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I can practically hear Jim smiling. “Well fuck, you better start writing your best man speech.”
“Remember that next time you give me a shit show of a patient. Anyways, get him a bed in the ICU. Can you hold onto him for twenty minutes or so? I need to see one more patient first.” And hopefully, find Lainey.
“Will do. I’ll get security here, too.”
I take the stairs back up to the fourth floor, needing to round with one more patient before I start this hell of an admission. If I couldn’t feel any shittier, Jenna is the nurse assigned. Her stink eye tells me everything she’s thinking.
“I saw 416 and put in discharge orders. He can go home tomorrow morning with home health.”
“Okay.”
For the first time, Jenna doesn’t have a sarcastic comment. I lower my voice, peeking around to make sure we are alone. “Have you talked with her?”
Jen whips her head up, eyes darting back and forth across my face, assessing the bags under my eyes, and the creases in my forehead from my permanent scowl. “Yeah, I have, because you don’t tuck your tail and run when you get scared. You can’t do that when you care about people. If you hadanyidea what she’s been through—”
“I do now. My sister told me a little.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Well then, you should know that she’s a tough shit, and there is no way she’s going to let you back in if you don’t Get.Your.Shit. Together.” She stabs her finger into my chest, accenting every word.
“I know, I know. I fucked up. But I’m gonna make it right.”
She squints at me, and while I’m still half a head taller than her, her attitude overpowers me. “You better, or so help me God, you better watch yourself.”
I nod my head in agreement and leave Jenna before she hexes me. I take the long way around the unit, hoping to find Lainey and somehow clear the air. I might hate her past, but her past isalso what brought her right to me. And I’d be the biggest fucking hypocrite to judge someone solely on who they once were. She could easily walk away from us and find a man better than me.
My life before her was nothing. I thought I was happy, I thought I was living, but it wasn’t until I met her that I finally came alive.
I hear her laugh before I see her, the sound filling my ears and making me smile.
Following her sweet melody, I find her in a room, helping an aide with a patient. Her arms are wrapped around the elderly woman’s shoulders as she leans in to talk to her. The world around her is in slow motion, and I soak in every minute. Whatever she’s saying brings light to the woman’s face, and she clasps Lainey’s smooth palm in two of her worn, weathered ones.
It shouldn’t even surprise me that I’m standing witness to this. It’s what she does. She’s the light that pulled me out of my perpetual darkness, the one that made me “bloom.”
She sees me standing, staring, and her brows pull together. I’m sure it has something to do with the act that we’ve been avoiding each other, pretending neither of us is hurting.
She walks the lady to the bathroom and tells the aide she’ll be right back. She then takes her sweet time discarding her gloves, washing her hands at the sink with her back to me. Every slow action makes me sweat.
Once clean, she comes to the door, standing a foot away from me. She places a practiced smile on and asks, “What can I help you with, Dr. Ryan?”
I beam down at her, feeling better simply being in her presence.
“I wanted to see you, tell you I’m sorry and that I want to talk.”
“If you have something to tell me, might as well tell me now. No sense in dragging it out.”
This woman. She’s said before that she feels weak, that she wishes she was tougher. She said that night, standing on the cold sidewalk that she’s broken, but I think she’s anything but broken. She’s the strongest person I have ever met. She’s suffered through something I know very little about, and here she is, ready to face off with me if needed.
PDA be damned, I take two steps closer until we are toe to toe. She tilts her chin up to maintain eye contact, and I’m propelled back to the first few weeks here when I did everything in my power to get her to talk to me.
I curl a pointer finger and tuck it under her chin, tilting her face up to press my lips to hers in a soft, chaste kiss.
“If you are going to make me grovel, then I’ll fucking grovel. I’ll grovel every day for the rest of my life if you let me. I know we have shit to talk about, baggage to unpack, but there’s no one else in this world I want to unpack it with.” I almost let those three little words slip, right here in the hall with several pairs of eyes now watching us, but I hold back. I want to save those words for if—no, forwhenshe forgives me. When we’re back to that place where I can tuck her under me, kissing and nipping her body until I drive her crazy.
Her eyes flick to the side before she purses her lips together to temper a smile. A faint crimson crosses her cheeks, and my heart sighs, knowing I still have a chance.
“Well,” she says, clearing her throat. “I’ll take what you have to say into consideration.”
~
