4. BAILEY
Chapter four
BAILEY
There are easier ways to start a morning than catching a grown man before he faceplants in the hall.
Unfortunately, the hospital doesn’t usually schedule those for my shift.
“I’m fine,” Mr. Calloway insists, gripping my forearm while I guide him into the nearest chair.
“You say that with a lot of confidence for a man who just tried to become one with the tile.”
He blinks up at me, pale and sweaty under the harsh hallway lights. “I got up too fast.”
“After fasting for bloodwork, skipping water, and telling your wife you didn’t need help walking to radiology?” I ask.
Mrs. Calloway turns on him immediately. “Harold. I told you to bring a protein bar with you.”
I crouch in front of him and check his pulse. Steady enough, but too fast. His skin is clammy, his breathing shallow, and his pride appears to be in critical condition.
“I’m going to grab your blood pressure, then we’re getting you into a bed before you scare your wife any more than you already have.”
“You’re making a fuss,” he says.
“No, Harold. I’m making a medical decision. There’s a difference.”
That gets the smallest laugh from him, which is what I wanted. Not because fainting is funny. It’s not. But fear has a way of turning patients stiff and silent, and sometimes a joke buys me enough room to do my job.
Ten minutes later, he’s back in an exam room with fluids running, his color improving, and Mrs. Calloway hovering beside him like she might physically hold him to the bed if necessary.
“You’re good at this,” she says quietly as I adjust the line.
I smile without looking up. “Making stubborn men sit down?”
“Making people feel less scared.”
That one gets closer than I expected.
I straighten, tape the IV in place, and reach for my chart. “That’s the goal.”
It’s not always that simple, of course. Some shifts are blood and alarms and families crying in corners. Some are sore throats, broken wrists, fevers, paperwork, discharge instructions, and doctors asking me where things are when the answer is directly in front of their faces.
Today is all of it.
A teenager with a sprained ankle pretending it doesn’t hurt because his dad is watching.
A little boy with a cut on his chin who only stops crying when I let him hold the roll of medical tape and tell him he’s in charge of supplies.
Three discharge instructions I repeat slowly enough that I know at least one person will still ignore them.
By noon, my hair is slipping out of its ponytail, my phone has three unanswered texts, and I’ve eaten exactly four crackers from the packet in my pocket.
Still, when a notification pops up during my first real break, I tap it.
Santa Rosa Ravens Foster Youth Hockey Program: Volunteer Information Meeting Tonight
I stare at the subject line longer than necessary.
Then I lock my phone and take a sip of lukewarm coffee.
I’m not signing up for another thing.
I really shouldn’t.
By the time my shift ends, I have said the words “take it easy” at least a dozen times, and I know no more than two people will actually listen.
I change out of my scrubs in the staff bathroom, wash my hands for the hundredth time, and stare at myself in the mirror.
My ponytail has given up. There’s a faint crease on my cheek from leaning against my hand during charting, and my eyes have that end-of-shift look that says I could either cry, nap, or eat an entire basket of fries.
Possibly all three.
My phone buzzes again.
Emerson: Nora’s? We’re all meeting there. You’re coming.
Not a question.
I type back with one thumb.
Me: I smell like the hospital, and I’m exhausted.
Her reply comes immediately.
Emerson: Perfect. I’ll order you a coffee.
I sigh, but I’m smiling when I grab my bag.
Nora’s is warm and busy when I get there, the front windows fogged at the edges from the difference between the crisp October air outside and the espresso machine working overtime inside. The place smells like coffee and freshly-baked bread.
Emerson is already at our usual table near the back with Priya and Jade. There are mugs, a pastry plate, napkins, and one enormous cookie sitting in the center of the table like a peace offering.
“You look tired,” Jade says as I drop into the empty chair.
“I had a ten-hour shift. I’m wiped.”
Emerson slides the cookie plate toward me. “Eat.”
“I’m not a child.”
“No, but you get mean when your blood sugar crashes.”
I take half the cookie. “That is medical misinformation.”
“I have been a victim of your blood sugar crashes, so I know it’s true.”
I bite into the cookie and immediately forgive her.
For about six seconds, nobody asks me for anything. Nobody needs discharge instructions. Nobody calls my name from behind a curtain. Nobody tries to convince me that a pain level of ten is “not that bad.”
It’s just coffee, sugar, and my friends talking over one another in the easy way women do when they’ve decided a table is now a safe place.
Emerson leans back in her chair, her shoulder brushing mine. “Speaking of hockey, did you see the volunteer email?”
I keep my face neutral. “We were not speaking of hockey.”
Jade points at me with a piece of croissant. “Not the point. Did you see it?”
I take another bite of the cookie to avoid answering.
Priya pulls up something on her phone. “The foster youth program, right? The one they announced after the game?”
“Clinics, equipment support, mentoring,” Emerson says. “They’re looking for volunteers who can help with check-in, snacks, waivers, kid wrangling, all the behind-the-scenes stuff.”
“Kid wrangling,” Jade says. “A noble and dangerous job.”
I take a sip of coffee because arguing feels pointless.
The truth is, I’ve been thinking about the program since the announcement. Not just because it’s a good cause, although it is. Not just because the kids deserve access to something fun and steady and theirs, although they do.
I keep thinking about Finn.
About the way his smile slipped for half a second before he caught it. About how fast he put the charm back on, like flipping a switch in a room no one else noticed had gone dark.
That is none of my business.
A man can have a complicated reaction to a volunteer program without me turning it into a personal investigation.
Especially that man.
Finn O’Malley is not a project. He is not a mystery I need to solve. He is a hockey player with a dangerous grin, a room full of friends, and the kind of easy confidence that makes women forget easy and safe are not the same thing.
I know better.
Emerson bumps her shoulder against mine. “Just go to the meeting. You don’t have to sign your life away.”
“That sounds like something people say when you will definitely be signing every spare moment of your life away.”
Priya lifts her mug. “You know you’d be good at it.”
Jade laughs. “I’m thinking about going too. It might be fun.”
I sigh and unlock my phone.
The volunteer email is still open because apparently I’m predictable and terrible at pretending otherwise.
I tap the registration link before I can talk myself out of it.
“There,” I say. “I’m going to the meeting.”
Emerson smiles. “Look at you, making healthy choices.”
“No,” I say, setting my phone facedown. “I’m making questionable choices for a good cause.”
***
The rink feels different without game-night noise.
No packed stands. No horn blasting through my chest. No crowd chanting loud enough to make the concrete hum under my sneakers. Just cold air, bright overhead lights, the scrape of skates from the main ice, and the low murmur of adults trying to sound organized in a place built for chaos.
The volunteer meeting is set up in one of the rink’s side rooms, tucked off the hallway near the locker rooms. Folding chairs face a long table with sign-in sheets, name tags, printed schedules, and enough coffee to suggest someone understands the volunteer demographic.
I came straight from the hospital again, so I approve.
“Name tag,” a woman behind the table says with a smile.
I take one and write Bailey in black marker, stick it to the front of my jacket, and scan the room.
There are more people here than I expected.
A few Ravens staff members. Some parents and caregivers.
Volunteers from local businesses. A couple of teachers.
A man from what sounds like a youth services organization.
A small cluster of kids sit near the back with snacks and paper cups of lemonade, some talking loudly, some watching everything in that guarded way kids learn when they’ve had to enter too many unfamiliar rooms.
That part makes something in my chest pull tight.
Not pity.
I hate pity.
It’s recognition, maybe. Not because I know what their lives are like. I don’t. But I know that look. I see it at the hospital sometimes. Kids who track every adult’s movement. Kids who check exits. Kids who don’t believe they’re safe until safe has been proven more than once.
I glance toward the front of the room.
Finn is there.
He’s leaning against the table beside Gavin, wearing dark jeans, a Ravens hoodie, and that easy grin that makes him look like he wandered into a volunteer orientation by accident and somehow got put in charge of morale.
Gavin stands next to him, arms crossed, calm and quiet. He looks exactly like the kind of person you’d want in a crisis. He’s not smiling, but several kids keep sneaking glances at him anyway.
Goalies have that effect. Pads or no pads, there is something about Gavin Rhodes that says he could stand between you and disaster without raising his voice.
Finn is a different kind of steady.
Or maybe I’m only starting to notice it.
A boy near the snack table drops a cookie, and it breaks into three pieces on the floor. The kid freezes like he expects someone to snap at him.
Finn sees it before most of the adults do.
He doesn’t rush over. Doesn’t make a production out of it. Doesn’t turn the kid into the center of the room.