Chapter 17 #3
On their last full day they’d spent the morning in Muir Woods, a few miles outside of the city, where the huge redwood trees had taken Eve’s breath away.
She’d walked side by side with Felix, her fingers so close to brushing against his that it had felt as though electricity was pulsing between them.
Yet somehow she still couldn’t bring herself to tell him how she felt.
There were too many people around and she didn’t want to just blurt it out while he was driving the hire car back over the bridge to the city.
Now they were back in San Francisco, and as he parked the car it felt as if time was running out.
‘What do you fancy doing with our last few hours, we could go to the—’ Felix suddenly stopped talking, his head turning sharply to the left, and when Eve followed the direction of his gaze she could see why.
There was what looked like a body lying in an empty parking space, where a vehicle could pull in at any moment.
‘Do you think he’s dead?’ Eve couldn’t keep the horror out of her voice, but Felix shook his head.
‘I can see his chest moving.’ He breathed out slowly. ‘I’ve picked up fentanyl addicts from this parking lot before when I worked at the clinic. I’m going to need to try and get him some help, even if he doesn’t want it.’
‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘Come with me to the clinic. That’s if they agree to take him in and he agrees to go.’ Felix turned to look at her. ‘I haven’t been back there since everything with Meredith and I’m not sure I can face it on my own.’
‘Of course.’ Eve could see the pain etched on his face and it was a reminder of what losing Meredith had done to him.
Going back to the clinic was going to be so tough on him, but Felix clearly wasn’t thinking about himself as he got out of the car and strode over to the man, and that just made her like him even more.
* * *
‘That wasn’t quite the way I’d have chosen for you to spend your last afternoon in San Francisco, and this wasn’t quite the last dinner I’d have planned for us either.’ Felix set down the pizza he’d bought, and she handed him one of the beers she’d just taken from the mini fridge in her hotel room.
‘I don’t know, this feels very authentic.
Takeaway pizza and beers, with American football on the TV.
’ They were watching a re-run of the most recent Superbowl and she wanted to tell him that she was just glad to be spending the evening with him, whatever that looked like.
It had been a long day and their visit to the clinic had been an eye-opener.
It had been heartbreaking to see the people waiting in the drop-in centre, begging for a hit of something to tide them over until they could score again.
There were all kinds of addictions amongst those waiting, but the fentanyl addicts looked by far the most tortured of all the desperate souls.
They needed to be numbed from reality so badly that they were willing to anaesthetise themselves, rather than feel anything at all, and it had suddenly struck Eve that, in a way, she’d been doing the same thing.
She buried herself in work and her duty to Max and his mother so that she didn’t have to feel the pain of losing what they’d had together, or be forced to admit that she wanted more from life than she had now.
But she didn’t want to keep pretending any more.
Max had shown her around the clinic, after the care of the man they’d found in the parking lot had been handed over to some of his former colleagues, who’d assessed the patient to see what they could do to help.
As well as the drop-in centre, the clinic had in-patient facilities and the difference between those going through the various stages of recovery was startling.
There were new admissions who were so painfully thin they were almost skeletal, with clumps of hair missing and skin so grey Eve would have sworn they were already dead if she hadn’t known better.
Then there were those further down the line in their recovery, who had the life back in their eyes again, and all kinds of improvements to their physical appearance.
There were none who didn’t appear physically scarred in some way by their experiences, though, and some of the recovering addicts had a condition called ‘fentanyl fold’.
It was caused by the drug depressing the central nervous system, which stopped the brain from sending messages telling the body to stand upright.
For some long-term users, it had led to chronic muscle weakness, as a result of spending prolonged periods bent over, and it was one of the things Felix had focused on as an OT.
Eve had been so impressed by the work being done and what Felix’s former colleagues had said about him, which had just solidified everything she’d already thought about him. Felix Grainger was a very special man and she knew now, with 100 per cent certainty, that he was worth taking a risk on.
‘If we were here for longer and it was the right time of year, I’d have taken you to a proper game.
’ Felix flipped open the lid of the pizza box and handed it to her.
They were sitting side by side on the sofa in her hotel room and there were nerves bubbling in the pit of her stomach, because she knew it was now or never.
‘I’d have no idea what was going on.’
‘Even after all the time I spent living here, I still don’t really know, but it’s the whole atmosphere that’s brilliant. Although, I’ve got to admit that baseball is my favourite and the season’s just got underway.’
‘That’s like rounders, right?’
Felix laughed. ‘Whatever you do, don’t let any Americans hear you make that comparison.’
‘Okay, so is it like cricket? Because to be honest, I’d rather watch paint dry.’
He laughed again. ‘Talk like that will get you deported.’
‘I kind of wish we didn’t have to go home at all.’ It was something else Eve hadn’t meant to say out loud. ‘At least not yet.’
‘So do I.’ He looked at her and the frisson of nerves in her stomach went into free fall.
‘It’s like we’re in a bubble here, isn’t it? Almost as if nothing back home exists.’ She held her breath, waiting for him to answer and when he did his voice was low.
‘But it does and we will be going back there, so I don’t want you to regret anything.’
‘Didn’t someone wise once say that the only things you regret in life are the things you don’t do?’ Her heart was thudding in her ears now, and her stomach did another flip as Felix smiled.
‘Wise or stupid, I’m not quite sure, but I want you to be. Sure, that is.’
‘Does this convince you?’ She set the pizza box down on the floor and leant forward, pressing her lips against his, her hands sliding inside the back of his T-shirt as she pulled him towards her.
He kissed her back in a way that made it obvious Lily had been right, he wanted this every bit as much as she did.
The kiss left her breathless when he finally pulled away.
‘Pretty convincing.’ Felix smiled that gorgeous slow smile of his, that had hooked her on the first day they’d met. ‘But I think we better try it again, just to make sure.’
‘Okay, if you insist.’ She grinned, before leaning towards him again, suddenly as certain of where this was going as she was of how much she wanted it to happen.