2. Sametra
EIGHTEEN HOURS LATER
M y eyes flickered open as I registered the sterile quiet.
It was the unsettling kind. The kind that told me it was a requirement and not a request. Then came the beeps.
Sharp, annoying, way too loud for the way my head was throbbing.
My eyes landed on the white-ass ceiling tiles and that sterile hospital smell.
Damn. Something bad had happened. And I wasn’t dreaming.
“Ugh,” I groaned, dragging a hand to my forehead. My neck felt like somebody wrung it out and hung it up to dry. But I wasn’t paralyzed. I wiggled my toes, took a breath. Okay, still alive.
Which meant...
“Samaj,” I croaked. My throat felt like I’d swallowed a fistful of sandpaper. I tried to sit up, but immediately got hit with a coughing fit.
Strong hands caught me, lifted me up gently. A shiver ran through me that had nothing to do with the hospital AC.
“Hey, hey, calm down. You’re safe.”
The voice wasn’t Samaj’s.
“I’m going to help you sit up. And then I’ll ask you a few questions.”
The more he spoke, the more my body betrayed me and responded. This was a time of crisis. But that low southern, thick drawl made my stomach do flips and my pussy purr.
I coughed harder. Embarrassed. Shocked. Damn near disoriented for real now.
What the hell?
I blinked hard and looked over—and nearly blinked again just to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.
Standing next to my bed was...Lord.
Toffee skin. Broad shoulders. Beard shaped like he paid top dollar every Friday.
His white tee clung to him, showcasing the faint outline of perfect abs.
A gorgeous man, pretty-boy vibe, but not soft.
He just took care of himself. My brain was trying to catch up, but one thing I knew, he man assisting me was GQ cover fine.
“Can you tell me your name? What day is it?”
He leaned in and flashed a light in my eyes. Rude. But Lord, his eyes. I forgot my name. I was fighting for my composure as his hands grazed mine, helping me take the cup of water.
“Slow sips. Yeah, good,” he coached. I shifted and closed my eyes.
My heart rate picked up. His encouragement, those dark, intelligent eyes beautifully framed by long lashes, had my attention. Everything about him had me shook.
He was watching me check him out and seemed to be enjoying it.
He knew the effect he had on women, it was probably why he chose this profession.
He had an easy way to flirt and sleep with any woman he wanted to.
The jealousy I felt about this stranger caught me off guard.
I quickly gathered my thoughts because my mind needed to be on finding out if my son was okay, not on the potential man whore in front of me.
“Where’s Samaj, my son?” I repeated, more urgently this time, trying to get more comfortable.
“Easy,” he said, helping me once again. “Your son is stable. Conscious. Banged up, but he’s a fighter. He’s got a fractured femur and a dislocated shoulder. The surgery went well; Dr. Yerba is one of the best orthopedic surgeons in the country.”
Surgery. My baby had surgery while I was unconscious. The words hit me like aftershocks, and tears rushed to my eyes. I tried to get out of the hospital bed, but the IV line tugged at my arm, and dizziness slammed into me. I groaned.
“I said easy,” he repeated, this time with a gentle arm around my waist to ensure I didn’t fall.
“You’ve got a mild concussion and some bruised ribs.
Nothing like what your son went through, but enough to keep you down for a while.
You gotta chill, or I’ll have to get the nurses to restrain you,” he said, flashing a smile, head motioning towards the watching nurses.
Nosey ass heffa’s. My suspicions on him being a hoe were confirmed seeing them watch him like he was their late-night snack.
My mouth went dry, and I couldn’t tell if he was flirting with me or not.
It had been that long. I had male friends, booty calls, and men who would cut my grass for a chance, but none had stuck around, and absolutely none had made me forget my name.
And none of them smelled like this—whatever cologne he was wearing was working for him and doing things to my already scrambled brain that had nothing to do with the concussion.
“I need to see him.”
“You will. But first, your name and what day is it?”
“Sametra Jonelle Andrews, and it’s February 31st. Now, where is my child, and when can I see him?”
“Funny,” he said, letting out a low chuckle that rumbled through his chest and straight into my stomach. I smiled despite myself. He wasn't paying me any mind, completely unbothered by my deflection, which only made him more attractive.
This time when I looked at him, I forced myself to focus on him fully, beyond the face that belonged in magazines and the voice that soothed me like a glass of warm milk.
Beyond the way his shirt fit across his broad shoulders and the careful way his hands moved when he checked my vitals.
He was so calm and gentle, it was almost scary.
And not scary in a dangerous way, but scary in the way that challenged everything I thought I knew about men.
It was unsettling as hell.
“Let’s try that date again, huh?”
“Who are you? And I’m clearly coherent.”
“Dr. Malik Holloway. Physical rehabilitation and trauma therapy. I’ll be working with Samaj once he’s cleared to start PT.” He paused, studying my face. “And probably with you too, whether you want it or not.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Which part…Sametra or Ms. Andrews? My bad.”
“Sametra or MiMi, is fine.” I rubbed my temple, hiding my eye roll. Why the hell did I give him my nickname? I barely knew this man. “And what do you mean by ‘whether I want it or not’?”
“I figured that was it. It means I’m getting vibes.
Strong ‘I’m the boss’ vibes. Even stronger short people syndrome vibes.
You ain’t the boss in here,” he said with a wink and smile.
Even his mouth was perfect. And those slightly gapped pearly whites, I was doing my best to hide the fact that I was blushing.
“Is that an issue?”
“Absolutely, when it comes to ensuring you heal properly. Those listening ears gotta be turned all the way up.” He was definitely flirting, and that confirmed it. But he didn’t sugarcoat anything either. I understood that my line of work required people to give up control sometimes.
“And trauma doesn’t just happen to the person in the hospital bed. It happens to the whole family.” His tone stayed professional, but there was something warmer underneath. “How long do you think you’ve been out?”
“I don’t know. Hours?”
“Eighteen hours. Your pops has been here the whole time, splitting between you and Samaj. Your son’s been asking for you every time he’s awake.”
Eighteen hours. My baby had been scared and hurting for eighteen hours while I was unconscious, useless.
Guilt hit me like a physical blow. “He was awake before me?”
“On and off. The first thing he said when he came out of surgery was your name.” Malik’s expression softened slightly. “He’s scared, but he’s tough. So don’t do that. This is not a competition, and no one but you is thinking about you waking up first.”
Tears burned behind my eyes before I could stop them. I turned my face toward the wall, breathing slowly through my nose the way I’d learned to do at fire scenes when the emotion threatened to overwhelm the job.
“This is my fault.”
“The other driver ran a red light while texting. Now how is that your fault?”
“I was distracted. We were arguing, and I wasn’t paying attention…”
“Sametra.” The way he said my name made me look back at him. Direct, but not harsh. “You’re a firefighter, right? How many accident scenes have you worked?”
“Yeah, and too many to count.”
“You save lives for a living and still look this beautiful after a car accident? Yeah, I’m in trouble.”
“Excuse me?” I said with my eyebrows bunched together, but I couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up.
His smooth delivery made my pulse quicken.
Here I was, looking like death warmed over, and this fine-ass man was talking about being in trouble.
If anyone was in trouble, it was me. My mind had slipped into the gutter a few times since I laid eyes on him.
“Nothing,” he said, waving me off. “You know better than most that sometimes bad things just happen. Doesn’t matter how careful you are, how good a driver you are, how much you love the person in the passenger seat.
” He pulled a chair closer to my bed and sat down, bringing himself to my eye level.
“Blame won’t do anything but add more hurdles.
He needs you now. You two need each other. ”
I studied his face, looking for the platitudes and false comfort I’d grown to hate from well-meaning people.
Instead, I found kindness, understanding, and maybe a little poetry.
I was typically a glass-half-full type of woman, always looking for the lesson in the mess.
Maybe God was trying to tell me something through all this pain.
It felt crazy to think that way about an accident that nearly killed my son, but the truth was, we’d been drifting apart for months. Maybe this was our wake-up call.
“What happens now?”
“Now we wait for him to get stronger. Then we start the real work. We’ll be teaching his body how to move again, how to trust itself. It’s going to be hard, and it’s going to take time.”
“How much time? And don’t bullshit me.”
“Months. Maybe longer, depending on how he responds to treatment.” Malik leaned forward slightly. “And it’s going to be just as hard on you as it is on him. Maybe harder.”
“I can handle it.”
“Can you handle admitting when you can’t?”
Before I could respond, he walked out and came back with a wheelchair from the hallway.
“I think it’s time for you to take a ride in my Cadillac with a diamond in the back,” he said with the biggest grin, clearly proud of his corny joke. “Up for a visit?”