Chapter 5
Five
Mira
“Mira.”
I glanced up from my spot in the cafeteria line to see Wes. I narrowed my eyes because no matter what time I came to the cafeteria, he always showed up.
“Are you stalking me?” I accused as he moved to stand next to me.
“I work here.” He cocked his head, giving me a suspicious look. “So if anyone is stalking…”
I huffed a short laugh. “I am not stalking you. I was here first.”
He shrugged. “Never said you were.” Looking down at my tray where a bottled water, an apple and a cookie sat, he frowned. “That’s dinner?”
I nodded. “It is, and don’t nag, I had a big lunch at school and I’m on a student budget.”
He shook his head, grabbed two chicken wraps from one of the refrigerated shelves and set them on his tray. When we got to the line, he butted in front of me.
“I’ve got both,” he said to the cashier, who barely glanced up at us as she keyed our food order into the machine. He tapped his card and paid before I even had a chance to protest. Then he moved one of the wraps from his tray to mine and raised a brow at me. “Now it’s a light dinner.”
“You’re very bossy.”
“And you knew that already.” He winked and my chest fluttered.
This man was going to be the death of me.
I’d thought I’d imagined the chemistry we’d had back then, but the way I feel around him even when I’m actively trying not to feel anything, is unreal.
I started to wonder if maybe I purposely downplayed it because I’d never felt the same with Josh, but I quickly brushed that thought away.
I didn’t like to think about Josh at all.
“How’s your mom?” Wes asked somehow leading us to a table and pulling out a chair for me before I even realized.
“Improving, but there’s no talk of releasing her yet.”
“Have you missed a lot of school?”
I shook my head. “No, that’s why I’m here so late. I don’t come until after classes during the week. I have missed a lot of shifts at work though.”
“Where do you work?”
Neither of us had mentioned Rawhide Ranch in our impromptu cafeteria chats as if talking about it might remind us of the past. I didn’t even know if he even knew Rawhide had a university.
“At the university.” I took a bite of my wrap to discourage further questions about it.
“Bookstore? T.A? What do you do?”
Damn. I took my time chewing, my gut starting to churn. “Stocking supplies, setting up classrooms, and demonstration areas, stuff like that.” It was all technically true.
“Which university? Your mom never mentioned it,” he asked, taking a bite of his wrap.
His questions should have been benign. They were things you could ask an acquaintance, a stranger sitting next to you on a plane even, except they weren’t really, because the answers would only bring us back, back when we’d been much more than acquaintances.
“It’s a small, lesser-known university.” I stood even though I wasn’t nearly finished with my food. “I should go.”
He got to his feet too. “You barely ate.”
I looked at my tray and shrugged. “I can eat in my mom’s room.”
“But will you?” His tone wasn’t quite accusing but it did make my nipples tighten. It was his Dom voice.
I set the tray down and crossed my arms mostly to cover my nipples but also to stand my ground.
“Will or won’t, it isn’t your business. And if you think buying me a wrap makes it your business, then you’re sorely mistaken.
” I spun on my heel and walked away then, leaving the food behind, my heart beating so hard in my chest I worried I might have a heart attack.
“Mira,” he called after me. “Stop.”
And god help me, I did.
“I’m sorry. I just want to be here for you. I know we’ve got a complicated past, one you’re obviously not interested in revisiting, but we were close once. And I want to be here for you.”
I turned around slowly, my eyes finding a spot near his eyes but not quite meeting his gaze.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested in revisiting our past, it was that I couldn’t.
It would be easy to pick up where we left off.
We were close. But then I’d just fall back into the pattern of letting someone take care of me. Of being weak.
“Don’t make me let you do this alone, Mira.”
I looked down, saw my food in his hands, and let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.
“Okay. Fine. But stop treating me like I can’t take care of myself, because I can, even if I do it in a way that makes you and my mother think I can’t.
” I waited for him to nod, then I pulled out a chair and plopped into it.
He set the food in front of me and sat too.
“I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I know you can take care of yourself.”
“I can. Missing a few meals, having some sleep deprivation, being overwhelmed—these are all normal things for someone to experience while going through something like this.”
“You’re right.”
I nodded feeling proud for standing up for myself. Grabbing my wrap, I opened the cellophane that he’d taken the time to recover it up with and took a bite.
“But having friends and family to help you during this, that’s perfectly normal too. We’re human, we aren’t meant to do hard shit alone.”
I swallowed too quickly and the food slid down my throat painfully, but I ignored it.
“Is that what you are? My friend? Because it feels like you’re trying to be…
” I glanced around at the tables around us, but even with them empty I couldn’t say what I wanted to.
“It feels like you’re trying to be more. ”
“More?” He picked up my apple and a napkin and started to polish it. “Like your Dom?”
“Yes, and I don’t need one.” I sort of stuck my nose in the air haughtily.
“Do you have one?”
My eyes cut to his. “No, but I don’t need one.
I told you, I’m not the same girl I was before.
” I looked away because it was a lie. An outright, bald-faced lie.
The truth was, I didn’t want to be that girl anymore, but I was still her, and when I was tugged back to look at him by the silence, I knew he knew I was lying.
“Friends then. Just friends. And if I come across too bossy, you’ll just have to stand up to me. Should be easy for you now since you’re not the same girl anymore.”
I squared my shoulders, his challenge irking me. “Deal. Easy peasy,” I said and wanted to smack myself for the immature word choice.
His mouth slid into the half-smile I still saw in my dreams, and he leaned back in his chair. And then someone walked by and called him Dr. D.
“That was last week, Garcia.”
“Already? God, the hours blend into days, and days into weeks. I swear one of these mornings, I’m gonna wake up forty and wonder where the hell my life went. Tell me it gets better.” The doctor rubbed a hand over his tired face.
“It gets better?” Wes laughed.
“Who is it this week?” Garcia asked.
“Evans.”
“Dan? What the hell did he do?”
“Distracted a POS so we could get his battered wife out of the waiting room to safety. Took a few shots to the face for his efforts.”
“No way! Anything broken?”
“Nah, he’s still as pretty as ever.”
A page came over the speakers for him, and he left with a wave.
I looked at Wes with raised brows. “Dr. D?”
And just like that all the tension was broken as he explained the reason behind the name.
“And there it was, a Grimace-sized purple penis in Liza’s hand with my name printed in all caps by the nurse’s station’s label maker, stuck to it.”
By the time our trays were empty, my eyes were wet, and my ribs were hurting from laughing. I hadn’t laughed in a long time, let alone to the point of tears. I was still beaming when I turned into my mom’s room ten minutes later.
“Mira?”
I looked at the frail woman, who had been fast asleep when I left, and immediately felt guilty for the smile on my face.
“Hi, Mom, everything okay?”
“I thought you went home.”
“No, I just went for dinner downstairs in the cafeteria. Remember I asked if you wanted anything?”
“Oh yeah. Good, I’m glad you got some food in you.” Her voice was raspy and weak. “You’ve lost weight.”
The irony of those words coming from a woman who was little more than a skeleton herself, might have made me laugh if it weren’t so tragic.
“I eat, Mom. In fact, I eat too much when I’m here. I’m going to need to buy a bigger wardrobe soon because while I may have lost weight before, I’m quickly gaining it back.”
I moved to fix her nasal cannula which had shifted.
And it was true. Firstly, because I’d been very conscious about my eating habits ever since Wes scolded me that night she’d been admitted.
I hadn’t been lying earlier when I’d told him I’d had a big lunch.
He’d reminded me that it was an issue and as a capable person, I’d realized he was right and took action.
Now, no matter how exhausted I was, I remembered to eat. And secondly, because he kept pulling stunts like he had today and buying me food.
She lifted her hand and waved away my statement. “Pfft. You’re gorgeous.”
I smiled, reminded of my insecure teen years when she’d stood behind me in the bathroom, our reflections staring back at us in the mirror, and told me this same thing every single day.
“You always say that.”
“It’s true. And ten pounds either way can’t change that.”
I didn’t argue, I just sat down in the chair beside her, because she’d only double down and I didn’t want her wearing herself out.
“As much as I enjoyed seeing the smile on your face when you walked in, you don’t need to be here. You should go home.”
“Mom!”