. “All right, spill! Tell me everything.”
“Everything?” I walked around to the back of the desk and sat on the edge, looking at her. “Everything is I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have said yes.”
Toni rolled her eyes. “Yeah, gorgeous guy shows up, brings you flowers and looks at you like you hung the moon. You’re real crazy to say yes. I don’t know what’s wrong with you.”
“Well, when you say it like that.” A laugh escaped me, then I shook my head. “He’s just not what I need right now.”
Toni’s lips twitched like she was biting back a smile. “Leah, every girl needs a guy like him. I should be so lucky.”
“Better hope JP doesn’t hear you say that.” She did have the nicest, down to earth boyfriend.
She shrugged. “JP would agree with me. He’s very practical like that.”
I heaved a sigh. “Brody wants me to forget all my responsibilities and just have fun.”
“Fun?” she mocked, saying the word like it was a vile curse. “Wow. What an asshole.” She gave up trying to hide her smile. “You should have fun, Leah. You only get one shot a life, right? You don’t want to be fifty and look back at these days and say ‘Gee, I really should have slept with that hot rock star’. That would be a damn tragedy.”
“A tragedy would be me screwing up school, not being able to provide for Aiden, and continuing to live off mom’s charity.”
Toni snorted and dismissed my protest with a wave of her hand. “First of all, Aiden will be fine. And you work harder than anyone else I know. I think a little fun is just what the doctor ordered. You want me to ask Dr. Dearing for a second opinion?”
“Hardly!” I touched a hand to my heart at the thought. I mean, Dr. Dearing was an old friend of my dad’s, for heaven’s sake! I’d known him my whole life. “Oh, do I need to get him coffee? What if Abby asks him…”
Toni shook her head. “JP brought over a round about ten minutes ago. Dearing won’t know who got his coffee. I got you covered.”
Thank God. “You are the best.”
She nodded in full agreement. “You can pay me back by going out with your musician and enjoying yourself.”
Toni could be like a dog with a bone. “I just gotta be careful,” I said.
“What are you afraid of?” she asked, her voice softer than it had been until now.
I shrugged. “Doing something stupid. Letting him break my heart.”
She reached over and squeezed my hand. “Sweetie, you can’t go through life always expecting the worst. Don’t even get your heart involved. Go out with the guy a few times. Have fun. See what happens. It’s not like you have to marry him. Give your future fifty year old self something to look back on and smile about.”
I smiled. “You think I’m going to be that boring at fifty, huh?”
Her dark eyes twinkled with mirth. “Sweetie, I think you’re that boring now. Remedy that, will you?”
“Thanks.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “And get outta my seat. If Abby comes back up here, it’ll be my ass, not yours that she chews out.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Toni pushed out of the chair and then tapped a post-it note posted to the middle of the desk. “This is for you.”
Was it? I dropped into the vacated receptionist chair and picked up the yellow note. A 404 phone number was scrawled across the middle, along with the name Brody.
“He wanted yours, but I didn’t give it to him.”
“Thanks,” I said, though I didn’t look up from note. My thoughts were, once again, focused on Brody Campbell. He could distract me like nothing else.
“I’ll get you a vase for the flowers,” I h
eard her say.
I pulled up to The Closet, a storage unit off Farm Road 1920. I keyed in the four-digit security code and waited for the slow-as-shit metal gate to open and let me through. The spot was far enough away from town that there wouldn’t be any noise complaints when we practiced, and it let us store some of our equipment when we weren’t playing a gig.
The band’s unit was along the last row. One of the big ones with electricity and air conditioning. Air conditioning was a must if we wanted our equipment to survive the summers of Virginia. Of course, Virginia summers weren’t anything in comparison to Georgia summers, but the temperatures would still be enough to warp some equipment if we didn’t have the a/c.
The door to our unit was open and Daniel’s Jetta was parked to the side. Hardly surprising that Daniel was already there. He was usually the first one of us anywhere. He was always early, never even cutting it close enough to be right on time.
My cell dinged and vibrated in my back pocket. Probably Cade saying he was going to be late. Jason never bothered to inform us when he didn’t plan to show up.
I parked in front of Daniel’s car and pulled my phone out of my pocket.
It’s Leah. Thanks 4 the flowers. They’re really pretty. :)
Leah. I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face. Damn if Kelly hadn’t been right about the flowers. She might be worth keeping around the apartment after all. I saved Leah’s contact information and then replied back.
Glad u like them. Hope I didn’t get u in trouble w/ yr boss. The short-haired bitch seemed like a real piece of work.
No big deal.
I just sat there, looking at my screen. I had her attention. I should say something else. But what? What wouldn’t get me in trouble with her again? Fuck. I’d never had a hard time talking to girls in my life until now. I never worried about what I said or how I said it. But…Well, Leah was different. Damn, I wished Kelly was there beside me, giving me advice like some leggy blonde Cyrano de Bergerac.
Quiet night in the ER? That seemed safe enough.
So far. The crazies don’t usually come in til around midnight though.
I’d come in after midnight, hadn’t I? U mean like me?
LOL. Crazy isn’t a word I would use 2 describe u, Brody.
No? I smiled even wider. What word would u—
A knock on the driver’s side window nearly made me shoot in the air. “What the fuck?” I grumbled, looking over at Daniel who was standing outside my door.
“You’re not supposed to text and drive, asshole,” he said.
I flipped him off. “The car isn’t even on, jackass.” Then I glanced back down at my phone. “Give me a minute. I gotta finish this message.” I deleted my unfinished text and started over. Sorry, babe. Gotta go. Practice is starting. Call u later?
There was a real long pause and then… Sure lit up my screen.
I grinned like an idiot. I couldn’t help it. I don’t think I’d have been that excited if I won the lottery.
“Come on, lover boy,” Daniel complained, knocking on my window again. “The equipment isn’t going to set itself up, you know?”
I opened my door, stepped out of my Jeep and slid my phone back into my pocket. “What did you call me?”
The smirk on Daniel’s face said better than words could have that he enjoyed getting under my skin. “Lover boy?” He shrugged. “Weren’t you texting your receptionist?”
Shit. Was I really that easy to read? “I was sending a message to my business ethics prof, if you must know.” I frowned at Daniel like he was crazy. Even if he could read me so easily, I still wasn’t ready to admit he was right.
“Uh-huh.” His grin just got wider. “How’s your hand?”
“Tight,” I said, stretching my fingers. “Still sore. I don’t know if I’ve got a whole practice in me, but I’ll give it my best shot.”
“Yeah, all right.” Daniel started back for the unit. “Cade says he’s running late, by the way.”
I followed him through the open door of our unit. “I don’t suppose you heard anything from Jason.”
Daniel glanced back over his shoulder at me. “What? Has hell frozen over and I missed it?”
“Forgot who I was talking about,” I said as I started for the bass amp along the far wall. I moved it to the front of the space, then ran the power chord to the outlet at the back of the unit. Cade’s snares clanked against each other as Daniel started to set up the drum kit a few feet away.
Daniel always got the short end of any stick. “He’s got you being his bitch, huh?”
“It’s that or waste time waiting for him to get here and then waste more time while he sets it up.” Daniel shrugged. “He sounded different on the phone. Something going on with him?”
“Different?” I echoed.
“Like happier.” He shook his head. “Almost like he used to be. You think the night in jail shook some sense into him?”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Cade probably did sound happier, but it had nothing to do with spending a night in jail. “Pretty sure it’s the fact that Kelly Cooper’s spreading her legs for him that did the trick.”
Daniel’s mouth dropped open. “The girl next door?” Then he raked a hand through his hair. “The one who lives with her boyfriend?”
“Not anymore.” I shook my head. “She’s living in Cade’s room now.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, there’s a lot of that going on,” I laughed. “But give it a few days, weeks – I don’t know. I see another train wreck in his future, but it’s not like he’s gonna listen to me.”
“Oh, God,” Daniel groaned as he scrubbed a hand down his face.
“Yeah, my thoughts exactly,” I said as I started back for my Jeep to grab my bass out of the trunk. I’d brought my guitar too, though I never played it with the band.
In no time, we got Cade’s drums, Daniel’s keyboard and my bass all setup with the amps and all the chords running to the speakers for the mix. But Cade still hadn’t shown up and Jason was nowhere to be found. So Daniel tossed me a Coke and we leaned against the side of the storage unit.
“This is bullshit,” he complained. “I mean, what are we even doing? Just sitting around here with our dicks in our hands.”
“Time to get a new band?” I teased.
Daniel snorted. “Yeah, maybe.”
Wow. He was more pissed than I thought. Daniel was probably the most professional of any of us. He was the glue that kept everything together most of the time. “Cade’ll be here as soon as he gets his nut off.”
Daniel snorted again.
I shrugged. “As bad an idea as I think Kelly is, he needs to get laid.”
“I guess.” Daniel blew out a breath, then he looked over at me. “What have you been up to? Other than your receptionist, I mean.”
“I’ve been writing, actually,” I admitted as darkness started to descend upon the horizon. Soon it would just be the lights in the unit keeping the blackness at bay.
“Music?” Daniel’s eyes widened in surprise. Which I totally got. I never wrote anything for the band. We covered most stuff and anything original we did, Daniel was the author.
But I’d actually been writing a lot lately. Of course, I couldn’t tell Daniel that, not if I wanted to keep him as a friend for the time being. All of what I’d been writing, I’d sent to Johnny Staub in LA. Well, I’d been sending most of it to LA. The stuff the last few days since Leah… That I hadn’t sent to anyone. “Yeah,” I shrugged. “You know, sometimes you just get inspired.”
“Yeah?” he asked, and I could almost read his thoughts as he looked at me, trying to sort me out. “What’s she like?”
Leah. I didn’t pretend like I didn’t know what he meant. “There’s something about her,” I said. Then I hastily added, “I mean, she’s fucking gorgeous. But it’s more than that, and I can’t even tell you what it is.”
“Yeah?”
“I mean, I hardly even know her, but… It’s
like she’s got the purest soul. And I just want to be right there next to her. Do you know what I mean?”
“The purest soul?” He shook his head. “What? Like she’s a virgin or something?”
“No.” She wasn’t a virgin. “Like she’s just…good. She’s…good.” I sounded like fucking Neanderthal. I do know more than one syllable words and I usually used them. “She smiles and it’s like sunshine.”
“Wow.” Daniel nodded toward the acoustic guitar in the back window of my Jeep. “You wanna play me what you’ve been working on?”
“Why not.” I shrugged. We weren’t doing anything else except wasting time anyway.
So I pushed off the wall, retrieved the old beat up guitar from my trunk and returned to the unit.
“It’s rough,” I warned him as I dropped onto the drum stool. The first chords warmed me up like a comfortable pair of old shoes. And then I lost myself in the melody. I closed my eyes and saw Leah’s face. The chords vibrated through me and the words poured from my soul.
“Close but far behind, what can I do? I’m crazy out of my mind for you,” I sang the last words.
After I strummed the final chord, I opened my eyes and found Daniel nodding at me. “Dude, that’s great,” he said and seemed impressed. “You wanna add it to our set?”
“And have Jason sing it?” I snorted as I stood up from the stool. “No fucking way.”
“So you sing it,” he suggested. “They’re your words.”
A bit of guilt washed over me. I should tell him about Staub and the deal in LA, but…Well, Staub wasn’t looking for a band. He was looking for a solo artist. He was looking for me. “I don’t know if I’m ready for that,” I said. And I wasn’t. I’d been driven to write the song by a girl who always seemed to leave me standing alone. I couldn’t sleep until I’d gotten it down, but that didn’t mean I wanted to share it with the world. Some things were just for me. I wasn’t up for baring my soul just to entertain dickhead frat boys or self-important student groups.
“Well, I hope things work out with your girl,” Daniel said just as we heard the metal gate start to move and a car engine headed our direction.
