6. Paige
I run up the five flights of stairs to my apartment. The building is only a few years old, but for some reason they installed the world’s slowest elevators. They’re fine when I’m carrying up something heavy, or something squirmy, and the slow rides are actually great for chatting with neighbors.
But most of the time, I don’t have the patience for them and take the stairs. Like today. By 3:00 p.m., I could barely sit still at the conference table all us paralegals were working at to review the zillion documents for a bankruptcy I do not care one bit about. Jared kept joking that I was looking at the time so often, I must have a hot date tonight. But at least that was better than his usual comments about us sneaking off to the file room, which will never happen.
Jared was right that I was anxious to leave, but I was also checking the time a lot because I really love looking at the Bvlgari watch I’m borrowing from my couch guy. The face, the numbers, the metal band are all an ultra-luxe matte black. It’s sophisticated and stylish, even though it’s huge on my wrist. It’s heavy, reminding me all day about him. Not that I would forget. And it makes me feel connected to my guy while I’m at work.
Today would’ve been the perfect time to use a personal day, but I used all my accrued personal days last month when I was rehabbing the cutest baby squirrels that needed to be fed every two hours. I’m on thin ice with my supervisor already, so I couldn’t risk calling out sick.
And it definitely didn’t help that Gina kept texting all day, alternating between asking what I was going to do if I got home and found my ‘big rescue’ dead—punctuated by strings of gravestone emojis—and then asking me what I was going to do if I got home and found him awake—punctuated by strings of eggplant and tongue emojis.
But I’m not at all worried that he died. I know I kicked ass on his stitches. That’s not why I needed to rush home. It’s all the other possibilities that keep swirling through my brain.
Did he wake up and leave, or at least try to? Is he mad that I didn’t take him to the hospital? Like, did he really mean for me to help him myself, or was he in some delusional state, some temporary insanity from a loss of blood, and now he’ll be pissed?
Will he be mad that I listened to Gina and tied him up? Or that I’m borrowing his watch? Or that I hid his gun? If the guys who were after him are able to track him down, he won’t be able to defend himself.
Or is he waiting for me to get home to thank me for saving him?
My brain’s been spiraling from good outcome to bad, from amazing to horrible, so I really need to get home to rip off this Band-Aid of uncertainty.
I’m panting from running up the stairs at top speed. I rush down the hall, remembering at the last second to avoid the weird hallway carpet bubble I might have caused last night when the luggage cart got caught coming around the corner.
My hand is shaking so much I can barely get the key to turn the deadbolt. I throw the door open and practically fall into the room and—
The glass of water I left him is still full.
The apple slices, now brown and dull, are untouched.
One of his long, tan, muscular legs slipped out from under the blanket, his foot now on the floor, but otherwise, he’s exactly where I left him. Calm, relaxed, asleep.
Or passed out or whatever.
My shoulders relax, and I let out a long exhale. I knew he’d be fine. “Hi, honeys, I’m home,” I whisper to my rescue critters, and now that includes him.
I drop my bag on the floor, toss my keys onto the little table by the door. I tiptoe over and place two fingers on his warm neck to check he still has a pulse, just to be sure.
I text Gina “Not dead” with a stethoscope emoji. She texts back offering to come over, but I tell her not to bother. I’m going to do my rounds then crash, maybe stream some trashy TV. After all the drama of last night and being stressed at work all day, I just want to veg out and watch other people’s crazy, fancy lives.
I grab the browned apple slices off the plate and drop three of them into Tango’s terrarium, then push the rest through the metal grates of Romeo’s cage. “Give me a few minutes to change, guys.” I practically skip to my bedroom, which is only three steps from the living room.
I wish I had another pair of scrubs to change into for my evening rounds, but since I don’t, I opt for royal blue dolphin shorts with white piping and a heather gray tank. Sadly, I threw my green scrubs out this morning. I tried soaking them in the bathroom sink overnight to get the blood out, but it clearly wasn’t happening. I ended up shoving them into the bag full of my guy’s bloody clothes and tossed the bag into a trash can on the way to work.
Grabbing my rescue notebook off the table, I head toward my guy. This is where I write all my treatment notes and health stats for each of my patients. Thoughts about what worked and what didn’t and what I should try next time around.
I turn to a new page for my guy. Hmmm. What do I call him? I didn’t get his name, and he didn’t have a wallet or anything on him.
It would be weird to call him ‘Hotel’ even though that’s the military alphabet word for the letter ‘H,’ which is my usual naming convention. Vice Admiral Commander Dad would be so proud.
I could go with ‘Mike’ for ‘man’ or ‘Golf’ for ‘guy,’ but he doesn’t look like a Mike and Golf is as dumb as Hotel. ‘Alpha’ is too on the nose, given he’s tall, dark, and hot as fuuuugh.
Ooh. There we go. F. I label the top of the page ‘Foxtrot.’ Because, just looking at him, he seems like he’d be amazing at. . . dancing.
Perfect.
I take his pulse with my thumb on his wrist. Fifty-five, healthy boy. His watch has a separate seconds dial on the face, which is handy for timing sixty seconds. So much easier to take his pulse than Romeo’s. That little rabbit comes in at over 150 beats per minute and wriggles around the whole time, so I have to keep restarting, and 150 is hard to count that fast.
And I’m not even sure I’m actually measuring Tango’s pulse. If I try to feel him too much, he pulls his little legs and head in so that all I’m left with is his hard shell. Sometimes I think I’m feeling a slight throbbing on his belly, but I have no clue, so I usually just put a check mark next to pulse for him since I know it’s in there beating somewhere.
Staring down at my guy, still holding his wrist, I hadn’t realized how much blood and dirt was still all over him. Last night, my focus was just on stabilizing him and treating his wounds. That included cleaning around the wound sites, but Gina and I didn’t bother with anywhere else.
I guess tonight I should take care of the rest of him.