“Actually, I don’t really feel like sleeping yet. Do you want to stay a while? Maybe help me drink the welcome wine Olivia left for me?”
He lifts his eyebrows like he’s considering, and the ensuing pause is so long, I’m positive he’s going to say no. But then Noah nods. “Who can say no to welcome wine?”
Eleven
“I’msurprised you agreed to stay,” I say as Noah moves to the dresser to retrieve the wine.
“Why is that?” He hands me a glass, then sets the other on the side table while he uses the corkscrew to open the bottle.
“Because it’s exactly what Olivia wants,” I say. “She left two wine glasses in my room, and now we’re using them. I think she’d call that a win.”
I hold up my glass while he fills it half full with red wine. “I won’t tell her if you won’t,” Noah says, blue eyes sparkling in the low light. There’s a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, but he’s putting up quite the fight.
It’s making me itch to see it—to see a full smile and not just the tiny glimpses and snatches I’ve stolen so far.
He clears his throat and takes a long sip of wine. I’d put money on him doing it just to hide his face.
“What would it take?” I ask, keeping my tone light.
“What would what take?”
“What would it take to make you smile?”
“A lot of things make me smile,” he says.
“Then why haven’t I seen it yet?”
He rolls his eyes. “You’ve seen me smile.”
I sit up a little taller. “I haven’t. Little smirks. Tiny grins. But what would it take for you to just…let loose? To smile like there’s nothing in the entire world to be sad about?”
He rubs a hand over his face, giving me the distinct impression that now he’s tryingnotto smile on purpose.
“Oh, come on,” I say. “I can tell you want to. Youwantto smile right now.”
“I don’t,” he deadpans.
I scour my brain for a story—something,anything—that might make him crack. “My first year of nursing school, I was doing my very first head-to-toe assessment on a real patient. My instructor was present, as well as a handful of other students, so needless to say, I wasreally nervous.”
I take a sip of wine, needing a tiny dose of liquid courage. Honestly, it’s harder to tell this story to someone who I know has medical training, but I have a feeling winning a smile from Noah will make my own embarrassment worth it.
“So I was listening for heart sounds, growing more and more uneasy because the patient’s heartbeat was so faint. I kept shifting my stethoscope, hoping to find something stronger, but on the inside, I was already rehearsing how I would tell everyone the patient was actually dying. But then my instructor reached over and moved my hand to theotherside of the patient’s chest. Where her heartactuallywas.”
Noah takes a deep breath, his lips pressing together like hewantsto smile, but he doesn’t cave.
“Then there was the time I accidentally told a patient I was palpating her abdomen to check for ticklishness instead of tenderness. Or the time I set up to start an IV on the patient’s right side, only to pull back the blanket and realize he didn’t have a right arm.”
Noah barks out a laugh, head shaking as he finally lets himself smile.
The sight isglorious.His entire face changes. His eyes lift, lines creasing his face in all the best ways while his lips bracket straight, white teeth.
“I need you to know that I am actually a very good nurse,” I say. “At least, I will be. All of those things happened in my first semester of clinicals. Except for the IV thing. That was last month. But that could have happened to anyone.”
He holds my gaze for a long moment. “I don’t have any doubts about how good you’ll be.”
“Really?” There’s a vulnerability in my tone that surprises me. Idothink I’ll be a good nurse. Assuming I can find a job. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still feel overwhelmed if I think too hard about nursing on my own,withoutan instructor or a preceptor watching over my shoulder. “I hope I will be.”
“You’ll be terrified at first,” Noah says. “When you realize how much your patients are counting on you. But you get used to that. Just don’t stop asking questions. If you don’t know something,ask.Better to ask than to assume and risk screwing up.”
