36. Kaitlyn
THIRTY-SIX
Kaitlyn
SIX MONTHS AGO
STARING AT MY PHONE, I FEEL MYSELF START TO RELENT.
Jill: come on, Kaitlyn—it’s New Year’s Eve.
I know. And I had every intention of spending it, curled up on the couch with a glass of contraband wine, a big bowl of buttered popcorn and my dog while we watched the ball drop in Time Square and I pretended not to be scanning the crowd for Went while Ryan Seacrest smiled his way through an interview with Nick Jonas.
Don’t be stupid, Kaity. It’s been years. Like you’re going to randomly see your ex-husband in a television crowd shot after running away while he wasn’t looking.
I know it’s a longshot and that if I did actually see Went again, even on television, I’d probably have a mental breakdown, I look for him anyway. Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Street scenes from Law & Order. The Today Show and Good Morning America. I look for him on tabloid covers at the grocery store. Watch TMZ and Hollywood Buzz, even though I couldn’t give two shits about celebrity gossip.
I never see him. Not in a crowd shot. Not on a magazine cover. The only Hawthorne I see is Delilah. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, Wentworth Fiorella has ceased to exist because I’m sure that’s exactly the way he wants it.
Before I can beg off with some lame excuse, Jill sends another text.
Jill: We haven’t seen you since you quit us for your cushy private gig. Meet us for ONE drink. Just one.
Me: It’s after ten.
Jill is one of the physical therapists I worked with at Sojourn and we is the group of work friends she hangs out with—other PTs and nurses who work at Sojourn with her. Before I can make up an excuse like I normally do, she sends another text.
Jill: So?
Jill: We won’t ask you what happened with sexy mechanic guy
Sexy mechanic guy is Conner. When I left Sojourn, six months ago, we’d already stopped seeing each other. We stopped seeing each other the second Henley came home to see her brother but I never told any of the women I worked with that. I let them keep believing that we were… doing whatever it was that Conner and I were doing. It wasn’t dating. It was mostly just the two of us keeping each other company. It was never sexual or even remotely romantic. It was just two people trying to figure out how to move on. But I let my work friends think it was more because it kept them from trying to set me up and because letting them try to set me up is how I ended up meeting Conner in the first place.
You need to get laid, Kaitlyn—and we know just the guy to get the job done.
I still don’t know what possessed me to approach Conner that night. I’m just glad he shot me down. If he hadn’t it would’ve made taking Henley’s offer to be Ryan’s nurse impossible.
Jill: We won’t ask about O’Connell either
That one’s easier to believe. Every nurse in Sojourn was terrified of Ryan while he was a resident—he worked overtime to make sure of it. I’ll admit that I was one of them but my friendship with Conner changed that. My friendship with Conner changed a lot of things.
Jill: ONE DRINK
Sighing, I finally type out an answer.
Me: okay. Fine… where?
Jill: Where do you think?
Gilroy’s.
Of course.
I’m suddenly sure the only reason she’s strongarming me into meeting her and the rest of my former co-workers for a drink is because it’s New Year’s Eve and she knows that the only chance any of them have of getting through the door is with me leading the charge.
Me: I can’t promise anything. Just because I work for them doesn’t mean they’ll give me special treatment.
Jill: We’re willing to risk it.
I bet.
Me: Meet me in the parking lot in an hour.
Sighing, I set my phone down and look at Mookie. “Sorry, bud—change of plans. What do you think about taking your popcorn and going to hang out with Molly for?—”
My traitor of a dog is off the couch and parked in front of the door before I can even finish my sentence.
THIRTY MINUTES LATER, I’M CHANGED OUT OF MY PJs and standing in front of Ryan and Grace’s front door with a bowl of popcorn and an impatient Pitbull dancing around my feet. When he hears someone on the other side of the door palm its knob, Mook sits down and pretends to be a distinguished gentleman.
“You’re not fooling anyone,” I tell him with an eyeroll. “You know that, right?”
My dog sees my eyeroll and raises me a whine, his attention snapping back to the door when it’s finally opened. Seeing Ryan standing in the doorway, Mook tilts his head, hoping to see past him and into the apartment.
“Already finished it, huh?” Ryan says with a smirk, referring to the box of wine I hide in his fridge because as an employee of the veteran center we both live in, I’m technically not allowed to keep alcohol in my apartment.
“I wish.” Thinking of the full glass of Reisling sitting on my coffee table, I shake my head. “I’m being dragged out, against my will,” I tell him. “A few friends want to meet up at Gilroy’s for a drink. Mind if Mook hangs out with you guys for about an hour?” He’s good on his own for about forty-five minutes before he starts eating my socks and howling in protest.
“Gilroy’s?” Ryan laughs while he shakes his head. “Good luck with that.” Sighing, he looks down at the dog waiting at my feet. “It’s a madhouse down there—Cap’n just called Grace and offered her a grand, plus all his tips, to come in, which means it’s just me and Moll for the night.” When Ryan says her name, Mookie lets out a pitiful whine and lifts his paw like he’s Oliver Twist, begging for more. Before Ryan can torture him anymore, the door is pulled open completely and Grace is standing beside him.
“Of course, Mookie can hang out with Molly.” As soon as she says it, he lets out a happy bark and barrels his way through the doorway. A few seconds later, he’s greeted by a happy, high-pitched squeal. “I’m headed that way,” Grace says with a nervous smile. “We can walk together if you want.” Nervous because it’s been a few months since I chewed her out for trying to leave Ryan while he wasn’t home and even though she made the right decision and came back in the end, and hasn’t left since, we haven’t talked about it. Matter of fact, we haven’t really talked at all.
“Sure.” Nodding my head, even though I know I’m going to have to apologize for the way I spoke to her that day.
“Great.” Her smile brightens for a moment, before she reaches over to pull her coat from its hook while I offer Ryan the bowl of popcorn I brought over as tribute.
“For the cause,” I tell him with a laugh before taking a step back, giving Grace room to step into the hall so we can leave.
“I love you,” she says, leaning in to give Ryan a light kiss on the mouth that has me averting my gaze. “And I’ll be careful.”
“I love you too.” Ryan kisses her back. “Tell Ritchie Rich I said to walk you home after close.”
Grace rolls her eyes. “Like he’s my personal guard.”
“ Exactly like that.” Looking at me, Ryan gives me a flat smile. “Text me when you’re on your way home so I can watch for you.” Before I can tell him it’s not necessary, Ryan says, “yes, it is.” And shuts the door in my face.
“I’M SORRY.”
We’re halfway to Gilroy’s before I finally break the awkward silence between us. When I say it, Grace shoots me a puzzled look from her half of the sidewalk. We’re not alone. People are traveling in clumps. Girls huddled together against the cold in miniskirts and glittery New Years Eve tiaras. Guys in jeans and plastic top hats.
“For what?” She sounds genuinely confused. Like she has no idea what I’m talking about.
“You know…” When all she does is shake her head, still obviously confused, I sigh. “For the way I snapped at you, the day you came over to give me your key to Ryan’s apartment.” The day you packed up and left him. I don’t say it but she knows which day I’m talking about. “I shouldn’t have reacted so harshly. I just?—”
“Care about him and got angry with me for leaving him without an explanation,” she finishes for me with a gentle smile. “I get it. It’s okay.”
“I had a brother.” I blurt it out in a rush before my brain has a chance to catch up with my mouth. “He was in the Army. He died when I was seventeen.” I understand the implications of what I’m saying. How I’m saying it. I’m making it sound like Luke died during active duty. Not at home. That it’s someone else’s fault that he’s dead—not mine. “Ryan... he—” Shaking my head, I look away from her while I struggle to get the words out without choking on them. “I don’t have a family and even though he drives me crazy and makes my job a million times harder than it has to be most of the time, Ryan is the closest thing I have and I just?—”
Before I can finish, Grace stops me on the sidewalk, forcing the cluster of sorority sisters on the sidewalk behind us to veer around us like a herd of drunk baby deer. Hand clutched around my arm, Grace ignores the dirty looks we get for creating a traffic jam and focuses on me. “You’re kidding, right?” For a second, I think she means about Luke dying but before I can shake my head, she keeps talking. “You have a family, Kaitlyn,” she tells me, the grip she has on my arm tightening slightly. “ We’re your family. Not just Ryan and Molly and me— all of us .” She must be reading the stunned look on my face perfectly because she laughs before letting go of my arm. “There’s no matching jackets or secret handshakes but trust me—you’re in.” Looping her arm through mine, Grace starts to pull me down the sidewalk again. “You think they’d trust you with Ryan’s care if you weren’t?”
I never really thought about it before. I figured Henley offered me the job as her brother’s private nurse as a sort of a consolation prize for the fact that she single-handedly ended whatever weird dynamic Conner and I had going between us, simply by existing. Or maybe she’s offered me the job because I’m the only nurse at Sojourn who wasn’t completely terrified of him. Either way, I never considered the fact that she might’ve offered me the job because she actually likes me.
Instead of saying any of that out loud, I give her a stubborn headshake. “Family or not, it wasn’t my place to say anything.”
“Well…” Grace gives me an exasperated eyeroll. “If it makes you feel any better, Tess gave me round two not more that fifteen minutes after you gave me round one.” When I give her a miserable it doesn’t look, Grace laughs and bumps her shoulder into mine. “I deserved it. Leaving him like that was shitty. I’m glad you chewed me out— both of you. You were right—he did deserve more than coming home to find me gone without giving him a chance to talk me out of it.”
Hearing her say it is like a kick in the gut. A reminder that it’s what I did to Went. A realization that I reacted so harshly to finding Grace on my doorstep with her suitcase because I wish I could go back in time. I wish someone had been there to yell at me the way I yelled at her. To stop me from leaving and making the biggest mistake of my life.
How do you know he wouldn’t have left you? How do you know he even came back?
He came back—I know he did because he signed the divorce papers I left behind when I ran away. I called the county clerk’s office in Helena almost every day to check until the woman on the other end of the phone said, yes, ma’am. Those papers were countersigned and filed a few days ago.
Right. He signed the papers, Kaity. He signed them because he might’ve enjoyed fucking you and he might’ve felt compelled to save you—but he never loved you.
“Are those your friends?”
Grace’s question snaps me back to the present and I look up to find myself walking across Gilroy’s packed parking lot. Jill and two RNs from Sojourn are huddled under the security light bolted to the wall, directly over the employee entrance. When she sees me, Jill smiles and waves.
“Yeah.” I nod my head, suddenly wanting nothing more than to yank my arm out of Grace’s grip so I can run home, drink my abandoned wine and cry myself to sleep.
Doing a quick head count, Grace bobs her head. “This I can work with.” Pulling us to a short stop in front of the side door that leads directly into the bar, she pulls a set of keys from her coat pocket. Feeding a key into the lock, she gives it a turn and opens the door to wave us all inside instead of making us wait in line to go through the front. “In the wise words of Conner Gilroy—membership has its privileges.”