Chapter 11
BECCA
The Atlanta General Annual MS Walk starts early on a Saturday morning.
So early that I’m still sluggish and sleepy when Mia and I pull up to the Piedmont High School football stadium just down the road from the hospital.
“Is there coffee?” I ask through a yawn. “There has to be coffee.”
“What is wrong with you?” Mia asks. “This is barely earlier than when we get up for work.”
“But it’s Saturday, and I know I’m not working. My brain is confused.”
“I’m sure there’s coffee,” Mia says. “And probably a million other things for us to choose from for breakfast.”
Though it’s not even seven a.m., the stadium is already buzzing.
Rows and rows of tents are set up along the edge of the parking lot where participants are checking in.
Multiple food trucks are selling breakfasty things, including coffee and something that smells like cinnamon rolls, which—sign me up for one of those.
I imagine, as the day progresses, the food trucks will swap out with others geared more toward lunch and then dinner, then rotate back to breakfast for the end of the event this time tomorrow.
Mia and I won’t be here for the entire twenty-four hours.
The goal is to have someone from your team walking laps on the track for the whole event.
We signed up for the first twelve hours, then a second shift will replace us for the next twelve.
While we’re here, we’ll walk for an hour, then take an hour break, then walk for another hour, and so on until the next group arrives to take over.
I assumed night shift would be the harder gig, but now that I’m here, they might have the better end of the deal.
At seven a.m., it’s already starting to feel warm.
Walking the track at two in the afternoon is going to be brutal.
Though maybe not as brutal as walking all night when I’ve got to work first thing in the morning.
Plus, Theo will be here during the day.
Not that it matters. I’m trying very hard not to think about the fact that I know when he will be here at all.
I’m not proud of the fact that I was willing to fill out three forms of information on the Jaguars website and make a donation to the MS Foundation just to get to the page that specified when each of the hockey players would be walking.
I should have just texted him. When I left his apartment last week, we talked about seeing each other here, but we never really specified when.
I thought he might text me and ask, but he never did.
Then I started overthinking.
Because of course I did.
And now, I’m almost to the point where I wish I’d never called him or gone over to his apartment in the first place.
I knew this would happen. I knew. Ignoring my rules was bound to get me in trouble. I broke them, and now I’m thinking about him way too much.
“Okay, what do we do first?” Mia asks. “Check in? Or get food?”
“Do you know me at all?”
“Check in,” Mia says, turning toward the appropriate tent. “Because you will not want to be late.”
Twenty minutes later, we’re all checked in, with our team’s matching armbands secured around our biceps.
We’re fueled with coffee and the cinnamon strudel we smelled earlier—it was every bit as delicious as we hoped—and we’re at our team’s tent, listening to Emily, who is the nursing team captain, give out our walking assignments.
As long as one of us is always on the track, we’ll be following the event’s rules; but we’re assigned to walk in groups of three or four so we always have company and so nobody freaks out if someone needs a bathroom break.
To our left, I see another tent of Atlanta General staff, and I recognize several of the surgeons I work with.
Dr. Novac looks up and meets my eye, then lifts her hand in a friendly wave.
“What do you have to do to be on that team?” Mia asks.
“Drive a car worth more than our annual salary,” I say back, and she snorts.
Mia and I aren’t assigned to the first shift, so we settle into a couple of camp chairs in the shade. I pull out my Kindle to read, but I don’t even open it. I’m too busy scanning the rest of the field, looking for any sign of Theo or the rest of his team.
“It’s near the fifty-yard line,” Mia says, and I turn to look at her.
“What is?”
“The Jaguars tent. I know that’s what you’re looking for.”
I huff and open my Kindle. “I am not.”
She scoffs. “Girl, you should have just texted him.”
“I had no reason to text him,” I say, and Mia rolls her eyes.
“Sure you didn’t.”
I turn back to my book, but then Lexie, the nurse I met when Theo visited Garrison, drops into an empty chair next to mine.
“Listen, I just want to thank you again for last week,” she says after I introduce her to Mia. “Garrison was over the moon. He’s home now, but his mom just emailed a picture of him in his room with his signed Georgia Jaguars jersey up on the wall. It was really, really awesome of Theo to come.”
“He was happy to do it,” I say. “I’m glad Garrison is home.”
“He’s such a fighter. I really love that kid.
” Lexie glances around the stadium. On the opposite side next to the home bleachers, the first group of walkers is lining up for the official start of the event.
“So, you don’t happen to know if Theo is going to be here today, do you?
” she asks, and my eyebrows lift. “I mean, the team will be here. They always are. But like, not necessarily all of them. So I was just wondering if maybe you knew about him.” She bites her lip. “Specifically.”
An uneasy feeling pulses right behind my ribs. I’m not surprised Lexie is asking about Theo. I was there. And watching him with Garrison was pretty amazing.
But I still don’t like the idea of setting her up with him.
I glance over at Mia, who is watching me closely. Her scrutiny strengthens my resolve. I’m not interested in Theo. I’m not. So there’s no reason Lexie shouldn’t be.
I force myself to smile. “He’s going to be here,” I say, keeping my voice as neutral as possible.
Lexie brightens. “Oh good. Do you also happen to know if he’s single?” A faint blush climbs her cheeks as she asks. “The internet says he is, but I’d rather know for sure before I make a fool of myself.”
The question catches me off-guard, and I’m surprised to realize I don’t actually know the answer. Theo deflected when I asked him about his love life, which led me to assume he’s single—I don’t think he would do that if he were in a relationship.
Plus, I slept in his apartment. Would he have offered his spare room without communicating something—anything—to a significant other?
Except, maybe he did. Maybe he showed me where the towels were, then immediately went to his room and sent a text to his girlfriend letting her know his poor, pathetic ex had been dumped and needed a place to crash for the night.
Somehow, I doubt it. Lexie’s right. According to the internet, Theo Williamson doesn’t do commitment.
“I’m not entirely sure,” I finally say. “But I haven’t heard him mention anyone special.”
“Good. That’s good,” Lexie says, glancing around the stadium one more time. “There’s just something so cool about the idea of dating a hockey player, you know?”
I frown, my opinion of Lexie immediately souring.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Sounds like a tough life. All the traveling they do. The potential for injuries.”
“Right, but the playoff jackets are totally amazing,” Lexie says. She sits up a little taller and clears her throat. “Not that I would do it just for the jacket or anything. Obviously.”
“Right. Definitely not,” I say.
She stands. “Okay, well, thanks!”
“Playoff jackets?” Mia asks as soon as Lexie is out of earshot.
“It’s this thing the wives and girlfriends do,” I explain. “If the team makes it to the playoffs, all the women get a designer jacket. Then everyone posts about them, and fans compare all the teams and pick their favorites. It’s kind of a big deal.”
“Oh, Lexie would totally do it for the jacket,” Mia says, and I laugh.
“Yeah. I think she probably would.”
“So, what, then? You’re just going to let her throw herself at Theo? No thoughts about that?”
“Why would I have thoughts?” I say, eyes glued to the book I still haven’t started to read.
Mia breathes out a sigh. “You’re infuriating.”
I don’t tell Mia I agree with her. I find myself infuriating every time I look toward the Jaguars tent in search of one very specific hockey player.
When it’s finally our turn to walk, Mia and I give up our chairs and make our way to the track. I look for the millionth time toward the Jaguars tent, but it’s still empty. The team of fancy hockey players must have different rules than the rest of us.
The sun is still low in the morning sky, hidden behind the enormous high school beside the track, so we’ll make it through this shift without sunscreen. But in a couple of hours, we’re going to be roasting.
“Wait, is the fire department here so they can hose us down if we get hot?” Mia asks. “That’s totally brilliant.”
“Theo told me they would be,” I say. I lift my tank top away from my skin as a faint breeze moves through the stadium. “I think we’re definitely going to need it.”
We walk for almost twenty minutes before I finally spot Theo and Carter standing at the edge of the Jaguars team tent.
I’ve seen them both this summer but not together. The effect is almost startling. They really are so alike.
“Becca,” Mia calls, and my eyes dart to hers. She’s several paces in front of me, which means I stopped walking and didn’t even realize it. She walks back, hands propped on her hips. “You can’t just stand here and stare at him.”
“I’m not staring,” I say, but Mia isn’t an idiot. She caught me three different times in the past week with the Jaguars Instagram feed pulled up on my phone. She knows I’m thinking about him, even if I don’t want to be.
She tugs me to the grass beside the track, out of the flow of traffic. “Tell me what you want here,” she says. “Do you want to talk to him?”
“I shouldn’t want to talk to him,” I say. “It’s against my rules.”