Chapter 32
“I KNOW I GAVE YOU a hard time about the first community event being on a night I was working,” says Maggie, her attention on Diego, who’s sprawled on the hospital bed, an ice pack conforming to his forehead. “But you didn’t have to bring the party to me.”
Diego groans, and Maggie shakes her head, turning to Ian and me. “What were you even doing out there?”
The nurse at reception had asked something similar when our disheveled trio stepped up.
I couldn’t blame her. Diego’s nose had bled all over my shirt, while Ian was sans shirt entirely, having sacrificed his tee to contain the nosebleed.
Maggie found him a blue scrub shirt to wear while we waited. It does not fit him. At all.
Ian’s eyes flit to mine, and I fight a smile, color rushing to my cheeks.
There are several ways to answer her question.
We’d started out playing the evening’s activity, which, as per Mark’s breakdown, was essentially hide-and-go-seek in the dark with the addition of the “seekers” being in cars.
As one of the hiding pairs, Ian and I were trying to get from the gym to a park about a mile up the road without being spotted and collected by those seeking.
Easy enough. But because there was no telling which cars held seekers and which were simply passers-by, we scrambled for a hiding spot every time we encountered headlights.
We dodged countless cars and spent several minutes squatting behind a dumpster to hide from what ended up being a food delivery guy crawling up the street trying to read house numbers.
I give Maggie the basics and shrug. “At that point, Ian’s knee started to bug him, so we decided to wait it out behind a hedge in someone’s yard.”
Ian bumps my shoulder with his. I flush again. Not someone’s yard, exactly. The house had a for-sale sign and a lock box on the front door. And when we realized we hadn’t tripped a motion sensor light, we figured there were more…satisfying ways to enjoy our time in the dark.
I twine my fingers with his. I don’t know what’s come over me. It’s one thing to striptease in the privacy of my own room, but seizing the cover of night as an opportunity to solicit my boyfriend with a “How are you?” and promptly going topless was entirely out of left field.
But—I squeeze his hand, and he squeezes back—I guess that’s who I am now.
“Sure.” Maggie’s tone is knowing. “And Diego appeared…”
“From above,” Ian offers. I nod. A vibration had picked up in the darkness, accompanied by the bright beat Diego uses for every alert, incoming calls, timers, alarms; the sound has started to haunt my dreams. It was enough to rouse me from, well…
my arousal, and that was when I spotted a light outlining a shape among the lower branches of the tree above us.
“He dropped his phone. It barely missed us,” Ian adds. He’d looked up, too, and as the phone came hurtling our way, he threw his arm over me. A second later, we were rolling, stopping only when we hit the hedge.
“I tried to catch it,” Diego wails. “I’m so sorry! Ellie, I wasn’t watching, I promise. I didn’t see your—”
“Did he even try to break his fall?” I ask over whatever it is Diego is about to assure me he hadn’t seen. Because it was my boobs. And everyone in this room knows it.
“It doesn’t look it,” Maggie says. I don’t know how she’s kept a straight face through all of this. “Probably for the best. The skull is designed to take a certain amount of impact. If he’d put up his hands, he probably would have broken his wrists.”
She nods at her patient. “I’m discharging him. There’s no indication he’s suffered a concussion, but just in case, wake him up every now and then to check for symptoms. Confusion, memory loss, emotional swings. Presuming that’s distinguishable from his normal behavior.”
“Any more paperwork on our end?” Ian asks, approaching the bed.
“Nope,” she says. “Ellie’s got it. You’re good to go.”
Ian looks at me in silent lack of disbelief, and I shrug. “I have photos of all their IDs, insurance cards, and emergency contact information on my phone. It seemed prudent.”
His smile holds that same something I glimpsed back at Firehouse, before Grant interrupted. Something to hang a hope on. He nods at our charge. “Shall we?”
The moment we maneuver him into the hallway, Diego announces in Spanish that he has to go to the bathroom. Ian follows. “I’ll go with him. Make sure he doesn’t drown in a urinal.”
“I’ll meet you out front,” I say, and point to the double doors below the exit sign. Ian nods, giving me the same look, and I remember what he said as everyone had filed into the gym. “So much for not spending a second apart tonight, huh?”
“I’ll make it up to you,” he says, and his eyes go dark. “That’s a promise.”
I’m feeling more than a little lightheaded when Maggie intercepts me at the nurse’s station. “Ellie?”
“Hmm?”
She gestures me closer. I lean in, and she whispers, “Your shirt’s on inside out.”
I look down at my front, the rise of the tank’s seams obvious in the harsh light from overhead. “So it is!” I chirp.
“There were some muddy handprints on Ian’s chest, too. Just a heads-up for later.” She winks. “Enjoy the rest of your evening.”
“Will do!” I say and continue down the hall and out the doors.
Recognition sends a chill over my shoulders, sapping me of the giddy lightness so completely that I stagger to a stop. It’s not the entrance we’d used earlier, but the main lobby, which separates the emergency room from the rest of the medical facility.
I know it well; countless trips up the leftmost hallway for my gynecologist, then, more recently, traveling down the right for the neurologist. I got to visit a whole separate wing for my MRI, where I pulled up an image of a coyote-proof dog harness for the receptionist; her back patio bordered a nature preserve, and she was concerned about leaving her Pomeranian outside. I wonder if she bought one.
It feels like a lifetime ago, or like someone else’s life. But now that I’m here, it’s all too real. This is no place for hope.
“Ellie?” asks a familiar voice. It’s Dr. Selah.
I scan to spot the gynecologist a few paces away, emerging from the left corridor. “Hi, Doctor!” I send her a genuine smile, happy to see her at her full height and not seated between my legs.
“I haven’t seen you in some time,” she says, her eyes moving over me as she approaches. “Are you well?”
I frown, not meaning to, and quickly school my face into something less expressive of seriously?
But her eyes go soft. “I should know better than to ask that in this building.” She looks at me more closely, and I clock the moment the blood on my shirt registers. “Oh, Ellie, are you—”
“It’s not mine!” I assure her. “One of my roommates fell out of a tree.”
Her forehead creases, and I suppress another frown. My living situation has changed significantly since the last time we saw one another.
“Cole and I broke up. It wasn’t…” I don’t know how to finish that sentence. Or why I’d started it in the first place. Was I about to claim that the reasons why I was going to her hadn’t contributed to the demise of our relationship? “It’s been an interesting few months.”
“In any case, you look well.” She studies me. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you look”—she makes the double-fisted gesture generally used to convey muscularity—“fit.”
“Yeah! I’m working reception at a gym. Membership is a perk. It’s been nice experiencing elective discomfort.” At her wary expression, I explain, “Being sore from back squats is preferable to extreme pain because my body has decided that my uterine lining should be on a kidney this month.”
Her responding laugh seems involuntary. “You’ve always had a colorful perspective.”
“It’s either that or scream.”
“Good point.” She smiles. “It’s nice to see that you’ve found a way to make peace with your body.”
I tip my head, pretending to consider. “More like a temporary suspension of hostilities.”
“I’m glad. Especially given those exchanges I had with Dr. Hartman’s office. I’m so sorry,” she says, placing a hand on my arm. “I meant to follow up with you—”
“It’s fine…now,” I say, and Dr. Selah’s hand returns to her side. “Another item on the list of maladies.”
“Oh, Ellie!” Diego’s voice calls from behind me, and I turn to watch him half jog toward me, one hand still clutching the ice pack to his face. “Ellie, I didn’t know where you’d gone!”
Ian rolls his eyes as he saunters after him. “He was very concerned.”
“Ian, this is Dr. Selah,” I say, taking note of the tastefully appreciative glance the doctor sends Ian. That scrub shirt is fighting for its life. “And Diego—”
“Ellie is my roommate,” Diego explains. “There are three of us! And she’s been teaching us how to cook and be adults. I can make an omelet!”
To her credit, Dr. Selah just keeps smiling. She has a wonderful smile; she hasn’t had much use for it during my visits. “A good omelet is one of life’s pleasures. Pleased to meet you both. Ellie, always a delight.” She cocks her head thoughtfully. “You really do look well.”
“Thank you,” I say. “I feel… great.”
“I’m glad to hear it. And hoping that I don’t hear from Dr. Hartman’s office again.”
I raise a hand, crossing my fingers. “Ditto,” I say in parting.
Diego waves at her broadly, and she waves back with a laugh, then heads for the exit. I watch the double doors part as she approaches, then shut behind her.
I turn to find Ian studying me, a question in his look. “She’s who diagnosed my endometriosis,” I explain.
He nods, brow still pleated. “Sure. Let’s go.”