Chapter 12
Molly
"Is there anything else I can get you?" I ask the patient I'm helping this afternoon. She's waiting to be induced, and I've watched how stressful that is for others.
"It's a little warm in here, can we turn the heat down?" She asks, putting her hair up in a bun off her neck. "I know it's freezing outside, but I've gained forty pounds with this pregnancy and I'm always fucking hot."
I laugh as I watch her get more comfortable. "Yes, we can definitely do that for you." When I've gotten everything situated, I leave the room and head to the nurses station.
"Molly! I haven't seen you in a couple weeks."
"Macie, I missed you!" I run over and give my coworker a hug. She came to us from Calvert Memorial a few months ago. She's become one of my favorite people outside of Dakota, Lucy, and Magnolia Grace. "How were your days off?"
"Alright." She shrugs. "It sucks being single, I'm sure you know," she sighs. "I wish I had someone to spend time with, but I haven't been able to make meaningful friendships with anyone except you. And," she gives me a wink. "I know you're seeing someone whether you truly want to admit it or not."
This makes me feel a little bad, because I have been there before.
I've felt like the person being left out because I wasn't in a relationship or had nothing else going on.
It does suck being the person sitting at home by yourself when everyone else is out living their lives.
"I'm sorry, you should've texted me. I'm kind of seeing someone, but that doesn't mean I don't have time to hang out with friends.
Especially since my brother stole my BFF, and now they're sucking face every day. "
Macie laughs and leans against the counter, settling in as she looks at me, a smile on her face.
Another one of our co-workers Sam comes over, looking between the two of us. "So how did the two of you become friends? You seem like you've known each other forever, but you haven't worked together that long."
I think about it for a second, because it happened organically enough that I don't have a huge story to tell.
"I don't know that there was one specific moment," I admit. "She just kind of showed up and fit. She doesn’t make a lot of noise, does her job and does it well, and she’s not mean.
You have no idea how rare that last part is.
" I reach past them and grab my clipboard off the desk.
"We work well together, and then somewhere in the middle of all of that I started to genuinely like her as a person. "
She tilts her head, and something soft moves across her expression before she pulls it back into her usual easy smile. "That might be the nicest thing anyone's said to me since I moved here."
"Laurel Springs takes a minute," I tell her, because it's the truth.
It's a town that loves its own, but it's also a town with a long memory and a short runway for people who come in too hot or expect things to be handed to them.
"But once it decides it likes you, it really likes you.
You just have to let it get there on its own timeline. "
"Is that your way of telling me to be patient?"
"I'm telling you that you've already got me, and I'm telling you that you need to get yourself out a little bit more." I point at her. "When's the last time you went somewhere that wasn't this hospital or your apartment?"
She has to actually think about it, which is the answer right there. "I went to the grocery store on Thursday."
"Macieeee…" I drag her name out, giving her a look of disbelief.
"I know, I know." She groans and drops her face into her hands for a second. "I just don't know where to go by myself. Going to a bar alone feels pathetic."
"It's not pathetic, it's brave, and also you won't be alone for long if you go to the right place." I glance at the clock on the wall and then back at her. "Have you been to the Lean To?"
She shakes her head.
"It's the best bar in Laurel Springs, and I mean that with full knowledge of the competition.
It's not a meat market, it's not the kind of place where some guy is going to corner you and be obnoxious about it.
It's a real bar, with good music and decent food and people who are actually there to have a good time.
" I grab her arm and steer her toward the hallway, because we're both due for a break and if we stand at the nurses station we're going to get pulled into something before we get the chance to eat.
"Go on a Friday night. Sit at the bar and order something with bourbon in it and just watch what happens.
I guarantee you'll know three people's names before you finish your first drink. "
"How do you know that?"
"Because I’ve lived here my entire life.
" I say it simply, rolling my eyes ruefully.
"It was a rite of passage to go in there the night I turned twenty-one.
I walked in there by myself, sat at the bar, and by the time I'd finished my second drink I'd made two friends and had been invited to a bonfire.
That's how Laurel Springs works when you let it. "
She's quiet for a second, and then she nods like she's made a decision. "Okay. Friday."
"Friday," I confirm. "And text me when you get there so I know you went."
"You're not coming?"
"I might already have plans," I say, which is a diplomatic way of saying that Dakota texted me this morning asking about Friday and I have absolutely not said no to whatever he's planning. "But even if I can't make it, you go."
We've made it to the corridor that connects the OB wing to the main building, and we're heading toward the cafeteria when Macie brings it back around our earlier conversation.
"So this person you're kind of seeing," she starts.
"I knew you weren't letting that go."
"I'm not letting that go. What does kind of seeing mean? Either you're seeing someone or you're not."
"It means we haven't had the official conversation yet," I tell her, which is the truest version of where Dakota and I are right now. "We're figuring it out."
"Is he worth figuring out?"
The answer comes immediately and without any effort at all, which tells me everything I need to know. "Yeah. He really is."
Macie smiles at me sideways. "Then figure it out."
We push through the set of double doors that leads into the main corridor and that's when it hits me — the particular organized chaos of the ER, that distinct combination of antiseptic and urgency that you never fully get used to no matter how long you've been in healthcare.
We have to cut through the edge of it to get to the Café teria on this route, which I usually don't mind, but today I'm mid-sentence, gesturing with my hands, telling Macie something about the Lean To's house bourbon selection, when I look up and stop walking entirely.
Dakota is standing at the intake desk.
He's in uniform, his jacket still on, and he's talking to one of the intake nurses with his badge reflecting off the lights. He’s gesturing behind him, and that’s when I see it.
A man sitting in one of the waiting chairs behind him who looks like he took a fall of some kind, hand wrapped in a makeshift bandage, and I put together quickly enough that this is a call Dakota is finishing up rather than something ongoing.
He hasn't seen me yet.
I have approximately two seconds to decide what I'm doing with my face before that changes, and I don't quite get there in time, because he turns his head in that unhurried way he has, like he's just checking the room, and then his eyes land on me and he goes completely still for just a beat before the corner of his mouth pulls up.
It's not a big smile. It's that quiet one, the one he keeps for people that mean something to him.
I've seen that smile aimed at Lucy. I've seen it aimed at Levi.
It's a relatively short list, and the fact that I'm on it causes flips in my chest that I'm still not fully prepared for even after all the time we've spent together.
"Hey," he says, crossing toward me. He speaks like he's got all the time in the world for me..
"Hey yourself." I manage to keep my voice level, which is an accomplishment given the way my pulse jumped the second I recognized him. "Rough call?"
"Manageable." He glances at Macie who is staring everywhere but at him. "Sorry, I'm Dakota Keller." He offers his hand.
"Macie Croft." She shakes it. "I've heard a lot about you."
I close my eyes for a half second, wishing the ground would swallow me fucking whole.
"Is that right?" He looks back at me, and now the quiet smile has a little more in it. "Good things, I hope."
"Very," Macie says, with the energy of someone who has just been handed more information than she was expecting and is absolutely relishing that fact.
"We're heading to the cafeteria," I say, before she can say anything else. "Are you done here?"
"Just about." He tilts his head toward the intake desk. "Give me two minutes."
I nod and watch him walk back, and when I turn around, Macie is staring at me with both eyebrows up and her clipboard held against her chest like she needs something to hold onto.
"Figuring it out," she repeats back to me, slow and deliberate.
"Macie."
"Molly." She gestures in his direction with a flick of her wrist. "That man looked at you like you hung the stars and you said you're figuring it out."
"We are figuring it out," I say, keeping my voice low because the ER has ears and small towns have bigger ones. "It's just early."
She shakes her head, but she's smiling, and she lets it go, which I appreciate more than I can say. "Fine. But for the record, Friday night at the Lean To is going to have absolutely nothing on whatever it is the two of you have going on."
I look back at Dakota, who has finished at the desk and is saying something to the man he brought in, before handing him off to what looks like Darren.
I think maybe she's right.
I'm just not quite ready to say it out loud yet.
But I'm getting there.