Chapter 10
10
TAYLER
This man helped with heavy lifting.
He helped with bandages, wound care, and IV catheter placement, and it wasn’t two hours before he stepped in to complete tasks without my prompting.
And I watched him.
I couldn’t help it.
The most interesting part was watching him when it came to Ari. Regardless of what their relationship was, or wasn’t, this was the mother of his child. What had caused them to separate probably fell by the wayside the minute shit hit the fan. I had a joke of an ex-boyfriend, yet I’d found myself wanting to call him when things went south.
Whenever Gage passed by the door to Ari’s room, he paused and peered inside. A couple of times, I caught him standing over her bed, and while it was clear that he loved this woman, I’d expected to see more intimacy. Instead, there was something protective about the way he interacted with her, but it wasn’t protective from the standpoint of a lover. It was something that straddled the line between friend and family.
It was also possible that I was seeing what I wanted to see. The mysterious green-eyed man had cleaned up, and he cleaned up quite nicely.
“You keep watching me, Doc.”
I blinked.
Gage was standing in the narrow doorway to the main area of our makeshift infirmary. The area housed eight beds for those I’d determined were safe to be among the public while being treated or recuperating. Ari’s state was too delicate to be around others, and I didn’t have to worry about Thandie. The rest of the clinic “staff” fought and stumbled over one another to keep an eye on her, all of them enamored by the presence of an infant.
We had children at our camp, the youngest of which was six. Children could make sense in a world like this. Babies, on the other hand, were more of an anomaly.
“You’re a good worker,” I said. “I’ve been watching you because I’m impressed.”
He folded his arms and leaned against the doorframe, his pale blue shirt snug against his biceps and chest. His jeans sat exactly where they needed to on his hips, stretching the entire length of his long legs down to his boots. Gage and Phil were around the same height, but jeans wore Phil, whereas Gage dominated denim and dark stitching.
“Still impressed, I see.”
I turned away and double-checked the lock on the cabinet where I kept a collection of composition notebooks. HIPAA no longer existed, but I continued to safeguard my patients’ medical histories. The goal was to rebuild a semblance of society, even if that meant clinging to the slippery edge of a sinking ship.
“What’s your story, Doc?” Gage asked.
I shrugged. “Do I have to have one?”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
“That’s fair, but right now’s work time.”
“I beg to differ. Right now’s lunchtime, and I haven’t seen you eat anything all morning.”
“Oh?” I faced him again. “So, who’s watching wh?—”
I didn’t hear him move.
Yet, he was right there, standing over me, wearing rubbing alcohol as if it were a five-hundred-dollar bottle of cologne. Who in the world was this man that he could make rubbing alcohol smell good?
“So, Doc…” He searched my face. “What’s for lunch?”
“I have work to do,” I said, the words rushing out as if I’d forgotten and remembered how to breathe all at the same time. “Plus, I don’t eat in the cafeteria. I see people all day. I prefer to eat alone.”
“You can eat alone with me.”
“Gage, are you…”
The remaining words faltered; I needed a moment to reinforce that it didn’t matter what his answer to my question would be. I wasn’t this person, and one man wouldn’t change that.
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Am I what, love?”
“Flirting,” I finished.
“Probably.”
“You should ‘probably’ stop. It’s not fair to Ari or your daughter. They need you. In a world like this, they’ll need you more than ever.”
As if a lightbulb went off over his head, he stepped back and ran a hand over his hair. A sigh sank his shoulders, and his brows came together in a low arch.
“You’re right,” he said.
I leaned against the nearest thing I could find—a questionably stable metal shelving unit—and folded my arms, needing a barrier between our bodies.
“What caused the separation between you and Ari?” I asked. “Can’t it be fixed considering our current circumstances?”
“I’ll tell you if you eat with me.”
“Gage, you just said?—”
“I know. Eat with me anyway. Outside of Ari and Thandie, you’re the only person I find myself wanting to talk to. You can’t deny that you’re a sort of comfort, Doc.”
It was a nice sentiment.
But I didn’t feel the same way.
I’d had the chance to save the world. I’d grown up watching all sorts of doctors and scientists come to the aid of the people in my favorite movies. I’d read about them in my favorite books. Yet, at the end of the day, real life didn’t hold its punches.
Sometimes, a person could do the right thing. They could make the right choices, employing logic and experience, only to end up watching the world burn alongside those who’d foolishly fed the fire—those who’d assumed that fanning the flames would have prevented them from being singed.
“This is a group of good people,” I reminded him. “Won’t hurt to get to know at least one more.”
“I understand that, but for now,” he jerked his head toward the door, “let’s grab lunch. Can’t tell you the last time I said that. Feels surreal, to be honest.”
“For what it’s worth, I hope you get to say it for a long time.”
“So do I, love.”
“Maybe don’t call me that.”
He shrugged, feigning more innocence than Thandie. “It’s just an expression. We say it all the time down under.”
His eyes glimmered.
I held back a smile, peeled myself off the shelving unit, grabbed my two-way radio, and called for someone to bring two meals to the clinic. Generally, I ate behind the building, where a picnic table had already been set up pre-doomsday. If it rained, I ate tucked away in an empty room. However, the door that led outside was close to Ari’s room, and I was in the mood for a bit of sunshine. Also, the prospect of sharing an empty, closed-in space with this man brought feelings of discomfort wrapped in something that felt too much like excitement for my liking.
“Follow me,” I said, walking past him.
He cleared his throat. “With pleasure.”
On the way outside, I called Carolyn to check on Thandie. In the background, we heard fussing and crying, so I had Carolyn bring Thandie to lunch with Gage and me. The minute Thandie saw Gage, the crying stopped, and she virtually leaped out of Carolyn’s arms, reaching for him.
When he took her, the look on his face told an entire story, and I hoped, for both our sakes, that whatever was going on between us was now behind us.
Lunch was some kind of white bean and Vienna sausage stew. Meat was a rare treasure, but beans wouldn’t be enough to get us through the winter. Hopefully, it wasn’t a harsh one, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we were hit by the very first hurricane-tornado-blizzard in human history.
Gage ate with one hand while he held Thandie in his other arm. On account of her not feeling well—as well as all the new faces, no doubt—she lay quietly against his chest, her eyelids low as she studied me.
“She doesn’t feel warm.” He pressed the side of his face against the top of her head. “A little clammy, yes, but clammy’s good, right?”
“It might mean she’s breaking the fever,” I said.
“God, I hope so. The last thing I want is for Ari to wake up only to be hit with a sick Thandie.”
“You got her to us right on time. You’re a good daddy. I can tell. I was a daddy’s girl myself, so I know what good daddies look like.”
Gage looked down at Thandie.
Thandie yawned and settled further into him.
“Where’s your father now?” he asked.
Considering that the infection had spread globally, I was sure my disabled father had fallen to it. It was hard enough living through something like this without having to rely on wheelchairs and other types of mobility assistance.
“Cuba. My mother died when I was younger. She was from Ghana.”
“What does the ‘D’ stand for?”
“Diaz.”
“Tayler Diaz. Noted.”
“Taking notes?”
“Yep.”
The way he swallowed another spoonful of stew, I would have believed it tasted like something from a five-star restaurant if I hadn’t been having some myself.
But I’d never faced true desperation.
Even during the time I spent with Omar traveling up from Atlanta, I never went long without being surrounded by the walls of a sanctuary. The food was never the best, but it was never scarce to the point of starvation.
I motioned to the woods on the other side of the fence. “How long have you and Ari been out there?”
He swallowed, his head cocked to the side. “I really couldn’t tell you. After she had Thandie, we holed up in the hospital until the National Guard came in to retrieve us. It took a while because they had to triage everyone. After that, we went back to Ari and Julien’s, stayed there until we were forced to evacuate, and made our way to the camp we were told had been set up. It’s all a blur now. I only know it’s been about seven months since the beginning because there was a calendar in one of the houses we squatted in for a couple of days. Somebody was marking off the days. We got there the day they stopped.”
I couldn’t judge anyone who chose to opt out. There were days when they seemed like the smarter ones. The idea of hope grew increasingly audacious as more and more time passed. Only time would tell whether the notion was rooted in foolishness or faith.
“By the way, who’s Julien?” I asked.
He stopped in the middle of bringing the last of his stew to his mouth. “Julien?”
“Yeah. You just said ‘Ari and Julien’s.’”
“Oh.”
He slipped the spoon between his lips.
So, I waited.
For nothing.
“Really, Gage?”
“It’s a?—”
“Long story,” I finished. I looked down at my bowl, where I’d started absent-mindedly swirling a bean around in the teaspoon of remaining broth. “‘It’s a long story.’ ‘It’s complicated.’ This is what you say, yet just minutes ago, you were begging me to have lunch with you. Said I was a source of comfort.”
The silence continued.
I raised my head.
“Julien’s a sensitive subject,” he said.
I studied his face and quickly picked up on the hidden words behind his expression. “Oh. Okay, then. Understood. So, what about Thandie? Where’s her name from?”
“An actress Ari likes. Thandiye Newton. We used to watch Mission Impossible 2 over and over when we were younger. I let my hair grow out for a bit because of it, and the more my mother wanted me to cut it, the longer I let it grow. Then, one day, she started playing with the strands and saying how the look grew on her. I got it cut the same weekend.”
I smiled. “Reverse psychology.”
“She was good at that, my mum.”
“Is she in Australia?”
“Nah.” He shook his head. “I lost my family long before all of this.”
Seeing as how all I appeared to be doing was stirring up pain for this man, I decided to switch gears one more time.
“So, you and Ari have known each other since you were kids?”
“Yep. Our fathers were colleagues. She has a twin sister named Moana—Mo, for short. Ari’s short for Arihi. They’re like my s...well, Mo’s like a sister to me. You may have noticed her hair.” He motioned to his head. “Mo and Ari are Melanesian.”
“That’s South Pacific, right?” I asked. “Beautiful people, if Ari’s any indication.”
“Yeah.” He scanned my face. “Beautiful.”
I searched for something else, anything else, to look at and picked the sleepy baby in his hold. As quiet as she’d been the entire time, her eyes had yet to close. Dots of sweat collected on her skin, and I hoped that once the fever broke, it stayed as far from her as possible.
Gage still hadn’t looked away.
“By the time you’re done, you’ll be able to paint my face,” I teased, meeting his eyes. “What could you possibly be thinking about while looking at me that… intently?”
“I’m trying to figure out where you came from,” he said.
“Well, I was born in Baltimore, but?—”
“That’s not what I meant, love.”
There it was again.
That word.
That simple sentence-ending stick of dynamite.
Thandie sneezed, but the interruption wasn’t enough to break his spell. Even as he patted her back and kissed the top of her head, he never shifted focus. And, like a fool, neither did I.
“How close are you and the Allen guy?” he asked. “Does he know you’re not in love with him?”
“I like him,” I said, not at all confident that I didn’t sound like I was trying to convince us both.
Gage snorted. “No, you don’t.”
“Was infidelity the cause of your separation from your wife?” I countered. “Remember them, Gage? Your wife and baby?”
He dragged his bottom lip between his teeth and leaned slightly forward. “So, about that?—”
Carolyn burst through the doors, arms flailing. “She’s awake! The woman? Ari? She’s up! And she’s asking for Gage and Thandie.”
After delivering the news as if it were a family member and not a woman she hadn’t yet formally met, Carolyn ran back inside.
“Remember Ari and Thandie, Gage.” I stood, gathering up my bowl and spoon. “The world isn’t what it used to be. I’m not as strong as I used to be.”
If he pushed, I didn’t trust myself not to bend. If he continued to push, I didn’t trust myself not to break. I was attracted to him; that much couldn’t be helped or denied. Hopefully, in trying to burn the attraction, I didn’t end up accidentally lighting a match.
“Be strong for them,” I added. “If you can’t, there are others in this camp who’d be more willing. Me, on the other hand,” I swung my legs over the bench seat, “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowing that I helped Ari when she was clinging to life only to betray her in the end.”
I walked off.
He called my name, but by the time it reached my ears, the door was already closing behind me.