Chapter 4
PERSONAL DILEMMA
Farrah was on her way to the next patient’s room when her phone rang in the pocket of her lab coat.
She pulled it out quickly to make sure it wasn’t the school calling about Archer, saw her ex-husband and hesitated a brief second before she turned the corner and put her back to the wall to answer it.
Since his schedule was so chaotic and having time to talk about anything never happened, she better answer now.
“Hi, Tucker. What’s going on?”
“Farrah,” he said. Asshole couldn’t even say hi to her. “I’m going to have to cancel in two weeks with Archer.”
“What?” she asked. Her voice rose higher than she had planned, but this wasn’t good. “You only see him three times a year. What is going on?”
It just pissed her off that her had ex moved.
Nope, didn’t piss her off. She was kind of happy he wasn’t at Duke anymore where she’d risk seeing him.
That was how they met, when she worked in the orthopedic department.
She’d moved departments a few times at Duke since.
Working with a guy she was dating wasn’t good, even after they were married.
Once they divorced, it was much worse.
“It doesn’t matter what is going on, I can’t do it,” Tucker said. “I’d like to reschedule for a different week. Maybe just take him two weeks over the summer. I should be able to get a week off and a sitter for another.”
Which meant leaving her son with some stranger for a week.
Not ideal.
She wanted to argue but knew she had no say in it.
Tucker all but walked out of their life. For her, she didn’t care, but for her son, it was devastating for his father to leave.
Not that they were close, and they might never be if Tucker continued with only wanting to see his son for week-long periods, claiming the two-hour drive and back was too much in one day for them to visit on the weekends.
She’d even offered for them to meet halfway, so it was half the time.
She did the right things. She was accommodating when everything in her wanted to tell him to get the hell out of their lives and stay that way.
If it weren’t for her son, she would have said it. She didn’t need his money, nor the house she got in the divorce.
Many said she should have taken him for a lot more, but what she wanted was to move on with her life.
She ground her teeth. “I don’t have coverage for him for the week,” she said. “It’s spring break. You said you were going to take him to Florida. My parents are out of town and all his friends are going away too. He was all excited and now you’re canceling. Do you know what that does to a kid?”
“Life is full of disappointments,” Tucker said. “But something came up for work. I’ve got to attend a training, if you must know, so I canceled the trip with Archer. I’ll bring him over the summer. Make him understand it’s just a postponement, not a cancellation.”
She clenched her fist. Arguing never mattered and she was at work.
“Fine. The least you could do was tell him yourself. Call him tonight.”
“If I have time, I will,” Tucker said. “We’ll figure what weeks work for the summer. I’ve got to go.”
He just hung up on her. Like he did with their marriage. Decided and moved on.
She’d been nothing more than a check on his list.
A young new PA in his department where he’d just started months prior to her.
It was as if he had to show off he could get the girl, and he had. Met at twenty-five, married and pregnant at twenty-six, divorced before she was thirty.
She took a deep breath and then another, dropped her phone in the pocket of her lab coat and got ready to return to work.
She needed to take care of this but had a job to do also.
One thing at a time. Her next patient.
She pushed off the wall she was leaning on and turned the corner, only to see Jayce getting off the scale with a nurse’s aide. He was getting his temperature checked and had a blood oximeter on his finger.
Their eyes locked, his lips lifted in a smile, hers mirrored it.
For a moment the frustration of the call with her ex was forgotten.
“Hey,” he said. “This is a shock.”
Not her next patient. Thankfully.
“It is,” she said.
“Are you a doctor?”
“No. I’m a physician assistant. You mean you didn’t look me up?”
The nurse’s aide glanced between the two of them. “No,” he said. “I try not to do that. Did you?”
“Nope. I knew what you did before.”
“Right this way, Jayce.”
Farrah moved two doors down when Jayce followed the nurse’s aide to his room.
She saw her patient and put her personal dilemma behind her.
“Hi, I’m Farrah. What brings you in today?”
“I got bit by a bug a few days ago. I thought it was fine and then this morning I woke up and it looked like this.”
Her patient held her arm out. “Yikes. That looks painful. Do you know what kind of bug it was? Was it a tick?”
“Not a tick,” her patient said. “Some kind of black little bug. I slapped and killed it after it bit me.”
She put gloves on and examined her patient’s forearm. Pus in the center, bright red in a circle around it, then another bigger circle of pink, then an outline of white puffy skin. Infected for sure, inflamed and swollen.
“Does this hurt?” she asked, touching it.
“It’s kind of numb but hot to touch.”
“It’s infected. Have you taken anything?”
“I’ve put ice on it, took Benadryl all day yesterday and aspirin. It’s getting worse.”
“You did all the right things,” she said. “Even coming in today. Let me verify your pharmacy and get an antibiotic called in.”
“Thanks.”
She finished up with her patient and saw the nurse’s aide opening the door to Jayce’s room, leaving after going through the multiple questions they were required to ask.
“Don’t shut Jayce’s door,” she blurted. That way she didn’t have to worry if he was getting undressed or not. Better not to think of that. Not the way she’d been thinking of him for the past two days.
Even remembering the first kiss they shared at a friend’s house one night for a party. They’d taken a walk outside, the two of them holding hands, then he leaned in and laid one right on her.
Her shoulder wiggled again over the memory as she slid into the doorway to see Jayce standing there.
There was a gown on the bed, so he was going to get undressed. She was so glad he wasn’t her patient.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hi,” he said.
This was awkward. She didn’t know why she stopped to do this. “How have you been?”
“Good,” he said. “Probably better than you based on your call.”
“What?” she asked.
“Sorry.” His smile fell. “I heard you on the phone behind the wall.”
She cringed. “I didn’t think I talked that loud. Archer’s father. He canceled the Disney trip for spring break. Not only am I going to have to break it to Archer, I need to find childcare for the week. My parents are away, along with most of Archer’s friends.”
“I can do it,” he said.
“What?”
“I’ve got nothing else going on,” he said. “In two weeks, right? After Easter?”
“Yeah, but I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You’re not asking; I’m volunteering. Unless of course you don’t trust me. Seems your son likes me well enough.”
“He does.” Wouldn’t stop talking about Jayce either on Sunday. It didn’t bother her. She didn’t mind reminiscing about an old friend.
“So how hard can it be? I entertain him with games and feed him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or burgers.”
“He’s allergic to peanut butter. You’re already failing.”
His teeth showed in a wince. Nice, straight, white teeth. “Those are things you’d have to tell me about. So it’s on you.”
She laughed. “Good way to turn that around. I appreciate the offer, but I can figure it out.”
“Farrah, I mean it. It will give me something to do. Let me give you my number, unless you’ve still got it. It hasn’t changed since high school.”
“I don’t have it,” she said. She’d deleted anyone’s number she’d dated when she got married. Why keep it when she thought she’d have happy ever after? “Do you have mine?”
“Probably not,” he said.
“There you go.”
He pulled his phone out, unlocked it and handed it over. “Send yourself a text from my phone so you’ve got it. I mean it. If you’re in a bind, call me. Or you know, call me again for another game of one on one.”
Farrah hesitated the briefest of seconds, then reached for his phone, put her number in and sent the text. “I’ve got to return to work. It was good seeing you.”
She slipped out before his doctor saw her there and went to her next patient.
It was crazy for her to even consider it. She had plenty of time, and she was positive she could find someone else.