“I was going to use the bathroom,” he added, after a second, with elaborate dignity. “Before I was interrupted.”
“The bathroom is right there.”
“I know where it is.”
I dropped my gloves in the bin, picked up the chart, and finished my notes. His numbers were good, the dressing was clean, and there was no reason for me to be in this room for another second.
FAITH WAS IN THE HALLWAYwith her jacket on and her bag on her shoulder, wearing the expression she had when she’d seen exactly what she’d expected to see. Renata had already picked up the floor, the shift change done without my noticing. She gave me a nod from the station as I passed.
Faith raised her eyebrows.
“He’s staying,” I said.
“I know.” She fell into step beside me toward the elevator. “You good?”
“I’m fine.”
She gave me the sideways glance. I gave her nothing back. She knew better than to push, which was one of the things I liked about her. The elevator opened and she stepped in. I kept walking toward the stairs, and her look followed me until the elevator closed.
THE PARKING GARAGEhad that late-hospital stillness, not empty just slower, the hum of the building dropping down a frequency. Level three, where I always parked. Orange overhead glow and my sneakers soft on the concrete and the smell of exhaust and nothing else. I got my keys out and stood at my car.
I almost texted Faith.
I put my phone back in my pocket.
My pulse was still up. I could feel it at the base of my throat—the same jump I’d clocked under my fingers at his wrist, present and unhelpful. The heat in my cheeks hadn’t gone down. Neither had what was going on lower: my nipples had pebbled under my scrubs, heat pooled low in my belly, an ache with no clinical name for it. The dangerous-still he’d gone into when I said his name. The breath that caught a beat before I could catch up with it. My thighs pressing together in a hospital room and not a thing I could do about it.
I knew how men like him ended. Charmers found what you needed, gave you the version that worked on a Tuesday, and moved on when you stopped being the new thing. I’d known this since I was ten years old in a house full of people who’d already learned it the hard way. The smile was the trick. Not the substance.
My heart rate had no comment on any of this analysis.
I thought about the way he’d looked when the laugh hit him. The whole change of it, there and gone, like it had surprised him too.
I started my car.
Tomorrow was another shift, another chart, another version of whatever that had been. I’d done my job. He’d stay through the night. Dr. Patel would sign discharge in the morning and that would be that.
I would not pick up the chart. I would not check in before the night nurse. I was going to go home, feed my cat Loretta, and sleep eight hours, and that would be the end of Room 407.
I pulled out of the garage.
But my heart was still going.
Chapter Two
Scorch
HAYES REED HAD BEENtalking since he walked in the door, which tracked, because Hayes Reed had never once stopped talking in the year since he’d patched in. He’d brought a black tee and black sweats—the ones I’d asked him to grab two days ago—and I had them on now instead of the gown. The club called him Cricket. It had taken about four days to figure out why.
“—so Brim says the Comal Saints confirmed their full headcount, and the Pecos Devils are hauling in from Odessa Friday morning, which puts them on the road by six, six-thirty, and Brim wants you on-site by noon at the latest because somebody’s got to run the logistics on the ride-out Saturday and Detour keeps volunteering and nobody wants that—”
“Cricket, come on.”
“—because last time Detour ran a route we ended up on a county road the county stopped maintaining in 2019, and Brim said and I quote, ‘never again in my lifetime’—”
“Cricket.” I held out my hand.
He looked at it. “What?”
