Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Ani
I carried Taylor down the hall to the break room, using her three-year-old positive energy, which she had in spades, to push away the confusion that was building inside of me.
Adam Lowenstein, the man who’d been so loving and caring at a time when I was at my rock-bottomest low, was kind of a…
jerk. A cranky, joy-killing pain in the eardrum.
On the way down the hall, Taylor entertained me by singing a song about germs that she’d learned in preschool.
She was wearing blue tights, a blue top, and a blue tutu that bounced as she moved her arms and sang.
I headed toward the refrigerator. The fridge part contained everyone’s lunches, but the top exclusively held magical boxes of popsicles.
“Red, purple, or blue?” I asked, inspecting the stash.
“Bwuu,” Taylor said.
“Great choice.” I grabbed a pack and put it on the counter to snap it in half. Then I unwrapped it, giving each of us half. “I’m getting the vibe that your favorite color is blue. Is that right?”
“Bwuu,” Taylor said as she enthusiastically took a lick.
“Remember,” I said, “M&M’s taste better when you eat them.
Right?” We walked together to the nursing station.
She grinned, displaying blue teeth. Cathy, the charge nurse, was sitting behind the large desk area, crocheting what looked like a baby blanket.
Tom, our medical assistant, was playing a game on his phone.
Ivy and BethAnn, two of the staff nurses, were flipping through a Pampered Chef catalog.
Angie walked over to join the group at the same time we did.
“Hey, everyone,” I said. “Meet a very brave patient, who’s just set a record for the number of Christmas M&M’s up her nose. Whoever guesses how many gets a popsicle.”
“Oh my goodness,” BethAnn said, walking over.
Cathy guessed first. “Um, three?”
Taylor shook her head and held up five fingers.
“What?” Cathy exclaimed. “That many?”
Taylor shook her head. Pulling her popsicle out of her mouth, she said, “No, thix.” And laughed.
“Six?” Cathy said. “That’s unbelievable!”
“I want a ‘nother popsicle.”
Pen walked up to the desk with her purse and paperwork and gave a quick wave to everyone. “Taylor Marie, you are a storyteller. Time to go home.”
“Bye,” I said, kissing her on the head and handing her off to her mother.
“Say thank you,” Pen said, accepting her daughter and trying to keep the popsicle from dripping on her sweater.
“Fank you,” Taylor said and leaned forward to give me a big wet popsicle-y kiss.
“Love you,” I said.
“Target, McDonald’s, and Disney princesses,” Taylor said, counting out our Saturday activities out on her fingers.
“The girl is brilliant,” I said proudly as I finished off my own popsicle.
“Do you always share the treats with your patients?” a voice behind me asked.
I stopped mid-lick and turned to find Adam standing there, hands behind his back.
His absolute handsomeness took my breath away.
That thick, dark hair spilled chaotically over his forehead.
Those dark chocolatey eyes. That impossibly square jaw.
Even with his white coat on, the breadth of his shoulders impressed.
I knew for a fact that even more wondrous muscles were hidden under that white coat.
He was kidding, right? Any second now he was going to break character and say he’d been clowning around. But he didn’t. Apparently, that stunningly handsome shell hid an awful interior.
“You’re eating on the job,” he said.
“Of course I’m eating!” I said, not disrespectfully but not exactly calmly either. All I’d since lunch was an Oreo Tom reluctantly sacrificed. I refused to explain how busy we were, how hard we worked at the sacrifice of human comforts. Geesh.
“Well, we have a new rule,” he said, speaking not only to me but to everyone gathered behind the desk. “No eating in the work areas.”
I looked around. Literally everywhere was a work area. “So where do we eat?”
He tossed me a sideways glance. “That’s exactly what I was about to discuss, Dr. Green. We’re about to have a little impromptu staff meeting. Why don’t you have a seat?”
He was still acting like he had that massive branch up his butt, and the staff was offering no pushback. Why?
Well, I was going to offer lots of feedback. Starting with him barging into my exam room and trying to take over. I felt like I’d fallen asleep and awakened in a dystopian nightmare, where the hottest guy of my life didn’t remember me. Did he not remember the hottest sex of his life?
I mean, come on. Spectacular was the word that had passed his own lips. I was not making that up.
“We have new guidelines,” he said in a cheery voice. “Food is only allowed in the break room.”
Eating was literally the only fun we had between patients.
We all took turns bringing our newest recipes from home for everyone to try—so as we sat together waiting for the next onslaught, we often fortified ourselves with delicious snacks.
Every ER I’d ever worked in had food. Lots of it.
We shoveled it into our mouths when we could, sometimes as fast as we could—especially on the days when there was no time to pee, let alone seek out food in a room waaay down the hall.
“Are you sure?” I was being insolent now. In front of the staff. I warned myself to curb my anger. I was always professional. But right now, I was so angry. And, to be honest, a little hurt.
“Dr. Green, I’m very sure.”
“It’s Ani. Remember?” I gave him a cold, hard stare. I didn’t care how cute he was. I hated him for being…different than before. Where was my Adam? I wanted him back now.
Angie’s brow immediately quirked up as she glanced from Adam to me.
He turned red. Okay, good. So he did remember.
How I wished that he’d stayed my dreamy fantasy, untouched by this reality.
I’d used his memory as an escape when the pain of last year threatened to take me down.
He’d been a quiet, invisible hug during my most alone times.
Someone who’d cared for me when I’d needed it most. Who’d given me his jacket and food and who had made me laugh and who had done even more—I couldn’t even think about that now.
To think that dream man was an actual human—and a grumpy one at that—was sort of devastating.
“We just ordered a pizza,” Angie confessed.
Stella, our unit clerk, violently shushed her.
“Pizza can be enjoyed in the break room, Angela.” Everyone was now sitting straight upright, wide-eyed. “A few more things. Everyone has to remember to clock in and out. And there will be no romance novels, no catalogs, or…crafts.”
Everyone stared at Cathy, who suddenly froze in the middle of a stitch. “What, this? She held up a foot-long piece of soft, pastel colored baby blanket. “This is for my brand-new niece. It’s not a craft. It’s a…work of art.” She grinned expectantly.
“Sorry, Cathy,” Grump said. “Any activity that doesn’t have to do with studying or learning ER skills is now banned.
We want the highest rating from the Joint Commission on Accreditation.
We want the best stats—less wait time, quicker treatment times, faster discharges, better care.
And to do that, we have to be professional. At all times.”
He took in a final glance at all the employees, still sitting there, slack-jawed but silent. “I’ll be in my office until the next patient arrives,” he said. “Meeting dismissed.”
I waited until his footsteps faded and his office door closed with a definitive click before I turned to my colleagues, whispering, “Isn’t anyone going to say anything?”
“Maybe you’re not afraid of losing your job,” Ivy said. “But my husband got laid off last week.”
“I’m speechless,” Tom said. “I mean, I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Poor guy thinks we can have great stats if we pay attention one-hundred percent of the time,” Angie said. “He’s forgotten all about having fun too.”
“We do pay attention,” Cathy said. “When it counts. If we were like that all the time, we’d burn out from stress.”
Poor guy? “Angie, why do you cut him slack?” I could barely contain myself.
“He’s not bad,” she said, “just misdirected. He just needs time.”
“And to get laid,” Tom said.
I looked around at our little group. “No one’s going to fight this?”
“Not right now,” BethAnn said. “The hospital’s helping me finance my nurse practitioner degree.”
I shook my head incredulously. Then headed straight down the hall to his office.
Adam
I loved the ER, but it had to run like tight, like a ship. Because here, every second counted. You had to be sharp 100% of the time, or someone’s life could be at stake. It didn’t matter who walked in—every single person got treated the exact same. Even if that woman was Ani Green.
Tonight was finally the night our paths crossed. And I’d done everything wrong.
In the quiet of my office, I pinched the bridge of my nose, hard.
A reminder that my priority was to do my job.
Period. I opened my center desk drawer and slid out the photo that sat right on top.
Liv was leaning against me, her smile radiating from her eyes.
I’m displaying what I call my happy dumb grin.
Happy to be with her, nothing else really mattering.
Thoughts of sickness and death were as far away as our old age.
I ran my eyes over all her features that I knew by heart: her great smile, the little crinkles around her eyes. Her sweater was cabled and black, her hooped earrings gold. My shirt was a blue button-up, still my favorite. How could I possibly still have that shirt and not her?
After almost three years, I was slowly forgetting what she looked like. What she sounded like. How she felt. I didn’t know how to stop that from happening, and it made me frantic.
I felt a lump rise up in my throat like it did every single time. I would never fall in love again, never subject myself to being so helpless and out of control in the face of disaster. Never again.