Chapter 24
24
J oan found herself in front of the med fridge, frowning at labeled vials neatly stacked on top of one another.
“It’s not in here. And it shouldn’t be in the fridge, anyway.”
She turned to Addie, who searched the bins. Addie shook her head when she was done.
“Not here, either. This is nuts.”
“I’m going to call the pharmacy. I can’t spend thirty minutes doing this.”
Mr. George in 304 needed Tablofen for his muscle spasticity, and she knew it should be on the unit somewhere. The patient had become uncomfortable and needed his dose before therapy that day. She picked up the phone.
“Did you check the Medstation?” The pharmacy tech projected so much boredom, it verged on downright rude.
“Yes.”
“And the patient bin?”
“I’ve checked everywhere.” Addie still stood near her, gathering something for one of her own patients. The other nurse met her gaze. She was short, with hair a blonde color similar to her own. She had a soft, sweet voice and a smattering of freckles splashed across her nose and cheeks. The exasperated expression she gave Joan made her bite back a smile.
“Alright. We can send some, but I’m going to have someone come check because we literally just delivered that this morning.”
She finished some of her other morning tasks. Celeste studied her as she zipped past the nurses’ station. The woman’s presence loomed over her despite Joan’s height advantage. Her curly red hair served as a fiery beacon for Joan’s worst nightmares, portending interrogations and hazing. She tried not to meet Celeste’s gaze, thinking of Medusa as she avoided eye contact.
Joan felt a little guilty about her recent impertinence toward Celeste. Not that Celeste didn’t deserve it, but Joan often felt guilty for things like that, even when she wasn’t the one in the wrong. A little burning ember of pride at standing up for herself mitigated some of that guilt.
The pharmacist, a thick-bearded man in glasses, arrived at the nurses’ station, looking harried. Sweat beaded his temple. She made her way to where he stood and thanked him for hand delivering the medicine.
“I’d like to check around real quick if you don’t mind. Our tech said she delivered it this morning and I don’t know where it could have gone.”
Joan shrugged and directed him to the patient bins. He shoved his glasses up on his nose with one finger and then looked in the bin for Mr. George. After scanning for a moment, he pulled out the wrapped Tablofen.
Joan’s mouth fell open. “I swear to you, that wasn’t in there earlier. I searched it from top to bottom.”
“Yeah, yeah. Just be absolutely sure next time.”
She gathered her breath, feeling mortified, as the pharmacist stalked off. Her heart pounded. She hated feeling stupid.
When she spun around, Celeste smirked at her. “He’s right. You are wasting valuable hospital resources when you can’t do things for yourself. Next time, he might be a little less willing to come help.”
“The medicine wasn’t there. I would stake anything on it.” Her voice sounded small and pinched. The tiny kernel of pride she’d sown dissolved then. She reverted to her usual accommodating self.
Celeste’s pitying countenance did nothing to boost her confidence. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think the woman set this whole thing up to take her down a peg.
As she worked into the afternoon, that idea took root. The awful suspicion grew the more Celeste threw smug looks her way. Joan pulled Addie aside near the end of their shift to vent her thoughts.
“I’ve done it before, too.” Addie transferred weight from one foot to the other, back and forth, as though nervous about even discussing such a thing. “Called the pharmacy, only for the med to turn up. It happens.”
“We both checked that bin, though. It makes absolutely no sense.” She tapped her chin. “Isn’t there surveillance in there?”
Addie shook her head. “There’s a camera on the Medstation, but that’s it. Not for any of the other places we keep the meds.”
“Rats.” Joan wanted to scream. “Wonder how I could prove it?”
“I don’t know, but if Celeste did that, she’d get written up for sure. That’s a pretty bad thing to do. I don’t think she would jeopardize herself like that.”
Joan thought it might be a fireable offense, but she didn’t say so. Addie wasn’t willing to believe anything that bad about Celeste, though, and she had worked with her longer than Joan. Her shoulders drooped.
“Alright. You’re right, I’m sure. Plus, she does seem to be concerned about patient care, and I don’t think she would let someone suffer just to make me look bad.”
Still, Joan thought, she’d have to watch for other incidents. She wouldn’t let Celeste derail her job.
“I’m getting the hang of this now,” Kendall said to Lucas as they selected bowling balls. Kendall chose a sparkly, bubblegum pink one.
“Of course you are,” Lucas said. “I never doubted.”
Joan watched the two of them, happy Lucas got along with her other friends.
One of Lucas’s friends, Paulo, an absolute giant of a man from American Samoa, lifted his bowling ball off the shelf. The phrase “gentle giant” seemed too reductive, but it almost fit him. He was at least 7 inches taller than Joan and he had biceps the size of barrels, but he was shy, and seemed like he would go out of his way to give up his seat on a train. Or stop a speeding train, for that matter. The man looked like he could wrangle a tornado out of the sky. He gave her a bashful smile.
“I like the shirt,” he said, and his cheeks pinked. She glanced down at her “I don’t give a split” T-shirt with a picture of two bowling pins and a banana split underneath.
“Thanks. You look nice, too.” His button up stretched across his wide shoulders, and he’d gelled his hair.
They took their seats. Eric rounded out the last of their group, giving them five players that night, so they played as individuals so as not to have odd numbered teams.
“How’s your sister?” Eric asked when Joan sat next to him. The edges of his golden cheekbones reddened a little, which was adorable and also quite interesting. There was lots of blushing going on that night, though she suspected Eric’s response differed from Paulo’s in the underlying impetus.
“Super annoying,” Joan said, but she smiled. “She’s good. She might be here for our last week of bowling if you want to join.”
Eric rubbed his chin. “I think I will, actually.” The tips of his ears were red, too, and Joan would have teased him if he didn’t already seem so embarrassed. He’d met Christine a handful of times at social outings, but apparently she’d made an impression.
Lucas plopped down next to her, casual-like, though he leaned in to lay a hand on her shoulder. He surreptitiously swept his thumb along the side of neck, and heat moved through her body, starting in her toes and blooming. When he leaned in to speak into her ear, he kept enough distance to seem friendly, but Joan found herself clenching her thighs together.
He hesitated before he spoke. A moment slipped by, a breath of time suspended where she imagined balancing on the precipice of changing their relationship forever.
“You look delicious,” he whispered, and that one word landed like a bomb on her senses. He’d hardly ever complimented her appearance—once, during some ridiculous youth group bonding exercise in high school where they were supposed to compliment each other, he’d told her he liked her sideburns, and that she had minty breath.
So they were going to flirt. Several responses flickered through her mind: Is it the banana on my shirt? being among them. She was feeling bold, though, so she turned to him, hoping to keep her face from betraying anything. Eric had gotten up to bowl, so no one else was within ear shot.
“So you want a taste, is what you’re saying.”
His mouth dropped open, and for a moment he seemed utterly speechless. Ha! She’d shocked him. He raked a hand down his face, seeming to drag some of his sanity with it. His eyes were heavy when he looked at her again.
Remembering the public setting, Joan glanced around. Kendall sat across from them, talking to Paulo. Her voice carried in the space. When Kendall looked at Joan and Lucas, she could swear she furrowed her brow. Joan hadn’t planned to tell her friends about her—what, sex therapy? she would need to find a different way to phrase it—with Lucas, and she still wasn’t sure she would. She thought they might warn her away. They loved Lucas, but he was in love with love, and it was bound to blow up if they weren’t careful. Joan had other reasons for holding back from actually dating Lucas, namely that she wasn’t sure her problem could truly be fixed, and if Lucas wasn’t okay with that, it would hurt her irreparably. So this arrangement remained ideal, whether or not their friends would understand that.
“Hey Coleman!” Kendall yelled at her, using her last name like a frat boy. She grinned when Joan swiveled to face her. “You think you can take me?”
Joan smiled back at her. “For sure.”
Kendall had improved, and that night, Joan played one of her worst games ever. She watched her first throw slide into the gutter. She wasn’t sure she even cared. Lucas’s weighted, hot stare skipping down the length of her body distracted her. Was that all it took to thwart her competitive spirit? She was a little disappointed in herself.
At one point, Lucas settled in behind her to “fix” her form. He brushed his fingers down her forearm to rotate her hand. He stood much too close to her as he pulled her arm back, his breath warm on her neck. They probably looked innocent to those around them, but his proximity set her on fire.
His voice dropped an octave. “Like this,” he said.
She didn’t need his help with bowling, but his gentle touches made her want to sit in his lap. She could hardly think straight. Her breath came in short, staccato bursts.
She didn’t win, needless to say. Kendall looped her arm through Joan’s on the way to the bathroom.
“I actually beat you for once,” Kendall said. She smiled at Joan. “Not in raw score, obviously, but still.”
Joan laughed. “I played terribly.”
“You still did much better than me. But I know it means more to you.” They turned the corner to the restroom.
Joan shrugged. “It’s just a game.”
Kendall gasped and laid a hand on her chest. “Who are you?” She narrowed her eyes. “What’s up with you, for real? You were in la la land out there. Are you alright? Or is something going on?”
Joan hesitated. “I’m good,” she said. “Just kinda tired.”
Kendall accepted this without protest, though she stared at Joan with more frequency once they returned to their friends.
The next game was only a little better for her in terms of performance, but she still enjoyed sneaking glimpses at Lucas amid the other antics. She and Kendall joked about Paulo’s bowling ball looking like a tennis ball in his huge hands. Lucas advanced toward assured victory when he sat next to her again.
He laid his arm on the chair behind her. He crossed one ankle over his knee, somehow managing to make the bowling shoes he wore look charming. He brushed a thumb down the side of her spine, leaving a fluttery, wicked want in its wake, so potent she wanted to melt into the floor. She had no idea how they’d avoided this wonderful, awful yearning for the majority of their friendship. She trembled, and his answering stare was positively feral.
When they all parted ways, Lucas walked Joan to her vehicle. Joan stopped by her car and leaned against it. The driver’s side faced the edge of the parking lot, hiding them from view.
“Is this weird?” The warmth of her car’s metal seeped through her shirt. She eyed Lucas.
“I think it’s fun.” Lucas pitched toward her a little. He thought everything was fun, of course. The world was his playground.
He put a flat palm on her car, bracketing her on one side, and it was so comically smooth that she found herself giggling at him.
“Am I seeing your moves? Tell a girl she looks delicious and then pin her against her car?”
“I’ll have you know that this was all spontaneous.” He didn’t move. “So what happens now, Betty?”
The sodium lights threw faint illumination over them as she stared at him. She liked that they were nearly eye level—she’d dated shorter men, and it didn’t bother her, but this was convenient. She also didn’t like for men to tower over her, which always felt inexplicably intimidating. Lucas had a bit of chest hair peeking out of his polo shirt, and for reasons she couldn’t fathom, it struck her as incredibly sexy. She wanted to run her fingers through it.
“I always get nervous about kissing,” she said. “It feels like the situation starts to come loose from my control, and then I’m expecting pain, which isn’t very relaxing.”
He looked over each shoulder. “This can’t really go any further. No beds here.”
“No, there aren’t.”
“Jo.”
“Luke.”
“Are you on board? It’s okay to back out. No harm.”
They eyed each other. If the flirting, the dancing, the massage, and the discussion of their deal served as preludes to change, then kissing would be the event they might not get to come back from. Like breaking a mirror, she thought. All the pieces could be there, but they might not be able to arrange them the same way again, as much as she trusted their friendship.
But damn. She wanted it.
She grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled him toward her, tipping forward slightly to catch his lips with hers. He jolted in surprise, then planted his hands at her waist as he kissed her back.
She pulled away. “Is that okay?”
His dark hair had curled a little at the ends. He darted his tongue out to lick at his bottom lip, and her responding rush of arousal was acute enough to shock her. The sensation made her almost literally weak at the knees, though she’d always thought that to be a silly notion.
“Hell yeah.” He reached for her, but let her take the lead again. She felt electric with power, like she could light the parking lot, the entire city.
She kissed him again, starting slowly, then deepening it, finally touching her tongue to his. A wave of dizzy disbelief collapsed over her as she kissed her best friend, learning his mouth for the first time, angling her head for better contact, realizing he tasted of peppermint. Lucas moaned, and the sound was so obscene she pulled his body to hers, suddenly starving for more contact. They rolled their hips together, and Lucas broke away to trail frantic kisses down the side of her neck. He leaned his forehead against hers, breathing hard.
“Jesus Christ,” he said. “What even is this?” With that admission, her last tether to reality broke loose and floated away. They were gulping for air, eyes closed against the onslaught of sensation.
This time he leaned in to capture her lips, and they were even more feverish. She lined up with him, pelvis to pelvis, and felt him hard against her. Lucas shivered, and when she emitted a breathy moan several registers below her normal speaking voice, he broke the kiss with a whimper.
“Is it ever like this for you?” he asked, panting.
“No. Never.” She pulled him into her, grinding on him a little.
“Oh, God.” He let his head fall back. “Do you know how many times I imagined this in high school?”
She brushed a hair away from his face. “Do you always talk this much when you kiss someone?”
“I was just thinking the opposite of you. I’ve never seen you this quiet.” He kissed her again, their tongues tangling and hands wandering. Normally at that point she would have been clenching her pelvic floor in anxiety, but she felt relaxed and, more importantly, in control. Lucas ran his hands along the backs of her thighs, up and down, playing with the hem of her shorts. He trembled, and she gripped his shoulders as though pinning him in place. She pressed into him, wanting friction, and he moved against her, trapping her against her car. They kissed for minutes, hours, days. It was hard to tell. Joan finally leaned back. He tugged her closer to him again, and a tiny thrill moved through her.
She laid a head on his shoulder, trying to calm her racing heart.
“I can’t get over this,” she said softly. “Right?”
“ Yes. God.”
She leaned forward to kiss Lucas on the neck, and he shuddered again. “I thought that would be weird, but it’s not. Or if it is, only a little.”
“Yeah. Nothing to worry about, huh?” He kissed the corner of her eye.
Her exhilaration buoyed her. She was a floating fairy light, a weightless cloud, and she couldn’t believe her best friend could make her feel that way. She didn’t understand how they’d been missing out on this.
“Can we do that again?” He cupped the back of her neck.
Instead of answering, she caught his lips with her own. They didn’t leave the parking lot for a long time.