For a first date with a girl I’ve already had sex with, I think it went pretty darn well. If we keep this up, who knows where we’ll be in a few weeks. She might even tell me her secret. She acted only slightly weird about the fact that I can’t have kids. And I’m certainly not backing off because she has a toddler. Maybe, just maybe, this will go somewhere. I would love to have Darla and a baby. Talk about winning the grand prize.
Chapter Seventeen
Darla
Here we go again, lugging the equipment across campus for a screening. But this time, Shelby scheduled the screening in the evening. So no matter how long we’ve been at work already, we still have to work into the wee hours of the night to do screenings on the nursing staff that work the night shift. I’m not a night owl, so this is torture.
Since Mallory has an administrative job, the chances of her being at the hospital at this hour are slim to none. Theo is a different story, and with my luck, anything is possible. I want to see him again and again, but I get so tongue-tied around him. At this pace, I’ll never work up the courage to tell him about Stella.
I still cannot get the last conversation I had with Theo out of my mind. He really doesn’t know about Stella. He’s totally clueless. He would certainly remember something this important, especially since he wants kids so much. And the fact that he thinks he can’t have kids when he actually has one is more than I can process right now. We were having so much fun on our picnic that it would have been the perfect opportunity to tell him. But I could not make my mouth say the words. The longer I wait, the harder it is going to be. I’m so afraid he’ll freak, and I don’t know if I can handle rejection again.
I know he got my emails, though. I know he replied to me. He didn’t want anything to do with us. But something does not add up. I mean, come on. He remembered everything about our one night together, even the fact that we had sex twice. Maybe he had someone else checking his email for him. It is possible Mallory deleted them before he had a chance to read them, but when I ran into her, she didn’t act as though she was trying to hide anything. And I know Mallory—she’s not a good actress. She would have given me a clue that she saw something. So if he didn’t tell me to bugger off, I can’t imagine who it could have been.
I’ve lived in a pit of sorrow for seven years because I thought he didn’t want us. Somehow, I knew he couldn’t be that callous. I knew he wouldn’t ignore us. Even so, he’s here now, and I have the chance to make it all right. If it wasn’t Mallory, it had to be someone in his family. Maybe it was his preacher father. The man could have been trying to protect his image. Or it could have been his mother. She may have thought I would try to get child support from him.
“You’re lucky Stella’s out of town, or I wouldn’t be able to do this,” I say to Shelby as we lug our equipment up the sidewalk.
“Why do you think I scheduled it this week?” Shelby asks. “I’ve got to squeeze every ounce of opportunity I can. Keeps you from missing her.”
“How about a movie next time?” Isaac suggests.
I agree. “Yeah, a movie sounds really good right now. Or face time with my sweet girl.”
“Let’s just get this behind us,” Shelby says.
We push our carts through the hospital and onto the elevators up to the ninth floor. Another boring session of tuberculosis skin tests, immunizations, and whatever else the nurses need to be compliant with hospital regulations. Next, we move down to the eighth floor. At least the tests go quickly and smoothly. By midnight, we are finally done. Fluffy pillows call my name. And I didn’t run into Mallory or Theo, so it wasn’t completely awful. After a midnight shift, I look and smell like death warmed over. The only thing making me cringe is Isaac’s latest earworm. If I never hear Vanilla Ice again, it will be too soon.
Shelby collapses onto a couch in the nurses’ lounge. “Thank God that’s over.”
Isaac yawns so big, I can see past his molars. Even yawning, he still bobs his head to the tune of “Ice Ice Baby.” He takes in the break room, scrunching his nose. “No offense to you, Juliet, but nurses are messy as hell.”
He doesn’t deserve an eye roll. Talking trash about my profession and calling me that? I’ll have to give him a nasty pinch when I’m fully conscious.
He grimaces and points to a slice of pizza sitting on the table.
I shrug. “Nurses rarely get to finish a meal, so they eat what they can when they can.”
“Let’s hope they wash their hands before entering patients’ rooms, because they don’t practice good hygiene in here.”
Shelby gasps. “Unprofessional.”
“The least they could do is clean up after themselves. That slice of pizza needs a shave. No telling how long it’s been sitting there. I bet you could manufacture enough penicillin from that single slice to treat this whole hospital unit.”
I laugh. That’s gross but funny at the same time. “Throw it away if it bothers you so much.” I finish packing my supplies into the cart and stretch out my back. My sore muscles sure could use a massage right about now. And I know the perfect hands for the job. Stop it.
“Nu-uh. I might get hepatitis or encephalitis or some other form of itis.”
Shelby giggles. “I think you already have.”
He sticks his tongue out at her. “Juliet, you’re a nurse. You throw it away.”
Groaning, I massage my temples. “I will if you’ll stop calling me that.”
He claps, knowing he has won this battle.
“Oh, for crying out loud.” I toss it into the trash.
“I can still see it.”
“Ugh. You could never be a nurse or a mother.” I snatch some paper towels off the counter to cover my hand and shove the pizza down farther into the trash. A sharp pain shoots through my hand, and I jerk it back. My hand is covered in red, and it’s not pizza sauce.
“Oh no.” I hold up my left hand, displaying a deep, jagged cut on my palm. Blood is seeping out of it. On a scale of one to ten, this is an eleven.
Shelby rushes to me. “Jesus Christ. What happened?”
I grab more paper towels and cover my hand with them. Blood soaks through them within seconds and trickles down my arm.
Isaac backs away from me. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Shelby pushes me into a chair and rips more paper towels out of the dispenser. She covers my hand with them and holds my arm in the air. “Isaac, go get Bonnie, the charge nurse, now.”
He rushes out of the room. I think he’s relieved he got to leave.
“I’m okay,” I say to Shelby. “No big deal.” The throbbing pain takes my breath away.
Shelby cringes. “I don’t know. It seems pretty bad.” She inspects the contents of the trash can. “A tuna can got you.”
“I’m an idiot.”
“No, Isaac’s the idiot.”
“Am not,” he says, returning to the lounge with Bonnie.
She plants a wheelchair next to the door. I don’t need that.
Bonnie leans down in front of me. “Let’s take a peek.” She peels off the paper towels, and more blood gushes out.
I suck in a breath. Shit, that hurts.
“Okay, that wasn’t a good idea,” she says.
“I think a butterfly bandage should do the trick,” I say to her.
She presses a gauze bandage to my hand and goes into full nurse mode. “You need stitches.”
“I’m fine.” I stand up, and the room spins.
Shelby catches me. The charge nurse plants my butt in the wheelchair and pushes me out of the lounge, into the elevator, and down to the emergency room.
Chapter Eighteen
Theo
My phone rings… again. So much for a nap. It’s the ER letting me know another patient has shown up in the waiting room: a laceration with p
rofuse bleeding. As I round the corner, I screech on the brakes when I see Isaac and Shelby in the waiting room. Isaac locks eyes with me.
I rush up to him. “Where is she?”
Isaac can’t stop pacing. “Oh God. This is all my fault.”
“Where is she?”
He points to the bay the staff took her to. I pat his arm and push through the curtain. I let out a sigh of relief when I see Darla sitting on a gurney, swinging her feet like a little girl. She holds her bloody hand in the air. I cock my head to the side as I take her in.
Her eyes get big when she sees me. “Of course, you would be working tonight.”
“It must be your lucky day.”
She waves her wounded hand toward me and cringes. “Don’t think so.”
I wash my hands and don gloves. “Maybe it’s my lucky day.”
Monica, the ER nurse, enters the bay and hands me a package of gauze and a kit of sterile instruments.
“You know, if you wanted to see me, all you had to do is call.”
Monica laughs. Darla’s mouth tips upward a tad on one side.
I roll over to her on my wheeled stool. “Let’s see what you did.”
She holds her hand out. “I think the culprit was the lid off a tuna can.”
I grimace, knowing that had to hurt, but I’ve seen worse. She’s lucky it didn’t hit an artery. She would be pulsating blood all over the place if that were the case.
“Monica, could you get me some sterile water, one cc of lidocaine, five hundred units of Bacitracin, and the superglue?”
“Sure thing.”
“Superglue?” Darla asks.
“It’s not really superglue, but it’s pretty much the same thing. Better than stitches. Comes in real handy. Get it?”
“Don’t make me laugh.” She sucks in a breath, and a tear trickles down her cheek. She wipes it away with her good hand.
“Are you allergic to penicillin?”
“N-n-no.”
I gaze into her eyes. “By the stink Isaac was causing out there, I thought you’d been hit by a car.”
She rolls her eyes. “Tell me about it. I told them I didn’t need to be here. Ouch.”
“Sorry, but I have to get this clean. You need to be here. I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too,” she says, barely above a whisper.
I move to sit on the side of the gurney. Our knees touch, reminding me of when we sat on the edge of the bathroom sink at that college party. “I’ve got you, sweetie.”
She leans over and rests her forehead on mine while I hold her wound closed, waiting on Monica to return with the meds. I’ll hold it all night long if I need to, but I have to assess the damage.
“Can you move your fingers?”
She grits her teeth but is able to move all the fingers on her left hand.
“Good. I don’t think you hit a tendon or a nerve.”
Her hand trembles, or it might be mine. I hold hers tight again.
“You should be more careful where you put your hand.”
“Got any suggestions?” Her eyes get big as she realizes how I will take that. “I cannot believe I said that.”
I chuckle and clear my throat. “Nurse Battle, you have a dirty mind. I’m shocked.”
Monica enters the room, giggling. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear any of that.”
“That’s why you’re my favorite work nurse.” I wink at Darla, my favorite wellness nurse. “I’m going to write you a prescription for antibiotics and pain meds. And to be sure it’s healing properly, I think I should hold your hand for the next few days. You know… physical therapy.”
Her eyes snap to mine, and she swallows deeply. “Doctor’s orders… I guess.”
My eyes get big. That was easy.
Darla moans through clenched teeth as I clean out her wound and close it up. I let Monica bandage her hand; she’s way better at it than I am. She says I use five times the amount of bandage needed and that even a cut on the pinky finger ends up looking like a mummy.
“Why don’t you lie back while I get your prescriptions filled?”
“Thanks, Doc.”
I reward her with a wink.
“When can I go home?”
“You can’t drive on pain meds. I guess you’ll have to wait until I’m off-duty.” I wiggle my eyebrows.
“Where’s Shelby?”
Wow. She shot me down. Hurtful. “She took the supplies to the office, but she said she’d be back soon. And I shooed Isaac away. He was making a scene.”
Darla’s eyes are glassy. The pain meds have definitely kicked in.
“Lie back and get some rest. I’ll let you know when she’s here.”
She curls up, propping her bandaged hand on the pillow. Her eyelids are heavy. “Oh, Romeo, Romeo…”
My cheeks hurt from the big smile on my face.
“I need to talk to Stella. She’ll be…”
“You want to talk to my mother?”
She mumbles something through a very large yawn. “‘Ice Ice Baby.’”
I never took her for a Vanilla Ice fan. It would be unprofessional to laugh at my patient, but she’s so damn funny on drugs.
She drifts off to sleep before I can tease her about her ramblings. I raise the bed rail and move the call button closer to her good hand. I kiss her cheek before I make myself comfortable in a chair beside her bed.
For an hour, Darla sleeps. Her chest rises and falls in a slow rhythm as she rests. It’s a nice excuse to stare at her without her knowing. I can take in all her features without seeming like a stalker. Her mouth is a bit open, and it makes me want to kiss those pillowy soft cheeks so badly. It’s really hard to keep my distance. I can’t thank Monica enough for taking me off-duty until Darla goes home.
She stirs. Dang it.
I sit down on her bed, soaking in every detail of her face—her full lips and those dark lashes that do a terrible job at hiding her emotions. Her hair is splayed across the pillow, tempting my itchy fingers to run through those strands. When I’m around her, I feel warm and fuzzy. I can’t quite find the right words to express my feelings, so I do what I do best. I stare at her.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’m… glad you’re okay.”
She exhales. “That makes two of us. But I was in good hands. Get it? Hands?” She waves her bandaged hand in my face. She closes her eyes and yawns.
“That was really… bad.” I reach out to touch her right hand and bring it to my lips.
She places her bandaged hand on my cheek. Then she blinks and snatches her hands away as if my skin burned her.
“Did I say anything? I have a tendency to ramble when I’m doped up.”
“You wanted to talk to Stella.”
She gulps, and her normal dark complexion fades to pale. “What did I say?”
“You wanted to talk to her.”
She stares at the wall, and I sure do wish I could download that monologue she’s having in her head right now.
“This is good. I need to get this off my chest.” She attempts to sit up and tilts to the side. Her face goes from pale to an eerie-green tint. “Oh no.”
I have a nanosecond to reach for the emesis basin before she tosses her cookies all over the place. The only thing I can do is hold her hair back and order Zofran.
Monica zips in seconds after I hit the call button and takes over puke duty.
My phone rings, interrupting me from staring at Darla. She waves her injured hand as she and Shelby proceed out of the emergency room and down the long hallway that leads to the elevators. By the sound of the ringtone, I already know it’s Jennifer. She would only call me this time of morning if it was urgent or if she has her time zones mixe
d up.
“You know it’s four a.m. here.”
“I figured you’d be working, and I finally got cell service.”
I scoot out into the hallway so as not to disturb anyone. “Are you pregnant yet?”
She sighs. “And to think I was missing you. But now that you’ve mentioned it, how would that make you feel?”
“Huh?” My sister is insane. Only she would be asking me this, and in the middle of the night, no less.
“How would you feel if you suddenly found out you were going to be an uncle?”
“I’d be thrilled, of course. Why?”
She giggles. “I’m working on it.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’m not afraid anymore.”
“Does this mean…”
“Yep. This time next year, maybe you’ll be an uncle.”
“That’s fantastic, Jen.”
She gets all giggly again. “Matt, stop it.”
I grin. It sounds as though they’re having fun. Maybe someday I’ll have time to have fun with someone I care about.
“I know I would be glad if I found out I was going to be an aunt,” she says.
I lean up against the wall and cross one leg over the other.
“Theo, I’m sorry. That was insensitive.”
“It’s all right. The day you find out you’re going to be an aunt will be the day you have to pick me up off the floor.”
“From shock or fear?” she asks.
I shrug even though I know she can’t see me. “Both, I guess.”
“Aw, come on. You’d be excited, wouldn’t you?”
I scratch the back of my neck. It’s been a long night, and I don’t need any crazy talk from my sister. “Did you call for a specific reason?”
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