Chapter 3
“You’re going by ambulance, Poppy. Now suck it up.”
“I’m hurt. Y-you can’t speak to me like that!” Her face was pale and pinched.
“Sure, I can. Asshole, remember?”
She tried to glare but winced instead.
“I’m taking off your stilts now.”
Poppy didn’t speak, just concentrated on breathing as Nick removed her left shoe. Her ankle felt small in his hand.
“How the hell do your feet survive being jammed into these things? Mine are weeping just looking at them.” He studied the high heel.
How did she balance?
“I’m sh-short. They make me tall.”
“You really expect me to believe that?” He scoffed, trying to take her mind off the pain. “I mean, fashion has shit all to do with it, right?”
“I-I like shoes,” she whispered.
He slid the other one off her foot before speaking. “I like shoes too. Sneakers, flat and comfortable.”
“D-do you still live here in Brook, Nick?” she asked. He rolled with the subject change. Clearly, Poppy was trying to focus on anything but her pain.
“Yes. Generations of Athertons come from Brook.”
They both heard the siren, and her breathing grew even more erratic.
“Breathe, Poppy. Inhale and exhale.”
“Help me up, Nick. I really don’t want this. I want to go home.”
“Now that’s too bad, because someone is checking you out before you move.”
“I don’t want to get in that ambulance alone.”
“Are you asking me to stay with you, Poppy?”
She nodded, the desperate look in her eyes slicing through him.
“Somebody get a pen and write this down. Poppy Sylvester has asked me to stay with her,” he teased.
“Just until the hospital. Please, Nick. I’d rather have a face I-I know… well, did know. Even if it’s yours.”
The color drained from her cheeks as she watched the medics get out of the ambulance.
“These people are going to help you, Poppy.”
“P-promise, Nick.” Her good hand grabbed his shirt.
“Promise,” he said.
“I’m guessing you’re the reason we’re here?”
“Yeah, she just got mugged,” Nick said to the guy now crouching beside them. Poppy kept silent. She hadn’t even looked at the man, instead keeping her eyes fixed on the hand she still had clenched around his shirt.
“What’s your name?”
“Poppy Sylvester.”
“The writer?”
Nick nodded, and when the medic looked his way, he glanced down at Poppy. They had some kind of telepathic guy moment, and then the ambulance driver nodded.
“So, Poppy, my name’s Jason, and this is Miranda.”
“Hey, Poppy,” a voice said from behind Nick.
“I’m going to check you over now,” Jason added.
“You promised!”
Nick had just been moving aside to let Miranda take his space, but Poppy was not letting go of his shirt.
“I’m not going anywhere, just moving to make some room for the second medic.” Prying her fingers free, he repositioned to her feet where she could see him.
They worked fast and efficiently, with either Jason or Miranda talking to Poppy. She kept her eyes either on him or clenched shut as they checked her over. He smiled when she looked at him, but she never returned the gesture.
Hard to believe that recently she was all attitude and pissed off when he’d asked her to have coffee with him. She looked vulnerable and small now, and it made his chest hurt.
“Nick.”
“Right here,” he said, moving to her side as the medics retrieved the bed to carry her on.
“Could you call someone for m-me before you leave? My aunt is expecting me to FaceTime her, but I don’t have my phone.” Poppy’s voice was thin and shaky.
He took the hand she had clenched into a fist.
“I said I’d come with you, have a little faith in me, woman.”
Her eyes shot to his. “Why?”
“Why have faith in me?”
She nodded.
“Because you can trust me.”
“I don’t think?—”
“I’ve grown up since college,” he said, feeling all kinds of pissed off she didn’t believe he was capable of that, even though she had every right to feel that way.
Nick walked by her head with her hand clasped in his when they were ready to load her into the ambulance. The grip on his fingers grew punishing as they reached the doors.
“Breathe,” he whispered.
“I-I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.” He locked eyes with her. “Inhale, exhale. You’ve been doing it your entire life, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“N-not that easy, and you’re an?—”
“Asshole. Yeah, yeah, that’s getting old.”
They wheeled her in, and he followed. Poppy was breathing rapidly now. Bracing his hands on either side of her head, he forced her to look up at him.
“You need to calm down, or you’ll be unconscious in seconds.”
“Right,” she wheezed. “I know you’re right.”
“In and out.” He took her through several breaths until she’d calmed down.
“Thanks.”
“Welcome,” he said.
“When we get there, Nick, you can go.”
“I’m not leaving.”
She was terrified. It was in every line of her face, and the knuckle-whitening grip she had on his fingers as the ambulance drove them to the hospital. He talked to her about a lot of nothing until they arrived. Nick was fairly sure she heard none of it.
“Okay, Poppy, we’re here now.”
He moved out of the way once more as the ambulance stopped, and then, grabbing her laptop bag and shoes, he walked beside her into the hospital. She handled it but he could tell, hated every moment. They wheeled her into a cubicle.
“The doctor will be in soon, Poppy.”
“Thank you.” Nick watched her force out a smile to the two medics as they left. She then looked aroundthe room.
“You’re safe here,” Nick said.
“I-I hate hospitals.”
“I worked that one out for myself. You want to tell me why?”
She didn’t, he could see that, but then she let out a loud breath.
“It’s not something I like to talk about.”
He didn’t speak. If she wanted to tell him, then he would listen, otherwise he would just support her for as long as she needed it.
“My brother and I were in a car accident. I remember the pain and then the ambulance ride to the hospital.”
“I never knew you had a brother.”
“You never asked.”
And wasn’t that the truth. He’d never asked her anythingabout her life because he’d been obsessed with himself.
“How bad were you hurt?”
“Broken tibia, fibula, femur, and pelvis, internal bleeding, punctured lung, and cracked ribs.
“Ouch.”
Nick watched the memories come and go across her face.
“I don’t remember much after arriving at the hospital. For days, I would wake occasionally, only to have another nurse medicate me, and then I’d sleep again.”
“How old were you?”
“Fifteen.”
“So, the reason you didn’t play sports in college or run anywhere was because you couldn’t?”
She nodded.
“And I never asked you why.” He was disgusted with the self-obsessed jock he’d been.
“I told you because you asked. Nick, I don’t want you to feel guilty.”
“I’m sorry just the same.” He hooked his foot around a chair leg and dragged it closer. “Was your brother badly hurt?” he asked, dropping onto it.
She looked away from him briefly, and when she turned back, the pain in her eyes told Nick what she hadn’t said.
“Ah hell, Poppy.”
“Hell about sums it up,” she whispered.
Nick remembered that sometimes he’d seen her sitting alone, looking sad. He’d just never asked her why.
“The words are inadequate, but I’ll say them anyway. I’m sorry for your loss, Poppy. I’m doubly sorry you didn’t feel like you could tell me, and that I could have been there for you after you lost your brother, if I’d been able to see past the end of my nose.”
“We, you and me, weren’t like that.”
He knew what she meant. They’d spent time together, and she’d listened to him talk about himself while they studied, and he’d made her cool. It had been an odd relationship that he’d wanted but never worked out how to tell her that, and then it was too late.
“You can go now,” she whispered.
“Sure, and then you’d have another reason to hate me,” Nick said, catching a tear as it slid down her cheek.
“Seriously, Nick, I’m okay. I can handle this, and thanks. What you did, after how I behaved earlier?—”
“Proves I’ve grown up?”
“Something like that.”
She was pushing him away, which he deserved. They were strangers now, but he’d never felt that with her. She’d been comfortable around him, and he, her, from the first day they started talking. He had a feeling she still would be if they had a chance to get to know each other again.
“I’m not leaving,” Nick said.
“I’m too weak to argue with you,but tomorrow I’ll hate that I didn’t.”
Nick snorted. “You? Weak? Give me a break.”
“If I say I forgive you, will you go?” Poppy said.
He looked at her lying there, hurting. She’d lost the brother she’d loved, and he hadn’t known or cared. He wasn’t walking away from her now.