Chapter 18
“You’re looking awfully sexy in that white coat.”
I chuckled, turning to face Marie in the locker room on Monday morning. “Yeah?” I looked down at my name and post-nominal letters embroidered above the pocket as I smoothed my hands down the front with a sheepish smile. “Honestly? It feels a little weird.”
“Don’t let it feel weird,” she scoffed. “You earned that shit, sweetie. Own it. And that’s coming from someone who now has to take orders from you.”
“Go get me a coffee,” I joked. “Stat.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” she fired back playfully, earning a laugh from me.
I couldn’t help but check my watch, then scan the door, wondering if Blake was going to make it in today. The thought lingered with a low thrum of anticipation I couldn’t quite shake as I reached into my locker to grab my new badge.
Stopping by his place on Friday was entirely unnecessary on my part.
However, when I spoke with Dr. Tomblin that morning during a meeting to review some details for my new role in the ER, and she mentioned that she still needed some forms signed by him, I jumped at the chance.
Between watching him zone out at work and then seeing him leave a couple of hours later, I was worried about him.
It gave me an excuse to check on him, so I took it.
One look at him when I got to his place told me he wasn’t himself.
He looked like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
And then I saw the state of his house. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t Blake.
It looked completely different from how it did when I was there while he was helping me study.
Whatever Blake was going through, he clearly didn’t want to talk about it.
I knew pushing him would probably only make him retreat more.
Still, I wanted to help in some way, even if it was in a small way.
Making him lunch and tidying up weren’t much, but they felt like the only ways I could do something without crossing too much of a line.
I held back from doing more, half-afraid he’d notice and interpret it the wrong way.
Part of me was relieved he didn’t pick up on it while I was there.
Marie called out that she would see me out on the floor before walking out of the locker room. I turned, grabbing my stethoscope and draping it around my neck just as the door opened.
I glanced over…and there was Blake.
“Morning,” I said gently.
He met my gaze as he moved to his locker. “Good morning.” I watched him slip his bag inside and grab his coat, sliding his muscled arms into the sleeves. “You ready for today?”
I smiled. “As ready as I can be.” I could still see a tiredness in his eyes, but he seemed to be a bit better.
He continued to hold my stare as he shoved a couple of pens into his pocket and grabbed his stethoscope. “Nervous?”
“A little,” I answered honestly.
“Don’t be. You’ll be fine.” Blake shut his locker, then he glanced around before taking a few steps toward me. “Hey, uh…I wanted to say thank you…for what you did at my house Friday.”
I waved a dismissive hand. “You don’t have to thank me.”
“Yes, I do.” His eyes searched mine, and I could see them flicker with genuine sincerity.
“You didn’t have to do that, Haley. And I—I know you might think of it as something small and insignificant, but I…
” He let out a breath, his voice softening.
“I can’t tell you how much it actually meant… and helped.”
The gratitude in his voice genuinely took me aback, because I honestly didn’t see what I’d done as anything monumental. But I nodded softly. “You’re welcome.”
He held my stare for another heartbeat before he cleared his throat. “Alright…I stopped by and gave those papers to Dr. Tomblin on my way in, so she has everything she needs. So, let’s get out there and find out who your first patients are going to be.”
I looked over at him and smiled as we walked out of the locker room together.
The next few hours flew by, the atmosphere in the ER buzzing with energy.
And—not that I had any doubt—Blake was an excellent teacher.
He was patient. He knew I was nervous, but he didn’t jump in to “save” me in those moments I hesitated.
Instead, he guided me with questions and let me figure things out on my own.
I appreciated it because I didn’t want to be coddled.
I even got to suture a patient for the first time—with their permission—while he sat beside me, explaining a few techniques I didn’t know about.
By lunchtime, I was riding high from how smoothly my first day was going. In honor of that, Blake said lunch was on him and ordered subs from Gusto.
Later, we settled into the breakroom. We were mid-conversation, discussing lab results on one of our patients while eating our subs, when my phone buzzed on the table with an incoming message.
I glanced at the screen, looked away, then snapped my eyes back, doing a double-take.
On the screen was a notification of a message from Brett. As in my on-again, off-again ex of three years, who got engaged six months ago, Brett.
Brett
Hey, you. It’s been a while…
I stared at my phone, my sub clutched in my hands.
“Another ex?” Blake quipped from across the table.
His voice pulled me from my stupor, and my eyes lifted to his. His words were lighthearted, meant to be a joke in reference to the message he saw from Ryan while I was studying with him.
I let out a forced chuckle. “Actually…yeah. It is another one…”
He paused mid-bite into his sub. “Oh…?”
I looked back at the screen, confusion swirling in my chest. Why was he messaging me now? After all this time? It’d been a year and a half since I last heard from him. He was engaged now.
“Everything okay?”
I looked back at Blake, letting my lock screen fade to black. “Yeah,” I said with a nod. “Yeah, everything is fine.”
I went back to my sub, not elaborating further. And despite sensing the curiosity in his gaze, he didn’t ask me to.
That message messed with my head for the rest of the day, but I couldn’t pinpoint why.
There were no residual feelings on my end for Brett.
That was a closed chapter in my book. It was confusing, however, to hear from him after so long, especially since he was engaged.
Because before we ended things for good, during our many breaks, he’d send similar messages when he wanted to reconcile.
This time, the only thing missing was the “I miss you.”
I didn’t respond to him. And I had no plans to.
Dusk was settling by the time I stepped out of the hospital after my shift ended. I walked to the employee parking lot, fumbling for my keys in my purse as I neared my car, when I heard footsteps.
“Hey, wait up!”
I turned to see Blake walking toward me. “Yeah?”
“Do you have something to do right now?”
My brow furrowed. “No. Just…going home. Why?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, the movement making his large biceps flex beneath his navy blue scrubs. “I can tell that message earlier kind of messed with your focus. So, I thought maybe I could take you up to the Anchor for a venting session.”
My brow arched slightly as the corner of my mouth lifted. “A venting session?”
“Yeah…” He let out a breath with a small smile. “Consider it my way of helping you the way you helped me.”
“By getting me drunk?” I quipped.
“No, smartass,” he said as he playfully rolled his eyes. “By being a listening ear over a drink. My treat.”
“What about Maverick?”
“I already texted my brother, and he’s at my house as we speak. Mav is in good hands.”
I stared at him, my smile growing slightly as that thing in my chest fluttered. He was adorable right now. Adorably sexy. “Fine. But I’m driving. I’ll bring you back to get your car.”
Blake huffed out a laugh. “Deal.”
I gestured to my jeep. When I unlocked it, we opened the back doors, slipping our bags into the backseat before moving to the front.
When Blake slid into the passenger seat, he laughed just as I shut my door. “How the hell do you not get distracted while driving with all these damn ducks in the window?”
I did have a lot of ducks. “I’m so used to them being there, I don’t even notice them anymore.”
He shook his head with a laugh as I situated myself in my seat. I reached down, slipping my hand into my pocket and pulling out a handful of supplies—gauze, alcohol wipes, tape, whatever else I stuffed in there earlier.
When I reached over and popped the glove compartment open, a snort of laughter escaped him as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Haley,” he said, his voice playfully scolding.
“Listen, do not judge me!” I said through a chuckle, trying to defend myself for having my own medical supply in my car.
“It’s an accident. I’ve always kept my pockets stuffed so I have things on hand, and then I forget that they’re there.
And the white coat pockets are going to make it so much worse because they’re bigger and deeper and can hold more. ”
He looked over at me. “You’re a mess…”
“Yeah…I am,” I nodded with a sheepish smile.
I pulled out of the parking lot and headed up the street away from the hospital, pulling into The Rusty Anchor a couple of minutes later.
When we walked inside, Blake went to the bar while I grabbed a table in the back by the window—it happened to be the same table I saw him sitting at that night all those months ago.
A few moments later, Blake approached, a beer in one hand and a mojito in the other. Sitting across from me, he slid my glass my way and took a pull from his drink. “So…tell me about these exes that keep messaging you…”
I took a long sip of my drink before letting out a breath.
“Well, in simple terms, according to Marie, I tend to go back to my exes. She says it’s because they’re familiar.
It goes hand-in-hand with what Wes always said—that I am the epitome of an ‘I can fix him’ girl, that my heart is too big for my own good, and that I offer too many chances, even when they don’t deserve it. ”
“And would you say those are accurate assessments?”
I nodded, playing with the condensation on my glass.
“Yeah. I am an ‘I can fix him’ girl. I tend to overlook being disrespected and not treated that great because I always think they’ll change—that they’ll want to change and be better.
And I seem to have a habit of giving too many chances because of it. ”
“You want them to change for you?”
I laughed wryly. “It’s pathetic, I know.”
“It’s not pathetic.”
“But it is. Especially when they end up changing for other people instead, making all the effort you put in feel like a complete waste.”
“What do you mean?”
“One of them—the one who messaged me today—he got engaged a year after we ended things. So, in just a year, he found someone, dated them, and decided they were worth changing for.”
“Well, how do you know he changed?”
“He proposed to someone. What do you mean?”
“Just because he proposed to someone else doesn’t mean he’s not the same man you walked away from, Haley. He could have just found someone stupid enough to put up with his bullshit.”
“Huh…” I stared at him. “I never thought of it that way.”
Blake smirked with a wink. “You gotta make the logic work in your favor.”
A laugh bubbled out of me. “I’ll have to remember that.”
“There’s something I’m not understanding, though,” he said. “Before, you recognized that you’re being treated like shit by these guys, so why keep putting yourself through the same thing when you know damn well it’s less than you deserve?”
A quiet, bitter laugh escaped me. “I don’t know. I guess…I guess somewhere along the way, ‘less’ is what became familiar.”
Just like Marie always told me—I favored familiarity. And less was part of that.
Because, pathetically, I allowed it.
I glanced up to see Blake staring at me intently, seemingly caught off guard by my confession.
“That shit needs to stop,” he said, his tone serious. “You don’t need to fix anyone, Haley. Because they’ll fix them damn selves all on their own to be worthy of you. And anyone who sees or treats you as anything less than what you are isn’t worth the fucking air you breathe.”
I smiled, letting out a breathy, awkward chuckle at his declaration.
“Don’t laugh,” Blake said, shaking his head. “I’m dead serious. I want you to promise me that shit ends now. That from here on out, you won’t put up with anyone’s bullshit. That you won’t accept anything less than what you deserve.”
My brow arched. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously. Say it.”
“Fine,” I said, letting out another laugh. “I promise.”
Blake flashed a satisfied grin. “I’m going to hold you to that.”