Chapter 13
NETTIE
Friday.
Her favorite ‘F’ word—usually.
But this Friday hadn’t simply strolled in with a cheery “Yay, it’s the weekend!” banner. Oh, no. This Friday barged in like an uninvited guest who smashed her vase, ate all the snacks, and left muddy boot prints across her soul.
She realized this the moment she stepped out her front door.
Not only did her car have a flat tire, but her day decided to deliver a little bonus feature: a near-death experience courtesy of her own porch. One misstep, one wobble, and suddenly Nettie was performing a less-than-graceful Swan Lake audition across concrete.
Her palms hit first. Skin scraped raw. Then her knees. A sharp sting jolted up her legs. By the time she rolled over and groaned, she realized her pride had been crushed more brutally than her body.
And there, staring her in the face like some cosmic joke, was the culprit.
A fruit basket.
A soaked, half-drowned, definitely-gifted-by-a-sadist fruit basket.
Someone left a fruit basket on her front porch.
In the rain.
Sopping wet.
Rain drizzled in miserable little needles against her already throbbing skin. The wicker was warped, the ribbon sagged in defeat, and the fruit inside?
Soggy casualties.
It was sitting in two inches of rainwater from where the top had been left open, when they tied a loose bow on it. The cellophane was covered in droplets on the inside and outside. She poked at the soggy mess, and the cellophane squelched like it was laughing at her.
And the card?
Utter. Pulp.
It was like back in history class when they were making papyrus with paper pulp.
You could see evidence of grayish stains from the ink of the newspaper, but reading it was anything short of a joke…
oh, and she completely smashed one side of the basket with her fall.
The side where the bananas were, right beside the apples floating in the rainwater, which sent banana-spoo all over the rest of the contents of the basket.
So, to summarize: bloody hands, bruised shins, ego annihilated, drenched from head to toe, and the proud new owner of fruit soup. Plus, she still had to change her tire and put on the spare.
Perfect.
Just perfect.
Oh yes, the ‘F’ words were well deserved this morning.
“Fudge!”
“Fracking Fruit!”
Oh, the “F” words were plentiful, sharp, and enunciated firmly.
And when she managed to wedge the jack in the wrong spot and crease her fender?
That was another symphony of “F” words that flowed from her mouth like a waterfall.
Her heart nearly stopped when the jack folded, dropping the car with a metallic crash that rattled her molars and sent her anxiety spinning.
By the time the spare was on, an hour had passed, her hair was plastered to her head, and she was soaked through in every possible way a human could be soaked.
She shoved the ruined tire into her trunk and stood there, arms limp at her sides, praying she wouldn’t simply collapse on the pavement and give up entirely.
At least work would be better.
Right?
Wrong.
The “F” words followed her into daycare like loyal little minions.
One child had lice.
Another had diarrhea.
And one little cherub arrived hacking, pale, and feverish—because apparently “the flu” wasn’t enough to deter some parents from dropping off their kiddos.
Those parents, naturally, ghosted all calls until three hours later, when they finally breezed in with indignation written across their smug faces.
“He was fine this morning!” they insisted.
Sure. Nettie pressed her lips together so tightly they practically welded shut, because if she opened them, she’d lose her job.
Exposure to contagion? Off the charts...
Bitter regret? Outpaced the contagion record…
“I’m gonna come down with a whopping case of lice, the trots, and the freaking flu at this rate,” she snarled under her breath, scrubbing wildly in the staff bathroom like she was prepping for surgery.
Yellow Dial soap foamed up her arms to her elbows.
The smell was sharp and stung her raw knuckles, but she kept scrubbing.
The sensation of phantom lice crawled across her scalp every time a child so much as scratched their ear.
Those ‘attention’ notes given to parents to alert them that a child on the premises was discovered to have contracted lice were so fun.
So. Much. Fun.
Her reflection showed that her once wet hair had dried weirdly, stuck to her face in wavy clumps.
Mascara was smudged under her eyes, made her look like a raccoon caught in a thunderstorm – either that or the ‘grunge-hoe-look’ from the eighties was back in style.
She wanted to laugh, cry, or maybe just crawl under the sink until Monday.
Possibly all three.
“I must be insane to do this for a living,” she continued, scrubbing her arms up to almost her armpits once again before drying them and looking upward to the ceiling for hope.
“Lord, if you’re listening—and if you must strike me down with something wretched—please let it be diarrhea.
Nothing permanent. Just the runs. I never thought I’d pray for that in my adult life, but here I am…
begging you to leave the other two options out of the picture.
I’ll take the diarrhea in a heartbeat compared to the other two. Amen.”
She felt… stressed.
And that was putting things mildly.
Between worrying if the fruit basket was on the wrong porch, another weird gift from Tate, or a possible gift from someone else, she had no idea who to thank for her injured hand, ripped jeans, or for the fruit basket that she ended up having to throw out when she saw there were bugs floating in the water within the cellophane bag.
“Ugh,” she whispered, shivering again at the thought only to hear her phone ding.
Gina.
Hey girl – you ready?
Ready to back out? Yes.
Ready to face humanity again? Not in the slightest.
Naww! We’re going and we’re going to have a blast.
Nettie sighed heavily and then typed with grim determination:
I need you to drive. I got a flat.
Almost instantly, her phone rang. She ducked back into the restroom, holding the phone close to her face like a secret agent smuggling intel.
“Hey,” Nettie whispered. “I’m at work and can’t really talk.”
“Why’d you answer then?” Gina’s voice was a matching whisper, playful but edged with concern. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. No. And everything in-between, but I’ll explain later.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“Be here at six on the dot – with a dry outfit for me.”
“I’ve got you handled.”
“Thanks,” Nettie whispered, releasing a breath that felt like she’d been holding it since sunrise. “I’ve gotta go.”
“I’ll be there with bells on.”
Nettie ended the call and sagged against the bathroom counter. She had five more hours to survive before freedom. Five more hours of potential lice exposure, bathroom disasters, and silent prayers that her immune system was made of steel.
Her tire could wait until tomorrow. Her dignity could be pieced back together someday.
But tonight?
Tonight, she was going to a hockey game with Gina if it killed her.
And at this rate, it just might.
The fluorescent lights of the daycare parking lot buzzed faintly above her, casting harsh little halos on the cracked pavement.
Nettie trudged across the lot like a woman walking through molasses, each step weighted with embarrassment, exhaustion, and the kind of dread that only came from a day determined to chew her up and spit her out.
“Are you okay?”
Hours later, Nettie knew just how badly she looked at Gina’s exclamation of shock, followed by the dismay on her face.
“Do I look like I’m okay?”
“No. You look like you were wrestling a sealion – and lost – twice.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Okaaay, this is not going to work,” Gina clucked her tongue, pushing off the bumper of her car and marching toward Nettie, who was trudging across the parking lot warily, afraid that Fate or Karma would sideswipe her again with another dose of ‘Take This’ lobbed at her.
“You look like a wreck, and we’ve got to fix that.”
“I’m fine,” Nettie said automatically, even though she knew she wasn’t convincing anyone—not even herself.
“You’re not ‘fine’…”
“No,” Nettie admitted softly, “but I’m not going to impress someone either.”
“But you do have to look human—and not one that just crawled up from six feet under,” Gina shot back, her smirk wicked. “And before you ask—yes, I was watching a zombie movie this afternoon.”
“Instead of studying?” Nettie lifted a brow, trying to distract her friend from her mission.
“Meh.” Gina waved dismissively. “I’ll be fine.”
“You won’t be my doctor,” Nettie muttered.
That was the line. Always the line. Gina was a vault when it came to anything school-related: exams, grades, papers.
But outside of that, her best friend was the medical equivalent of a gossip column.
You had a rash? She had theories. Found a weird mole?
She’d practically diagnose you on sight.
But ask how she herself was doing? Fort Knox.
The silence was enough to make you wonder if she was failing, though the bulletin board in her bedroom—chaotic and crowded with awards and certificates—proved the opposite.
“Come on,” Gina ordered, already grabbing Nettie by the wrist and tugging her toward the daycare.
Nettie dug her heels in, protesting, “Gina, I’m—”
“Don’t say fine. I saw your palms - and your jeans,” Gina hissed through clenched teeth, throwing her a daggered look over her shoulder before cheerfully tossing greetings at the two women still inside the building. “Hey, Miss Knox. Hey, Mrs. Podeski, we won’t be but a minute!”
And then Nettie was being towed like an errant child through the hallway and straight into the staff restroom. The door slammed. The deadbolt clicked. The tiny tile room smelled faintly of lemon cleaner and hand soap.
“Strip.”
Nettie’s jaw dropped. “What?”
“I want to see those scrapes and make sure you don’t have dirt ground into them, plus I brought you clean clothes. I don’t care if we are late—but you are not looking like a hobo at the hockey game.”
“Nobody is going to see me…”
“I’m going to see you—right now—and a lot of you, I might add,” Gina snapped. Her hands went to her hips, her eyes sharp. “Now, everything but your bra and britches, lady.”
Nettie froze, her face heating as she slapped both hands across her modest chest and then over her still-clothed hips in a ridiculous attempt to shield herself. Speech failed her.
“Heaven help me from misplaced modesty,” Gina groaned before yanking up her own shirt.
“We’ve got the same things, okay? I like boys and I’m studying to be a doctor.
Can you give me a little credit? We’ve been besties for over ten years.
I’ve seen you in a bikini. That’s practically the same thing. ”
Nettie grimaced. The woman had a point, but still—this was humiliating.
With a resigned sigh, she turned around, peeling off her mud-stained blouse and still-damp, torn jeans.
The seams were still clammy against her skin, the grass-stains refusing to let go.
Gina shoved a soft, oversized shirt into her hands.
Nettie tugged it on quickly, her fingers halting as the fabric slid down over her shoulders. It wasn’t cotton.
“Before you say anything,” Gina’s voice floated from behind her, a hand thrust forward with leggings dangling from her fingers, “hockey games practically require hockey jerseys. I’m loaning you one of mine.”
“Ah, okay. Thank you.”
“Now, turn around and lemme see your knees and your palms.”
Obediently, Nettie did as asked. The jersey was long enough to cover her thighs, and as she glanced down at the bold design, her breath hitched. Dark gray, green, and white. A snarling coyote’s head leered from each shoulder. And across the chest—large enough to swallow her whole—was the number 70.
Her throat went dry.
“Is this Tate’s jersey?”
“Duh.” Gina dabbed a soapy paper towel over Nettie’s scraped knee like she was a child with a playground injury. “He got me the tickets, so we need to represent. Besides, I’m a Cassidy too, so it’s kinda cool to see my name on people’s shirts even if I’m not playing.”
“I don’t think…”
“I’m gonna stop you right there,” Gina cut in firmly, rising to her feet.
“Whatever is happening or not happening between you two—that’s none of my business, even if it would be like winning the lottery to me.
I get it. Things are personal and touchy, but this is supporting someone in my family, so can you not freak out and just wear the thing for me? ”
“You’re not setting me up?” Nettie asked cautiously, narrowing her eyes.
“Nope.” Gina popped her lips. “But I’m hoping Tate sets me up with the goalie—oh my gosh, so hot… so, so epically hot.”
Despite herself, Nettie laughed. Gina was already fanning her face dramatically.
“You are good—now hurry and get dressed. We’ve got a game to win.”