Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Paige
“Ipromise he’s fine,” Lisa says when I step through the doors of the emergency room, Aaron trailing behind me. “He thought it was a heart attack and insisted that we call you as soon as he arrived.”
“And the exam?”
The minute we left the wedding, my nurse persona shifted back into place. Mr. Oakley has a hard time taking care of himself, but he trusts me to know what to do.
“No damage to his heart. It was a panic attack.”
“You’re positive?”
I look over the chart hanging on the door of Mr. Oakley’s room. All the cardiac tests came back within normal limits.
A panic attack wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. The old man hasn’t taken great care of himself since his wife died a few months ago. He doesn’t take his medication if no one reminds him. He lives alone and often stresses himself out over it.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much we can do for a simple panic attack. He would never take anxiety medication, and I couldn’t see him going to therapy to learn to cope.
“Go see him. Put your mind at ease,” Lisa offers, before going back to the desk to check on the charts of her other patients.
I step into the chilly room with Aaron in tow. I barely notice that he’s still trailing behind me as I set to work making Mr. Oakley more comfortable.
“You gave me a scare tonight,” I scold him as I fluff his pillows and check his vitals. “When are you going to take your health seriously?”
He shrugs, but I notice that he clocks both Aaron and me in the room. “How else am I going to get the attention of the pretty nurses?”
I laugh, softening a bit. “There are easier ways to get me to spend time with you. You don’t have to have a heart attack.”
“Panic attack,” he corrects sheepishly. “But if I’d known you would accept my invitation for a date, I would have asked a long time ago. I had no idea you were dating at all.”
I catch the subtle look on his face, and I blush a bright red. How can I possibly explain that he caught Aaron and me at the end of a fake date, trying to keep an old “flame” from embarrassing me further at my best friend’s wedding?
It is the end, isn’t it?
No, there’s no way I’m going into that now.
“Yes, well, I—”
“You should take advantage of your youth. You never know when love might disappear.” Mr. Oakley frowns at the mention of grief and loss. “But an old man would like to be kept in the loop. What is there to live for, if not gossip?”
“I can think of lots of things to live for,” I chide him gently.
“Find someone who takes care of you.” This comment is not aimed at me, but at Aaron. I’m still fussing over him, and he gives me a pointed look.
When I look up, Aaron is smiling, watching me flutter around the room, completely in my element.
“You’re going to be fine,” I promise Mr. Oakley, even though I know he already knows that. “The doctor is going to come see you soon. And you can go home tomorrow.”
“What difference does it make?”
“I’ll visit to make sure you take your medication as soon as you walk through the door. Lisa will tell me when you get discharged, and I’ll meet you at the house.”
“You know I never want to take those things,” he groans.
“That’s why I’ll bring Noah with me.”
A smile lights up his face, making him instantly look twenty years younger.
If he was bemoaning his misfortune when we arrived, now he looks positively thrilled at the idea of seeing Noah. The two share a bond that I can’t explain but love to watch.
“Promise?”
“I promise.” I squeeze his hand and look him right in the eye. “Noah and I will see you in the morning. Try to get some rest.”
With one last glance at the monitors, I put my mind at ease that he will be just fine here overnight. Aaron and I say goodbye for the night and step out of the hospital into the crisp night air.
“I’m sorry we had to leave like that,” I tell him. “It’s just that Mr. Oakley has no one else. I had to come check on him.”
“Some things are more important.” Aaron shrugs. “Let me at least take you home now.”
“No need.” I try to push the memory of the kiss out of my mind. If he takes me home, there is a good chance that we will repeat that on the porch, and that can’t happen. “We stopped fake-dating the minute we left the wedding.”
“I don’t have to pretend to date you to do the right thing and take you home. This might be Crown Hill, but you shouldn’t walk alone in the middle of the night.”
I look around. The darkness had fallen rapidly, and now we are bathed in the emergency room’s fluorescent lights. He’s right; I shouldn’t be walking these streets alone at this hour. Levi has told me enough stories that have given me pause.
“If you really don’t mind,” I finally say, resigned to the idea of having to fend off my own lustful thoughts.
* * *
Aaron
Paige and I ride in silence to her house, the tension so thick I could cut it with a butter knife.
I would never assume that she would invite me inside, not after a fake first date or even a real one. But I also know that I’m going to at least walk her to the door and hope for another mind-altering kiss.
“This is me,” she announces.
I steer my car along the curb and put it in park, making it obvious that I intend to get out with her. She makes no protest when I walk around to open her door.
“You live so close to the station,” I remark, trying to fill the silence as best I could.
“Not always a good thing,” she mumbles.
She fumbles for the keys in her bag, not pausing to say goodnight to me on the porch. Before I know it, she’s pushed the front door open, and we’re both standing inside. This isn’t quite what I bargained for when I drove her home.
“Thank God you’re here,” her mother says, coming down the stairs. “Noah wouldn’t sleep without you—”
When she sees me standing at the bottom of the stairs with Paige, she stops talking altogether. She freezes mid-step, clearly not sure whether she should go back upstairs or leave.
“I have to get going,” she announces loudly. “I think I forgot to turn the air conditioning off.”
“You really don’t have to leave,” Paige says. “I just got here.”
“Got to keep the power bill under control,” her mother insists as she grabs her things from the table and slips on her shoes.
To my surprise, Paige laughs as her mom hurries out the door. There’s not a hint of tension or unease when we’re left standing there alone.
“Gosh, I love her to the moon, but she’s not discreet at all.”
She laughs with genuine amusement, a beautiful sight after the tension of our time at the hospital. She continues to laugh until she has to wipe a tear from her cheek.
“I guess that’s where I get it from, though. Summer says the same thing about me,” she adds.
I don’t know what to say to that. We’re standing in her house after she has invited me in.
The night has been nothing short of a surprise, from the moment she crawled out from underneath that table.
I’ll admit that I’m grateful I got to help her set things right with the man who left her in that hotel room.
But that kiss?
I’d pictured it when she was half-dressed on the bed, but I’d had no idea how right it would feel. How her lips would yield under mine. How it would feel like puzzle pieces finally connecting.
A kiss that feels like a product of an overactive imagination.
Where do we go from here?
Where does she want it to go from here?
Silence wraps itself around us, making conversation feel slow and stalled for the first time. Part of me wants to reach for her, but the other part doesn’t want to rush her if she’s not ready.
She drops her keys in the bowl, the sound echoing in the quiet. I’m saved from having to say anything when her little boy emerges from his room. He looks so sweet, carrying his fluffy bunny and wrapped in his dinosaur pajamas. At the sight of his mother, he lights up.
His smile makes him look just like Paige.
As awkward as the moment is between us, she doesn’t think twice before responding to him. She reaches for him, lifts him onto her hip, and kisses his chubby cheeks until his giggles echo from the hall. She is such a natural mother, joyful and loving.
I find myself watching them, my mind drifting to my childhood. Despite not having many positive memories there, I catch myself smiling at them.
“All children should grow up with love like this.” It slips out before I even think about what I want to say.
Paige doesn’t seem to notice the emotional bomb I just threw into the air. Her attention is focused solely on her son, his chubby cheeks pressed to hers. When she pulls back to look at me, I see radiant joy that was so obviously missing at the wedding.
“Thank you,” she says. “But I have no idea what I’m doing as a mom most of the time. I just wing it as best I can.”
“Sometimes, just showing up is enough.”
“I would die for this little man.” The love in her eyes makes the statement obvious. “The problem is that his father didn’t even try to live for him.”
Something clouds her features at the mention of the boy’s father. I don’t know if I’m seeing sadness or resignation, but I know it sounds like he isn’t a part of their lives anymore.
I don’t want to force her to talk about anything she isn’t ready for yet, but I file the information away for a later date.