Chapter Eight #2
“Have you taken anything for the pain?”
“Couple of aspirin this morning.”
Sandra typed all of this into her computer faster than I ever would. I typed with one finger. It would’ve taken me an hour to fill out the form. “Insurance card?”
Greta dug through her oversized orange purse, producing a card she handed over. Sandra scanned it, handed it back, then printed out several forms on a clipboard.
“Have a seat and fill these out. Someone will call you back shortly.” She was already turning away, reaching for her water bottle.
“How shortly?” I asked, knowing you could sit in an ER for hours before you were called back.
“Depends on how busy we get. Right now, probably thirty to forty-five minutes.”
That wasn’t so bad.
Taking the clipboard, Greta headed for the nearest empty chair. I followed. She lowered herself with a grunt, telling me her foot hurt more than she was letting on. The chair creaked under her weight, and she immediately started filling out the forms with aggressive pen strokes.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Pulling it out, I saw Diesel’s name on the screen and stepped a few feet away before answering.
“Hey.”
“How is she?” he asked. His background was much quieter now. He must’ve stepped away from the garage.
“Her ankle is swollen, bruised purple, and she’s pretending it’s no big deal.” My free hand rubbed at my face, exhaustion settling in now that the adrenaline had worn off. “We’re at St. Mary’s, waiting to be seen.”
“Want me to come sit with you?”
I’d been so worried that my emotions were all over the place. Combined with the adrenaline dump, I nearly cried at the simple offer. I wanted Diesel here, but didn’t want him spending his Sunday in an emergency room.
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” I took a deep breath. “You don’t have to sit here with me.” Please sit with me.
“Didn’t ask if I had to. Asked if you wanted me to.”
Behind me, the toddler coughed, the wet, rattling kind that would make any parent worry. My concern spread outward to include an infant I didn’t even know, adding to the pile of worry already sitting in my stomach.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “Yes, please.”
“On my way.”
The call ended before I could tell him to take his time or that it wasn’t a big deal. He was coming because I needed him here before my worry extended to the entire hospital. I was an emotional mess. Sue me.
Returning to where Greta sat, I dropped into the chair next to her. The clipboard rested on her lap, half the forms filled out in handwriting that looked like it had been written during an earthquake.
“Diesel coming?” she asked without looking up from the paperwork.
“How did you—”
“You get this dopey look on your face when you talk to him.” She finished signing something and flipped to the next page. “Like someone hit you with a happy stick.”
“I do not.” Did I?
“You absolutely do. It’s cute. Nauseating, but cute.” Her pen scratched across the form, filling in medical history with brutal honesty. “He’s a good one, that Diesel. Doesn’t hurt that he looks like he could bench-press the world. Or maybe carry your worries on his broad shoulders.”
“Miss Greta.”
“What? I’m old, not dead.” She glanced at me, orange eyeshadow catching the fluorescent lights. “You better hold on to that one. Men who look like that and have functioning brain cells don’t grow on trees.”
The forms took another ten minutes to complete. Greta handed them back to Sandra, who scanned them before filing them away somewhere behind the desk.
“Someone will call you back soon,” Sandra repeated, already returning her attention to her computer.
Soon turned out to be a straight-up lie.
We sat in those uncomfortable chairs while the minutes crawled by.
The feverish toddler got called back first, his mother gathering their things and disappearing through the double doors marked “Authorized Personnel Only.”
Then the man with the arm injury. Then the limping teenager.
More people filtered in to replace them. An elderly woman with breathing problems. A construction worker with what looked like a nail through his boot. A college student who’d apparently gotten into a fight and lost.
Twenty-eight minutes after Diesel said he’d be here, the automatic doors slid open and he walked in.
Heads turned. The elderly woman with breathing problems suddenly remembered how to gasp. Sandra looked up from her computer, fingers freezing over the keyboard. Even the construction worker with the nail in his boot stopped grimacing long enough to stare.
Diesel had that effect on people. Six-four of tattooed muscle in a leather vest, moving through the waiting room like a mountain. His blue eyes instantly locked onto me as if he could sense where I was sitting.
He’s a wolf. Probably smelled you from the parking lot.
“Hey.” He crossed the distance in a few long strides and lowered into the chair on my other side. “You doing okay?”
“Better now.” There was no point in pretending.
“Hello, Miss Greta.” Diesel turned his attention to the woman in orange, offering a wink. “Heard you wrestled a porch and won.”
Greta’s face lit up like Christmas morning. She took his hand, holding it longer than necessary while her gaze traveled down his arm, taking in the tattoos. “Oh my. I forgot how handsome you are.”
“Miss Greta,” I said, but there was no real heat behind it.
“I’m making conversation, Oliver.” She still hadn’t released Diesel’s hand. “You know how to brighten someone’s day, Diesel.”
“I try.” Diesel’s mouth curved into a smile that was all trouble. “But my guy might get jealous when people hold my hand too long, Miss Greta.”
“I’m not jealous,” I said jealously, playing along to make Greta smile.
“Just a little.” But he reached for my hand, lacing our fingers together. The contact was exactly what I’d needed.
Greta watched our exchange with undisguised glee. “You two are adorable. Makes me want to vomit rainbows.”
“Please don’t,” I said. “We’re already in the ER. Let’s not add to the workload.”
She cackled, the sound drawing looks from several other people in the waiting room. Diesel’s thumb traced patterns on the back of my hand, the repetitive motion calming my frazzled mind.
“So what’s the verdict?” Diesel asked, nodding toward Greta’s elevated foot.
“We haven’t seen a doctor yet. Still waiting on someone to call her back.”
“It’s fine,” Greta interjected. “Just a little swelling. This one dragged me here against my will.”
“For good reason.” My free hand gestured at her ankle, which had somehow managed to swell even more in the last thirty minutes. “That’s not fine.”
“It’s character building.” Her gaze wandered toward the construction worker who was watching the mounted television.
“Injuries don’t build character. They build medical bills.” My words landed on deaf ears.
Diesel quietly laughed, his arm pressed against mine. Having him here made everything feel less overwhelming. The waiting room seemed less sterile. The fluorescent lights less harsh. Even Greta’s stubbornness felt more manageable.
“Greta Kowalski?” A nurse appeared in the doorway to the treatment area, clipboard in hand. Young, maybe mid-twenties, with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her scrubs had cartoon cats all over them.
“That’s me.” Greta started to stand then paused. “Can my boys come back with me?”
The nurse glanced at Diesel and me then shrugged. “Sure. Family’s allowed.”
We weren’t family. Not by blood, anyway. But the word settled something in my stomach that had been unsettled since Edith’s call this morning. Family was what you made it. Greta had decided we were hers, and that was good enough.
Following the nurse through the double doors, we entered a maze of hallways and curtained rooms.
The smell hit immediately—antiseptic and something underneath it that might’ve been fear or pain or both.
Machines beeped in various rooms. Someone coughed.
A doctor’s voice drifted from behind one of the curtains, explaining something about medication dosages.
The nurse led us to a room at the end of the hall, gesturing for Greta to sit on the examination table. Paper crinkled as she hoisted herself up, swinging her legs with effort.
“Doctor will be in shortly.” The nurse made a note on her clipboard. “In the meantime, let’s get your vitals.”
Blood pressure cuff. Temperature. Oxygen levels. The nurse worked through everything with practiced efficiency, recording numbers that meant nothing to me but seemed to satisfy her.
“All good,” she announced after the cuff deflated with a hiss. “Doctor Mitchell will be right with you.”
She disappeared through the curtain, leaving the three of us in the small room. Greta sat on the examination table, legs dangling. Diesel leaned against the wall, arms crossed. My spot was the plastic chair in the corner, the kind that had probably been uncomfortable since the hospital opened.
“This is ridiculous,” Greta muttered. “All this fuss over a bruised foot.”
“Let the doctor decide that,” I said.
“The doctor’s going to tell me to ice it and take some ibuprofen. Then we’ll have wasted an entire Sunday.”
“Or the doctor will tell you it’s broken and you need a cast. Then we’ll have caught it before it got worse.”