Round 30
ROUND THIRTY
OLLIE
Days pass in chunks of twelve-hour shifts at the hospital, lingering side-stares from Dara when she passes in the halls, gentle questions from Janine at shift change, two more phone calls from Billy with two more motherfuckers who thought they’d try their luck claiming a woman they don’t know, and several more training sessions at the gym.
But every night ends with Rose right here beside me on the couch, the fire flickering to my left, the television illuminating the otherwise dark room, and every now and then, I’d catch her peeking at me.
Studying. Staring. Thinking. She blushes each time our eyes meet, shooting her gaze back to the movie she’s only mildly interested in, but without fail, within minutes, she’d look again.
Every time she does, my heart skips a beat.
“What?” I hit pause around the middle of Pearl Harbor and toss the remote to the coffee table, turning to her and grinning in challenge.
She slept last night. I slept last night.
Halle-fuckin’-lujah. “Do I have a booger on my face or something?” I swipe my nose.
“Food smudges around my lips?” I wipe there, too.
“You keep staring. It’s wigging me out a little bit. ”
Her cheeks burn a furious, fiery red.
“What is it, Rose?”
“Nothing.” She faces the television with intense determination. Yet, mere seconds pass before she peeks again. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s something!” I grab her shoulders and spin her around, her leg coming up to bang against mine. “Did you wander into town today while I was at work? Run into my dad in the street? Did someone tell you embarrassing stories about me?”
“No.” But still, she fucking blushes. “It’s nothing like that.”
“So you admit it’s something?” I wrap her fidgeting hands in mine and yank her closer until our noses stop just twelve inches apart. “Did I break out in teen acne since I last looked in the mirror?”
She snickers, shaking her head. “No.”
“Forget my pants?” I look down to make sure I didn’t. Just in case. “Walk around with toilet paper stuck to the bottom of my shoe?”
“No!” She laughs. “It’s nothing like that.”
“So, what?” I shake her. A month ago, I wouldn’t have dared. But she’s strong. She’s healing. And she isn’t scared of me. “Got a dick growing out of my forehead?”
“No. I was just thinking about… it’s…” She frowns. “It’s a lot of weird, disjointed, random things. I couldn’t explain even if I tried.”
“Try!” I pinch her chin between my thumb and finger, holding her still when I know she’d rather turn. “Explain each disjointed thing and trust me to be able to connect the dots.”
She groans, circling my wrist with her palm. “But it’s embarrassing.”
“Embarrassing for me?”
“I wish. It’s embarrassing for me. You, as always, are just the poor bystander dragged into my mess.”
“Well, you can’t leave me hanging now.” Almost giddy with anticipation, I inch forward until our legs tangle and the warmth pulsing from her heated cheeks physically pounds in the air.
“I had a longgggg day today, and I was thinking about you the whole time. This dumbass kid, like seventeen years old, was on his daddy’s barn roof and thought it would be smart to slide down. Buck-ass naked.”
She screws her nose up. “Wow.”
“No shit. I spent eight consecutive hours plucking splinters out of his ass. It wasn’t fun for either of us.”
“And you thought of me the whole time?” She giggles. “I’m flattered. Not.”
“Had to do something with my brain.” I release her chin, but only so I can lay my arm across the back of the couch and finger a loose lock of her hair.
“Doesn’t take a surgeon to pick splinters, just a pair of tweezers and a lot of patience.
So then I started doing crossword puzzles in my brain.
I’m pretty sure I wrote a play or two. Mentally.
I even called Billy to see if he’d popped anything new on your case.
And I never call Billy willingly. By the time I was done with all that, I was thirty-something minutes into my work and still had a teen’s ass in my face.
Now I need you to tell me what you’re thinking. Stretch my brain, I beg you.”
“You’ll think I’m ridiculous. No better than an impulsive teen peeling his pants off.”
“Try me.” I give her hair a gentle tug. It does nothing to dull the heat in her cheeks. “I’ve worked in the ER a long time. Not much surprises me these days.”
“Goddddd.” She drops her head into her hand and burns bright red. “It’s so dumb. But it’s Eliza’s fault too, so this isn’t entirely on me.”
“A lot of things are Eliza’s fault,” I tease. “She hasn’t matured beyond her sixth birthday. It was foolish of me to let you two hang out without a suitable chaperone.” I hook my finger around her wrist and pull her hand away from her face. “Please tell me.”
“It’s about you.”
“I know. I’m the poor bystander, remember? Lay it on me.”
“I dreamed about you last night.” She brushes my hand away and spins off the couch, bounding to her feet with a flurry of long black hair and the scent of honey left in the air behind her.
She strides to the other side of the coffee table and paces from one end of my living room to the other.
“I dream about you every night, of course. I even tell you about those dreams, since they sometimes have a little something in them that may help us figure me out. But I didn’t tell you about this one.
” She stops on a dime and brings her eyes up to mine. “I couldn’t tell you about this one.”
“So…” I straighten on the couch and lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “You told Eliza about it instead?”
She barks out a startling, wildly uncharacteristic laugh and resumes her pacing. “Absolutely not. She’s your sister! I would never tell your sister about it.”
“But you said—”
“She was working on some moves last night at the gym. After you went into the octagon with Chris and left me behind.”
“That was okay, right? You said you were—”
“It was fine.” She waves me off, striding to the fireplace, spinning on her heels, then walking back the other way.
“It was just me, Eliza, and Cliff, because Cliff is another poor bystander, and Eliza made him the dummy she got to hurt to teach me new things.” She nibbles on her pinky nail, chewing and frowning.
“I don’t mind hanging out with them, and you were just across the room.
I could see you the whole time anyway. But Eliza—” She stops and meets my eyes.
“Does Eliza like Cliff? Like…” She makes a goofy expression.
“Ya know what I mean? Like like. Because she was getting super close to him, and he was trying real hard not to be so close.”
I thought I was gonna hear something fun about Rose.
But nope. Here I am, gnashing my teeth and wearing down the enamel on my molars instead.
“My sister is friendly with a lot of people. She’s an outgoing person, and she likes testing boundaries.
Mine. Cliff’s. Literally anyone with a pulse.
” I push off the couch and round the coffee table, standing in her path in case she decides to start pacing again.
“Is this whole story gonna be about my sister? Because I don’t like talking about the things she does with men. Gives me the ick.”
“Oh. Right!” She drops her hand and blushes. “That was a side quest. Eliza said that you like me.”
My heart stumbles, cartwheeling and spinning in my chest. “I’m sorry, what?”
“It all sounds so middle school, I know. But she said you like me, like like me. But she said you’ll never, not in a million years, say so, because you were my doctor first, and because I’m staying here.
She said you’d sooner chop your own hand off than make me feel uncomfortable, so even if we’re eating dinner and things feel nice, you won’t cross any lines, just in case I’m not feeling what you’re feeling. ”
“Oh… cool.” I’m gonna kill my own fucking sister. “That was big of her to say. And now she’s gone and done what I said I wouldn’t; made you feel uncomfortable.”
“I’m not uncomfortable.” She goes back to pacing, but in a smaller space than before.
“I watched you fight Chris last night—which was oddly exciting, by the way—and then we came home, had dinner, and went to bed. You were still the same you, and you didn’t know what was happening in my head, so everything was the same as always. Nothing felt weird or uncomfortable.”
“Well…” Good fucking lord. Nerves spin and swirl in my belly, and the tips of my fingers… they tingle. Tingle! “Good to know my sister didn’t freak you out or anything. I’ll talk to her when I see her next and tell her that saying things like that is not okay.”
She spins at the front door, a full fifteen feet from where I stand, and plops her hands on her hips. “So you don’t like me?”
I swear, the fucking color drains straight out of my face. “What?”
“Was she lying?”
“Well, no—”
“Or mistaken?”
“No, it’s not that—”
“Because people who like people typically act on it.”
Fuck. Me. “Rose—”
“But I’m forced to admit this is not a typical situation, and we already covered the bit about how you were my doctor and you won’t want to cross any lines.
” She takes a single step forward, lacing her hands together in front of her hips.
“You’re very careful, Ollie. You hold my hand and stroke my hair sometimes.
You hug me when I need it, and God,” she groans, “you have this special ability to know exactly when I need those hugs. I’m aware I’m just a woman who possibly fell out of the sky and into your ER, and maybe some people would think that’s the perfect time to hit on a woman, but I feel like I’ve gotten to know you, and so I think you’re the opposite. ”
“Uh…” I scratch the back of my neck. “The opposite of what?”
“Well, I think you would choose not to hit on me, because you don’t want to take advantage of a woman when she’s vulnerable.”