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Who'd Have Thought

Page 30

by G. Benson


  Hayden didn’t know what surprised her more. The fact that she had genuinely thought Sam had been going to kiss her, or the desperate need with which Sam actually hugged her.

  Hayden hugged her back and didn’t let her go until Sam pulled away, minutes or hours later, Hayden had no idea, with her cheeks dry. She slipped back inside without a word, and Hayden stayed out in the cold, her thoughts a mess.

  CHAPTER 21

  So. It wasn’t just an attraction.

  It was officially a crush.

  A week of trying to ignore it didn’t ease anything. Long showers alone with her own hand didn’t. Cold showers didn’t. Trying to pretend she didn’t actually care did nothing.

  None of it helped.

  Hayden was, it turned out, a little besotted.

  Even at work, watching Sam’s brisk manner with patients didn’t do anything. Hayden purposefully stuck around when she needed Sam for a consult and couldn’t even get overly annoyed by her terrible bedside manner. Now Hayden saw her as efficient and just a bit, well, useless with patients.

  An amazing surgeon.

  Maybe that was why she managed to be such an amazing surgeon. She focused on the facts and the case and relied on the team to do the rest.

  She operated with cold efficiency.

  And saved more lives than most.

  “You’re staring at your wife with moon eyes.”

  Hayden jumped, moving her chin off her hand and straightening up from the nurses’ station desk. She rounded on Luce, who was looking utterly delighted, and managed to knock a piece of the tacky decorative tinsel off the desk. Picking it up gave her the perfect excuse to not look at her smirking friend. “I am not.”

  “You really, really were. Like, I expected a breeze to waft through and wave your hair gently around while violins started up.”

  Bright red tinsel back in place, Hayden jammed her hands in her pockets. “Stop exaggerating. I have to set up some antibiotics. Come with?”

  Luce followed her through to the treatment room. They both started getting their equipment together, syringes and needles and vials in hand. Luce spread out their medication chart and Hayden started mixing an antibiotic.

  “I’m really not mooning,” she said after a while.

  Well, only a bit.

  Luce snorted like Hayden was ridiculous. “You’re still so smitten with her.”

  Hayden ducked her head. Still? Try newly. But she couldn’t talk to Luce about that. Which was insanely frustrating. And, also, sad. Their friendship had been suffering . In between work, new relationships, and Hayden’s guilt from all the lies about her said relationship, a small divide had grown.

  Hayden really was going to explode soon if she didn’t get to talk about this. She was a talker. Not a keep-it-all-close-to-your-chest type at all. She wanted to sit over a coffee, or to sprawl over a bar top, and whine and have Luce pat her head a little.

  But that wasn’t an option, and it sucked.

  All Hayden could do was try not to let Sam catch her mooning. Because after the hug that had left Hayden both swooning and aching for the woman, all she could conclude was that Sam was really, really not into her.

  It wasn’t that Hayden thought she was only the way to screw over Sam’s parents for Sam anymore. No way Sam would open up like that to just anyone. Especially not someone she was doing business with. They were friends. They’d agreed on that, long ago in Hayden’s bed in her family home. And that had definitely grown over the last few months.

  But that was all.

  Hayden quickly checked Luce’s antibiotic and fluid order, and they both headed out to their respective patients. Hayden got swept up in a patient who came in after a nasty fall and another who presented from an aged care home with sudden onset confusion.

  “Classic urinary tract infection,” Hayden murmured to Luce as she walked past them on her way to grab some supplies. “Bet you.”

  She fist-pumped when the dipstick lit up and proved her right. She sent off a sample and let the ER doctor know.

  It was hours later that Sam appeared again, followed by Leon, the still-twitchy-but-a-little-less-so intern. Hayden finished dressing a patient’s hand, which they’d sliced open while disagreeing with a tape dispenser while wrapping Christmas presents.

  She was already pulling her pen out of her pocket when she dropped the chart down onto the nurses’ station and flipped it open to start filling it out. There was no need to look around and see what Sam was doing. None at all. Why would Hayden feel the need to do that?

  “Hey.”

  The word whispered over her neck, low and gravelly, and Hayden jumped, even though she knew who it was. She swallowed, smiling at Sam, whose front grazed Hayden’s side. Because they were married. And while they never made out in the hospital or anything, they still kept up the subtle touches.

  Keeping up appearances was slowly killing Hayden.

  “Hi. I didn’t know you were down here.” Lies. Hayden just spoke lies all the time lately, apparently.

  Sam put a file down next to Hayden’s clipboard. “I’ve been in and out all day. You’ve seemed busy?”

  Hayden turned so they weren’t as close together but were facing each other properly. A week had gone by since they’d been anywhere near this close, except for at work when they ran into each other for show.

  “Yeah, it’s been busy.”

  As usual, Sam was looking at her steadily, and Hayden wanted to squirm away from it. “You’ve barely been home.” At least her voice dropped low; Sam was aware of the ears that were always listening in a hospital.

  “I—” And what could she say? She hadn’t. When work was over, Hayden went out for food or a drink with whoever was finishing the shift with her, or Luce, when they weren’t with Clemmie. It was always late when she got home, and she had been quickly sliding into her room. “You know how it is, the lead-up to Christmas. Social things.”

  “Okay.” It sounded measured. “Is everything all right?” The words were mannered, as if she’d practiced them. And that wouldn’t have surprised Hayden, if Sam did run the words over again and again in her mind to make sure she said them right. Or to know if she wanted to say them at all.

  The idea of it made affection bloom in her chest. Hayden smiled widely, making sure her teeth showed. It was probably too much, but there was no turning back now. “Oh yeah. Everything is fine. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  Maybe because Hayden was being driven a little mad with a desire to kiss Sam, to touch her, all the time, and had been avoiding her since. That glimpse of her on the balcony had left Hayden flush with feelings and desires and nowhere to direct them. Months were left of this and she couldn’t mess it up.

  Not when she’d promised Sam.

  And the money, she supposed.

  The money had been the last thing on her mind recently.

  “I don’t know,” Sam replied. “I don’t know why it wouldn’t be. That’s why I asked.”

  Damn Sam and her logic. Right. Hayden had to get her act together. Especially with Christmas in three days and the show they were going to have to put on. Or rather, the show Hayden was going to have to watch. “Sorry. I’ve just been distracted with—with family and stuff.”

  Lies again. Hayden was going to be sick with them all soon.

  Sam’s brow furrowed. “Is everything okay? With your mom?”

  Apparently Sam was not going to make this easy. “Yeah.” She nodded for emphasis. “Everything is completely fine. I’ve just been thinking, you know, what to do. About Mom and everything.”

  “Okay.” Sam shifted her feet. “Did you want to have dinner tonight? I thought we could go out. My treat.”

  And she smiled, so genuinely that Hayden’s stomach actually fluttered. “Sounds great.”

  “Okay. We can discuss Christmas.”

  “Good plan. I have some questions.”

  “Such as?”

  “You know, what do I wear? How are we acting? What’s the plan? Those typ
es.”

  “Such simple questions?”

  Hayden chuckled. “Exactly.”

  “Hayden!” They both turned rapidly to the coordinator on a phone down at the other end of the desk. She looked harried. “Pileup on the bridge, first patient en route, you’re on.”

  “Got it.” Hayden turned back to Sam. “I gotta—”

  “Go.” Sam picked her file back up and held it against her chest. “I’ll meet you after work?”

  “Sounds like a plan.” And Hayden kept that smile on her face as she turned and walked away.

  All right. Operation Get Her Act Together and Stop Creepily Mooning After Her Fake Wife was on. She could be Sam’s friend. Supportive and caring.

  ~ ~ ~

  Christmas Eve started with a deathly quiet ER.

  Never a good sign.

  Luce tiptoed up to Hayden where she was restocking shelves in a treatment room, nothing else to do outside. “Hayden,” they whispered.

  Hayden looked up from her half-empty box of bandages. “Yeah?” she stage-whispered back.

  “There’s nothing going on.” Luce kept whispering.

  “Well…yeah?”

  “Like, nothing. I have one old lady with a broken hip who’s all settled with pain relief and is waiting for the OR. My other patient just got transferred.”

  “At least you have patients. They decided to use me as manual labor today.” Hayden stuffed as many bandages as would fit onto the shelf, stood up, and shuffled the box against the wall with her foot. “But I still don’t get why we’re whispering?”

  “You’re superstitious.”

  “What?”

  “Well, you believe that if I say it’s quiet, every—”

  “Luce!”

  Luce snorted. “See?”

  “You can’t just—you’re not allowed to say—”

  Tasha walked past the door.

  “Tasha!” Hayden called out. “Luce just said the ‘Q’ word.”

  Tasha stopped dead. “No? They wouldn’t?” She leveled a look at Luce. “You wouldn’t?”

  “They did.”

  Luce looked from one to the other, scowling, perhaps comprehending they were in too deep.

  “They totally did,” Hayden said.

  “When everything goes to shit, I’m coming after you.” Tasha held two fingers up to her own eyes then pointed them at Luce and walked away.

  Luce leveled the scowl at her. “Snitch.”

  Hayden crossed her arms smugly. “You’re the one who said the word.”

  “The word has no power.”

  “You don’t know that.” Hayden wasn’t really mad. Okay. Maybe a little mad. That word was a hideous curse, even if she didn’t usually believe in this stuff. “So did you just come to annoy me?”

  Luce fiddled with the bandages Hayden had haphazardly stuffed onto the shelf, their long fingers plucking at plastic packets and rearranging them into a less perilous pile. “Not just that, no.”

  “What’s up?”

  “What are you doing for Christmas?”

  That was a random question, flung out of nowhere. “Uh, working. Like you. You know that?”

  Luce huffed, bending over to grab a few more packets from the box now that their organization had made some more room. “I mean for tonight.”

  Oh. “Uh, I have dinner. With Sam’s family.”

  Luce kept stacking. “You sound nervous.”

  “I kind of am. I, well, haven’t really met them?”

  Within the shelf, Luce’s hands stilled. They turned their head. “Seriously? You guys have been together—and, well, married—for, what, five months now?”

  “A little more, even.”

  “How have you not met them?”

  “I don’t know. They’re not close. I’ve met her brother. You’d like him. He’s a smart-ass.”

  “He sounds great already.” Luce went back to the bandages. “So, are you nervous?”

  Yes. Though, at least Hayden didn’t have to act when it came to Sam anymore. But that was the issue. She found herself freezing up now, like in the beginning, worried she’d give too much away, when that was the idea all along. “Not really. It’ll be fine. What are you doing?”

  Luce swallowed visibly. “I’m meeting Clemmie’s family. And then tomorrow she’s coming for dinner with mine.”

  “Really?”

  Luce wouldn’t look at her. “Yeah.”

  “Is this the meeting-the-parents?”

  Luce looked at her, all fragile. “Yeah.”

  “Luce! That’s a big deal.”

  “You’re doing the same!”

  Hayden laughed. “Yeah, but we’re already married. You guys are dating, and you’re meeting them, and it’s cute—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m nervous enough.”

  Luce almost looked gray. “Luce, it’ll be awesome. They’ll love you. They can’t not.”

  “This is a big deal, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. But in an awesome way. Think, a few months ago we were laughing at our inability to even say hi to a woman.”

  “And now you’re married, and I’m meeting the ’rents of this amazing woman.”

  Hayden nodded, her breath catching. She held up her hand, and Luce rolled their eyes and slapped their own hand against it.

  “Celebrating?”

  They both turned to the door and Hayden let the smitten smile curve her lips up at the sight of Sam there, hands buried in her lab coat.

  “Just enjoying our own awesomeness,” Luce said.

  “That’s…” Hayden imagined Sam wanted to say strange “…nice. Is it me, or is it utterly quiet down here?”

  Luce chortled, and Hayden held up her hands. “Okay! You two, that’s officially a double whammy. Whatever happens now is on the two of you.”

  She was met with smirks from the two of them.

  “Hayden.” Sam spoke like she would to a child. “Speaking the word ‘quiet’ has no relation to the influx of patients.”

  A phone rang out in the ER. Another started. Then another. It was a cacophony of them. Someone shouted down the hall.

  Hayden crossed her arms.

  “My partner is having a baby!” was screamed out from somewhere nearby.

  Luce and Sam looked at each other, and Hayden glowered at them both.

  “Well.” Luce bit their lip. “That was oddly timed.”

  “I maintain it has nothing to do with my saying it was quiet.” Sam didn’t even sound remotely regretful.

  An emergency bell went off, and Sam stood aside as Luce and Hayden rushed past her.

  “You two both suck,” Hayden called over her shoulder.

  CHAPTER 22

  “You grew up here?”

  “Yes.”

  Hayden gaped up at the townhouse. “But, like, here. In all of this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  It was huge. And domineering. Looming over the street. Maybe looming wasn’t the right word—too dramatic and scary sounding. It was painted a rich reddish color, the outside completely renovated but maintained in an old-fashioned style.

  The taxi pulled away behind them.

  “They own the entire building?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.”

  “Breathe, Hayden.”

  Hayden took in a deep breath and turned to look at Sam. She had a woolen hat pulled low over her ears, her cheeks ruddy with cold. Auburn bangs peeked out over her eyes. She looked adorable. Though she would probably hate that descriptor.

  “What?” Sam asked.

  She went for it. “You look adorable.” Sam rolled her eyes, and Hayden snickered. “Knew you’d hate that.” Smother it in humor, and Hayden could say what she was thinking. She mentally high-fived herself.

  “We could always pretend work was inundated and that we couldn’t make it.” Sam’s face was inscrutable as she looked back at the house, but even in the glow of streetlights, Hayden could see how she sw
allowed heavily.

  “To be fair,” Hayden said, “that did happen. We were lucky to get out on time. Which, by the way, I maintain is your and Luce’s fault.”

  “Quiet is not a cursed word, Hayden.” Sam paused. “Though I will admit the timing tonight was…interesting.”

  “Interesting because you cursed us.”

  “Sure.”

  Hayden laughed. “Was that sarcasm?”

  “You tell me.”

  They faded into silence, and Hayden rocked on her heels. “So, are we going in?”

  Sam was still looking up at her family’s house.

  Hayden touched Sam’s elbow, and Sam continued looking up. “Hey. We don’t have to do this.”

  The look on her face hardened; a subtle clench of her jaw. “Yes, we do.”

  And she walked up the front path, Hayden on her heels. “Hey, Sam?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why don’t they ever come to your house?”

  “They never really did. But now that they know Jon comes by regularly, they refuse.”

  Well, lovely. And that certainly didn’t make Hayden dread this any less. “Okay.”

  Sam pressed the buzzer. “Not a lot about this is okay.”

  Her tone stuck with Hayden—haunted, sure. Sam’s eyes were focused on the door, and the slope of her mouth made Hayden sad. All she could do was link their fingers and squeeze for a second before dropping them as the door opened. Not having her ring on felt strange, which in itself grated.

  They were going to appear as friends throughout the meal and tell them afterward. Hayden had asked why they didn’t tell them right away. And Sam had said she wanted them to see that Hayden was an average, nice person.

  Sometimes, Hayden wondered if Sam was hoping they wouldn’t reject her for this, even as she also planned for it.

  That thought left an ache behind.

  The door opened.

  “Good evening, Miss Thomson.”

  “Merry Christmas, Ron.”

  The man who opened the door was dressed in a suit. He had a moustache. A hand was held behind his back with perfect posture. He looked every bit the stereotype of a butler. Incredulous, Hayden couldn’t help but grin.

  “This is my friend, Hayden.”

  Hayden held her hand out, and he stared at it for a moment, before slowly shaking it. “Nice to meet you.”

 

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