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Get it over with. I look into his eye and give him a soft smile, prepared to refuse his thanks with an, “It’s all a part of the job.”
Except he doesn’t say anything, not at first. He glances down at our clasped hands and then says, “No… wedding ring.”
Confusion races through me. “Huh?”
“I thought you might be married,” he says.
Is that relief I detect in his voice? Fuck him for that. I wish I was married just so I could rub it in his face. But between a full-time job in the ER and single motherhood, dating is at the bottom of my to-do list. I jerk my hand out of his. “That’s a weird thing to say.”
His eyebrows shoot up. He reaches for me again, but I step back. “No, listen –“
“All you had to do was say thank you, you didn’t have to –“
“Amina, I mean, Dr. Karim, she said you had a kid.”
My blood runs cold. She failed to mention that part of their conversation. “Yeah, I have a kid.” Kid is such a weird word. I hate referring to my child, my son, as just a kid.
It’s not fair to judge Rex for using that word either. He doesn’t know.
Doesn’t know my kid is his too.
“That’s great,” he says. I don’t believe him.
“Yeah, he’s a great… he’s a great kid.”
“It’s a boy,” he says and, oh, the way he smiles is heartbreaking. It’s not the smile he wears when he’s performing, eating up all the attention, posing on a magazine cover. It’s a smile of wonder.
The dissonance of our memories aches inside of me. A month of what was supposed to be self-contained fun for me changed my life. For him, it was just another woman in another town. “Yes, he’s a boy.” I touch my ring finger on my left hand like there’s a memory there even though there isn’t. “We can’t wear jewelry on shift. But I’m not married anyway.”
“Didn’t work out?” he offers. Hope curling the ends of his words.
I bite back a laugh and lock eyes with Rex. “No. Didn’t work out.”
The door opens and the redhead from his band, Blaise, enters with two cups of hospital coffee. “Oh, hi! Are you Dr. Delgado?”
I nod. “I am. And if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get on shift.”
Rex sits up. “Wait –“
“No thanks needed,” I mutter and push past Blaise harder than I mean to into the hall.
I’ve got to get focused. If I’m distracted on shift, I could fuck something up. And I can’t afford that in my line of work.
But Rex’s touch unlocked a flood of memories, ones I don’t touch for fear of heartsickness.
I’m so screwed.
Five Years Ago
He noticed the birthday girl from the stage while he and the band played a cover of “Kickstart My Heart”. He knew it was her birthday because of the crappy dollar store sash across her front painted with the words “Birthday Girl” scrawled in pink glitter across it.
But the sash was soon forgotten when he laid eyes on the rest of her. Long dark hair, a lush garden of waves, tan skin, and holy shit, those curves. She had a body no man could resist.
And she was watching him too, sipping on a drink, surrounded by her friends who were all chatting and giggling.
She was staring at him.
Not a hard feat considering he was the frontman of the band and the bar was so small and their sound was so loud. Still. Her gaze made him so nervous his palms started to sweat and his fingers tickled. He played the rest of the set on the brink, afraid he might mess up the next chord, the next lyric.
