Chapter 9 #2
I hummed as I moved toward the nurses’ station, my gaze scanning the big whiteboard as I got a look at the day’s patients.
I crossed my arms over my chest, taking in everything, and then got to work.
“Awww, man!” I heard someone mutter. “I wanted the heart surgery.”
My lips quirked but I kept writing, pairing nurses with doctors that I knew worked well together.
Also, one got the short straw and was assigned to work with Dr. Aggie for the day.
But, because I was a fair person, I kept notes in my phone app and made sure that it was the next person up.
The sad thing was, not a single nurse in the entire surgical ward wanted to work with him, and human resources didn’t give a single fuck that they didn’t. All they cared about was the bottom line, and it was my job to force them to toe that line.
I didn’t choose favorites, and everyone got a turn with the creep, even me.
But today wasn’t my day, thank God.
I wouldn’t have been able to handle him with my current attitude.
“All right, ladies.” I clapped my hands. “Any questions?”
There were a few groans at my chipper attitude—feigned as it was—but mostly everyone smiled back at me.
“Only one, boss lady.” One of our newest, and youngest, nurses asked, “Is Mr. Hotty over there with you?”
I turned around to find Finnian leaning against the wall by the wing’s entrance, and I felt my belly start to fill with butterflies.
“Uhh.” My mouth went completely dry. “Yeah…”
“Hey, brother,” Chevy said as he passed his friend. “You’re not here for me this time, are you?”
Finnian shook his head, a smile curving his lips.
It was so languid and lazy that I felt the move in my dusty, covered-in-cobwebs vagina.
“I was sure hoping that coffee was for me,” he grumbled. “Catch you later.”
“Later,” Finnian said as he waited patiently for me.
I turned back to the nurses, patient care technicians, and all other staff personnel who would be keeping patients alive today. “Let me know if I can help.”
Everyone left, and I moved to my computer to sign in to make sure that I didn’t have anything I needed to take care of immediately before heading toward Finnian who was still patiently waiting for me to come to him.
Why was it such a turn-on that he was so patient and didn’t push?
And why was he here?
I walked up to him and said, “What are you doing here?”
His full lips quirked at the edges when he extended his hand and held out a coffee toward me.
I looked at the cup. “Umm…”
“Don’t worry.” He chuckled. “I hacked into your email and got the exact thing you order and where. It’s your usual.”
Not believing him, but thankful that he’d put forth the effort to get me something, I took a hesitant sip.
Then my eyes widened. “You got me my actual order!”
“I told you I hacked into your email,” he teased.
I had no clue how he’d gotten my order, but I imagined he’d called up here to ask.
Or asked his friends.
Aella would know my order.
Chevy might, but my bet was on Aella.
“Well, thank you,” I replied softly, my heart now in my throat at the thoughtful act. “I didn’t have time to do it today.”
Well, I might’ve had time, but I certainly didn’t have the money.
I didn’t get coffee very often, so this was definitely a treat.
“You’re welcome.” His eyes took in my face, taking in every single tiny cut. “You look pretty rough.”
I scrunched up my nose. “I know. I’m just waiting for everyone to start asking questions.”
“You look hopeful that they won’t,” he mused.
I took a heftier sip of my vanilla latte and savored the swallow before replying.
“I’m a nice person, but I’m not super friendly with anyone that I work with,” I explained. “They like me as a boss because I’m more than happy to let them have their own free will. I don’t micromanage, and I’m helpful when they need me. Usually, they leave me to my own devices.”
“Why’s that?” he wondered. “You don’t like them?”
“I love all of them.” I shook my head, suddenly finding it important that he knew why I wasn’t super good friends with them.
“But I’m fairly introverted and I’m already out of my comfort zone with the boss thing.
I never really wanted to be the charge nurse.
It kind of just fell in my lap, and no one’s asked to take it back yet. ”
“I don’t know what to say to that,” he admitted. “But I do suggest you think about one thing.”
My brows lifted as I stared at him. “What’s that?”
“Once you stop caring about what others think, the second half of your life begins.”
His words hit me right in the solar plexus.
I would’ve continued to flounder there, trying to recover from the impact his words had on me, but a soft, hesitant voice said, “Apollo?”
Finnian stiffened beside me and turned slightly, his gaze finding a very pretty young woman that had his jaw clenching upon the sight of her.
I instinctually moved closer to him, my front brushing his side, as I gave him silent support without pushing too far.
He reached out and caught my hand, his hand clenching mine in a death grip, and said, “Aurora.”
The way he said her name had me feeling like he knew her well, but didn’t like that he knew her well.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her gaze flicking from me to the man at my side and back. “Did you come to see Dad?”
I didn’t think it was possible, but Finnian seemed to stiffen even more. “No.”
The woman’s face fell. “Then what are you doing here?”
“You lost the right to question me about my whereabouts when you asked for a divorce, Aurora.”
The cold words came out of the man’s mouth, and you could tell that they were a direct hit against the woman. She drew in a sharp breath and exhaled like she’d been forced to by an unknown hit.
“Finnian…”
“Don’t call me that,” he snapped.
My hand spasmed in his, and he must’ve realized how hard he was squeezing because he let my hand go.
I felt the loss like a blow.
Her eyes once again came to me, and I smiled, even though I wanted to scowl. How dare this woman file for divorce.
Did she not know the kind of person she left behind?
From what little time I’d spent with the man, I knew him to be so honest, caring, and compassionate.
Sure, he was a Truth Teller, and that was something I wasn’t willing to study too long at that moment in time, but he was a great man other than the obvious. And I didn’t like that he was looking so…wrong.
I liked the man that I’d met on the plane.
I liked the man that led me confidently through the woods with a baby strapped to his chest.
I liked the man that broke into a locked iPad and then found us a way home.
I liked the man that’d fought fiercely for a kid that wasn’t his, to make sure that that child would have a chance at a life without his abusive father in it.
What I didn’t like was the way he looked so…broken.
I stepped into him, my side brushing his, and he loosened his rigid stance slightly.
Her eyes came back to me once again, and her face fell slightly.
“What’s wrong with your dad?” Finnian asked.
“He…” She cleared her throat. “He’s having surgery this morning. Heart surgery. He has an almost ninety percent blockage, and they’re going to go fix that for him.”
Finnian nodded. “Hope the surgery goes well.”
She sucked in a breath and turned to leave, but stopped and turned back around and said, “I’m sorry I missed the funeral.”
“Why would you be sorry that you missed the funeral of your own son, Aurora?” he asked.
She crossed her arms over her chest and said, “I wasn’t trying to miss that. You know I loved Tavi. I’m sorry that I ignored all your calls, though. If I’d known…”
“If you’d known, you would’ve not turned a blind eye to what your mother had been doing to our son?” he rasped.
Whoa.
What was going on here?
“I had nothing to do with that, Apollo. I swear.” She drew in a deep breath.
“I had no idea that she was hurting him. I thought that she was watching over him. She was supposed to call you to come pick him up. I turned off my phone for six months to try to heal from what you said.” She fisted her hands at her sides.
“I would’ve never done that if I’d thought for even a second that she would mistreat him. ”
“I told you for years that she was a fuckin’ batty bitch.
Yet you only saw the good in your mother, even though both Bryson and I told you she was bad.
You wouldn’t even listen to your own father.
Then you dropped our son off with her.” He shook his head.
“And our son was tortured at the hands of your mother. Can you honestly believe that I’d be nice to you after you came back and explained where you’d been?
That you’d been taking a ‘mental health break’ and living in Costa Rica with absolutely no contact with the outside world?
How could you think that that was okay? And the least you could’ve done was tell me where you’d dropped him off in your haste to get out of the country. ”
My head felt dizzy at hearing Finnian’s words.
Tortured?
His son was tortured?
“But let’s just act like none of that happened.
Let’s skip forward to when I did let you know how she acted, and you said, ‘my mother wouldn’t do that’ even when I gave you undeniable proof.
Then you asked to spend time with our son even though he was absolutely terrified of women.
Then when I wouldn’t give you that, you forced my hand and made me give you access to our son.
So I had to comply, and when I did, he died because he was on the way to see you for the first time, terrified as hell because he didn’t want to be away from me. ”
The woman had nothing to say to that.
“Or, how about, after all of that, you skipping the funeral because it was just ‘too much,’” Finnian continued.
“And I had to deal with all the fallout on my own. Do you know how hard it was to pick a casket for him? Do you know how hard it was to decide what to bury him with? Do you know how fucking god awful it was to watch him be lowered into the ground? No. Because your mental health was more important than watching our son be laid to rest. So fucking no, I’m not here because of your dad.
And you shouldn’t be here, either, because he literally hates you for what you did.
He’s probably hating every second of you being here. ”
The woman must’ve realized just how upset Finnian was, because she finally said, “I think I’ll go.”
“You do that,” he growled.
When Finnian’s ex-wife disappeared around the corner, I said, “Do you want me to go check on the dad for you?”
He waited a long second to compose himself before he said, “No. I don’t have anything to do with them anymore, and he knows it.”
I had a feeling that wasn’t the case at all.
Spotting a rolling COW—computer on wheels—outside of a patient room two doors down, I walked toward it and pulled up the information while I walked back to him.
He stayed where he was, but didn’t lift his eyes.
“The surgery was performed around three this morning,” I said as I read the patient notes. “Patient is doing really good. Awake. Room 5533.”
Finnian didn’t move.
“Do you want me to go in there with you?”
Finnian said nothing.
I closed out, then caught Finnian’s hand. “Come on.”
He walked with me to the patient’s room—Bryson Castor—and I stopped with him right outside the room where I handed him my coffee.
I left him there as I went into the patient’s room and said, “Hi, Mr. Castor. How are you feeling?”
The man, older in his early seventies, looked up and smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Could be better.”
“That’s pretty normal for recent heart surgery,” I admitted. “I’m the charge nurse here. You’ll meet your new nurse here shortly. They’re doing shift exchange and patient hand-offs. I just wanted to stop in and check on you.”
He seemed to be battling with something for a long moment before he said, “Is it possible to block a visitor?”
I inwardly smiled. “Of course. Who is it you want blocked from visiting?”
He cleared his throat and said, “My daughter.”
I nodded, not asking any questions. “What’s her name and description? I’ll get right on adding her to the no-contact list.”
He gave me her name and then said, “I…”
I patted his hand. “You don’t have to explain. I don’t need your life story unless you want to give it to me.”
He blew out a relieved breath. “Thanks. It’s a tough one and I’d rather not think about it.”
I smiled. “Is there anything else you need?”
“No, that’s it,” he replied. “Thank you.”
After hitting the hand sanitizer on my way out, I rubbed it all over my hands and found Finnian exactly where I left him.
I gently pried my coffee from his hands as I said, “Come on.”
I took another hefty tug of my drink, sighing as I swallowed, and said, “This is seriously the best coffee ever.”
“I thought it was full of so much sugar that you might go into a coma, but who am I to deny you a good drink after the day we had yesterday?”
I snickered as I looked at him over my shoulder just before winding my way through the nurses’ station and coming to a stop next to my “spot.”
I set the drink down, then turned to Finnian and said, “I have to get to work. But thank you for the coffee. And everything.”
His eyes warmed. “You did just as much for me, Silla.”
I smiled. “I haven’t been called ‘Silla’ since my grandmother died.”
His eyes softened. “Dru’s cute. But Silla’s better.”
With that, he shoved his hands into his pockets and came out with a phone and… “Is that my wallet?”
“Sure is,” he said as he handed everything over. “New phone, though. Courtesy of your AppleCare plan for loss. Everything there is exactly how it was on your old phone.”
With that, he left, and I stared in awe at my belongings.
But there was something about the wallet that made me pause.
It didn’t have that little mark at the corner from where I liked to pick at it when I held it in my hands.
This one was newer.
Way newer.
As in brand new, because when I opened the wallet up, my cards didn’t start sliding free.
How in the hell…