Chapter 12
12
Melody
It was slow today in the ER, the best kind of day, so I actually managed to take a four-hour nap in the on-call room. My nurse bestie Shelly made it happen, since residents aren’t supposed to sleep away their shorter, eight-hour shifts. And the best thing about the nap, I managed not to dream.
Ever since San Diego I’ve been dreaming about it. Dreaming about the guys lying on the dirty floor of the clubhouse’s garage, trying to stay alive. Dreaming about them all dying because I couldn’t do a thing to save them.
Those nightmares are all scratching to get at the surface now, as I stand on the sidewalk outside the ambulance bay. It’s almost eight PM. Rogue is an hour late for our date.
The strange warm wind is tickling my skin from the inside out whispering that I’m a damn fool in a very shrill voice directly into my ear.
Of course, Rogue didn’t show up.
I should’ve known he wouldn’t.
But he had me totally fooled with those deep, intense gazes and grand gestures like spending the night on the beach just talking, and chasing after me right into the trauma room. The way he calmed that patient down had a lot to do with it too. She spent the rest of the day asking when he’d be back. Not until tonight, I told her at one point. A damn lie.
I’m no stranger to reading more into things that there is when it comes to guys.
While Edge might not have meant to be romantic when he killed the man who destroyed my life, I sure read that into it. I’d spent years pining over him, while he turned into more and more of a killer with no time for love or anything like it. He wasn’t the only one. And it took me a long time to finally accept that I’d find no love in that world. Not as a club girl. Not the kind of love I yearned for.
I’ve only just met Rogue but he’s already showed me a lot of his heart—and he has a huge heart. So, I let myself believe some of it could be for me. Let myself spend all day looking forward to tonight like some crushing teenager. Only to be left standing on the sidewalk alone on a windy and dark night.
But I’m not waiting a minute longer.
I need to find a place to live. I need to get some real sleep. And I need to stop thinking that Rogue is good for me. He’s not. He’s just the last tie to the world I left behind.
I have a new job and a career to worry about. And a new life to start.
I rush back into the ER and run smack into Shelly on her way out through the sliding doors.
“Whoa, you’re still here?” she says as she grabs my upper arms to steady me.
“Sorry,” I say. “I’m on my way out. Right now.”
“You find a place to live then?” she asks.
We had coffee in the lounge earlier and I told her how I haven’t had the time to go apartment hunting yet. Or hotel hunting, for that matter.
“I’ll do that right now,” I say and smile at her.
She shakes her head. “Doctors. You take care of everyone but yourselves.”
“That goes for nurses too,” I say and she shrugs.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I add.
“You should try the Sunrise Hotel a couple blocks down,” she tells me. “And tomorrow I’ll help you find an apartment. If you want.”
“Thanks, I’d really appreciate that,” I say and smile wider. “I don’t know my way around this city at all yet.”
“I figured,” she says.
She’s helped me a ton by recommending a hotel and I can already almost smell the clean, starched sheets that I’m sure will be waiting for me there.
“Hey, you’re Dr. Lockhart, right?” a woman I haven’t yet met calls out from behind the reception desk.
She’s about my age, with auburn hair and dressed in a tiger-print top, bellbottom jeans with frayed edges and a black blazer. If she didn’t have the hospital ID tacked to her lapel, I’d be sure she was a patient.
“Yes,” I say.
“I’m Andy, one of the admins,” she says. “We haven’t been introduced yet.”
I offer her my hand and smile. “Time to fix that.”
She shakes my hand, but then hands me a pink message slip right after.
“A guy named Rogue called, said he’s sorry he couldn’t make it tonight,” she says, eying me sideways.
Hope is flooding back into my chest and I feel like a total fool for getting so worked up before, while I was waiting for him.
“You sure you should be seeing a guy named Rogue?” Andy asks.
“No, I’m not sure at all,” I say and smile, feeling my cheeks heat up. Now that I know he called, I am a lot more sure than I was five minutes ago, though.
“He’s the guy from last night?” Shelly asks and I nod.
“Hey, if you don’t want him, I’ll take him,” Shelly says and laughs. “He’s hot. And very good with the ladies from what I heard.”
I don’t find what she said the least bit funny and I very nearly tell her that in no uncertain terms. As in, Back off, he’s mine. And I really hope the only ladies she’s talking about are Mrs. Diaz from this morning and the club girl from last night.
I cover up that over-the-top possessive reaction by chuckling too. “I think I’ll keep him for the time being. Did he leave a number?”
A phone at the admit desk is ringing, but Andy is in no hurry to go and pick up. “He said you should come by the clubhouse later and that you know where to find it.”
The phone keeps ringing and she finally starts moving towards it. “But yeah, he also left a number. I wrote it on the slip. I gotta go.”
Shelly is watching me very closely as I finally look up from reading the message slip, which says what Andy already told me it says.
“Sounds like a keeper,” she says.
I shrug. “Yeah, maybe he’s starting to.”
“But you’re not sure?” her eyes are serious, meaning she’s really asking, but I won’t be sharing all my secrets with her just yet. Even though I kind of feel like I could.
“Who’s ever sure, right?” I say. “I should get going.”
“To the clubhouse?” she asks, grinning again.
“Maybe,” I say. “Or not.”
“I can come too, if you want some company,” she says. “Or need like a wing woman or something.”
“Thanks, but I’ll probably just call and reschedule,” I say. “I’m dead on my feet and my head’s been spinning from lack of sleep all afternoon.”
And honestly, I still don’t want to rush into anything with Rogue.
“Gotcha,” she says. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She might be put out, it’s impossible to tell, since I don’t know her at all yet. I’ll take her to the clubhouse any other time she wants to come. But tonight, I need time to decide if I’m going there myself.
If I go, I’ll probably just stay.
And I still don’t know if that’s a good idea or the worst I ever had.