Chapter 6
Adam counted to ten as he sat across from his father and mother in the radiology waiting area.
“I don’t understand why I have to deal with all this. I feel fine. I wanna go home.”
“Pop, for the millionth time, you have to come in periodically for the doctor to see how your leg is healing. You wanna get back to walking on your own, right?”
His father grumbled his displeasure loud enough that one of the health care workers walking by gave him an alarmed look.
“You know I do. But all this fuss ain’t necessary. They already put the cast on it, that should be enough.”
Adam let a long sigh release into the air, trying to keep control of his temper. Not that he had or ever would lose it on his dad. Adam had learned a long time ago that the best thing to do was to ignore him and find a way around his surliness.
It kept his dad from exploding and kept Adam’s blood pressure down. That was a win-win situation as far as Adam was concerned.
“We been waiting here all day and they ain’t call me yet. I’m going home.”
His father shifted in his wheelchair, leaning forward to pull up the brake on one side. Before he could reach the other brake, Adam had both hands on the back handles and stopped his father from moving.
“Pop, what are you doing?”
“I’m going home. If it was all that important for me to get these X-rays, they wouldn’t have me up here waiting all day.”
“Dad, you can’t just—”
“Watch me.” His insolent father rebuked, unlocking the other brake and doing his best to move his chair forward.
Adam quickly relocked one of the brakes and stepped in front of his father, situating both hands on the arm rests to keep the man in place.
“Dad, you’re gonna make me call one of the nurses out here to restrain you if you don’t stop it.”
“I’d damn sure like to see you try.” Grady’s grave voice was tinged with sharp anger, and Adam knew if he didn’t get this situation under control soon, the ornery bastard would probably run over Adam’s foot, or worse, punch him in the gut or the groin just to break free of Adam’s restraint.
“Is everything all right?”
Adam and his father looked up at the same time to find Janae Sanders standing to the side of them.
She wore blue scrubs, her stethoscope hanging around her neck, dangling temptingly in the vee of her shirt.
When has medical equipment ever been your kink? Get it together, Henderson.
“Look who it is, Grady. It’s Janae Sanders.”
That came from his delighted mother, who seemed to be the only member of his family who had any manners at present. His father sat there grumbling, and Adam was too dumbfounded by how good Janae and all her curves made a nondescript pair of uniform clothes look to find his tongue and speak.
“Hi, Mrs. Henderson. How are you?”
“Oh, I’m okay.” His mother beamed. “We’re just sitting here waiting to be called for Grady’s X-rays. The doctor needs to check on his leg to make sure it’s mending well.”
Janae nodded and looked at Adam. He could tell from the tilt of her head and the narrowing of her eyes that she was silently asking about the troubled exchange between he and his father.
He closed his eyes, exhausted and exasperated; Adam’s frustration seeped out of him on a long sigh.
He opened his eyes, attempting to explain, but in her kind brown eyes and soft smile, she gave his hand a short squeeze as if to say, “I’ve got you.”
Her touch warmed him throughout, making him want to bask in it far longer than was necessary for a passing interaction in a hospital hallway.
Janae kneeled down so that she was eye to eye with his father, and Adam saw his father immediately relax. “Have you been waiting long?”
“Too long,” his father grumbled. But this time when he spoke, there was no bite to his voice, only weariness. “Makes no doggone sense they got me sitting out here this long for two minutes’ worth of X-rays.”
Adam shook his head. “Don’t pay him any mind. He’s cranky because he’d rather be watching ESPN than sitting here waiting for these images.”
Janae chuckled softly at Adam’s comment, then returned her warm regard to his father.
“I know it can be frustrating to have to wait out here to be seen. But I’m pretty sure your doctor wouldn’t have ordered the X-rays if they weren’t necessary.
If you can wait here for a sec, I can try to find out what’s holding things up. ”
She gave Adam a soft smile again, silently comforting him as she walked past him. A whiff of something soft and slightly sweet caressed his nose as she stepped into the radiology office.
She was only gone for a minute or two, but when she returned, she brought back that same soft smile, and her lightly glossed full lips called to him.
“It looks like the emergency room machine is down, and so it’s created a backlog up here in outpatient radiology.
Fortunately, I know the tech that’s on right now.
I promised to get him one of those fancy Starbucks coffees he loves on my next break if he could get you in within the next ten minutes. He should be calling you momentarily.”
Adam reached out and took her hand. His intention was just to shake it, but the feel of his thumb against her skin made him want to linger, remain in that spot for as long as he could without breaking the connection.
“I really appreciate that, Janae.”
“No worries. That’s what I’m here for, to make every patient’s time here as painless as possible.”
A part of him ached at her response. Today when she spoke her words and tone were filled with kindness and understanding, not the hesitation he seemed to sense when they spoke over the phone.
He’d wanted to think that was partly for him and not just some practiced professional helpfulness she’d learned during her years of nursing.
Once she said her goodbyes to both his parents and him, she walked down the hall, turning back to share that simple smile with him again, and disappeared around a corner.
He couldn’t help mirroring her smile as his chest filled with hope. Maybe, just maybe, she was warming up to the thought of being friends after all.
“She was always such a nice girl.”
Adam turned around, pulling his gaze away from the now empty hall and placing it back on his mother.
“Yeah, Ma,” Adam agreed. “I think she still is.”
Janae was still trying to figure out what happened, and why she was at this godforsaken Starbucks when she hated the place.
Sure, it was right inside of the hospital, which made it a perfect place to grab a quick cup of coffee if you were on duty.
Convenient or not, she loathed it. It was always crowded and the coffee always smelled burned to her.
If her memory served, it didn’t taste much better.
She was hard-pressed to understand the world’s fixation with the chain. Other than its pastries, she couldn’t tell why folks like Ian, the radiology tech, were so obsessed with the place.
But she was here for one reason only. Because she couldn’t seem to mind her business and stay away from Adam.
She’d spotted him before he’d seen her. She could’ve quietly turned down the corridor, and he would’ve been none the wiser. Yet when she noticed there was some difficulty happening with his father, she couldn’t help but go over and make sure everything was okay.
Damn her inner caretaker that always wanted to make sure everyone around her was good.
Damn her inner child who’d always wanted someone to protect her from her mother’s harsh words.
Something about seeing Mr. Henderson sitting there with his face pinched in anger, and all of that heated emotion directed at Adam, it just didn’t sit well with her, and she couldn’t walk away.
Yeah, the patient should’ve been her first thought, but he wasn’t. The weary look on Adam’s face as he and his father squared up against each other drew her to them. She used her helpful bedside manner to de-escalate the situation and take some of Adam’s frustration away.
Of course, she didn’t dare admit that to herself while it was happening. She told herself she was doing what she was trained to do, prioritizing the patient’s needs. That was the only acceptable reason for her sticking her nose in a situation where it didn’t belong.
Not that it was much of an imposition. Getting Ian his favorite coffee drink wasn’t that big of a sacrifice. The relief she saw on Adam’s face made buying Ian’s expensive cup of burnt coffee bearable.
She was a nurse at her core, and she would always be inclined to help a patient if she could. That much was true. Deep down in her bones, however, she knew that helping Adam was what drove her to intervene.
If that patient happened to be the father of one tall man with tempting hazel eyes that she could stare into all day, well, that was just a plus, right?
That’s all it could be. That’s all she could allow it to be.
It shouldn’t be because the knot that sat in her chest when she first saw the worry on his face loosened a bit when she realized she could help. It certainly shouldn’t have been because of the electricity that jolted through her when Adam’s skin touched hers.
No, it shouldn’t have been any of those reasons.
Adam stood at the free throw line, dribbling the ball in place and lining up his shot.
He was king of the free throws when he was in the NBA, a record he was still proud of.
He stood at the three-point line with his knees slightly bent.
He took one last look at the hoop and let the ball glide off his fingers, through the air, and directly into the basket, making a crisp swooshing sound.
Adam smiled with a triumphant gleam in his eye as he turned to the three men he and his boys had been playing against.
“And that, my friends,” Adam boasted proudly, “is what you call game.”
The familiar joy of winning at the game he loved blossomed through his chest. Sure, he hadn’t played professionally in twenty years.
That didn’t mean he still didn’t love hooping whenever he could.
He might not be able to run up and down on an arena-sized court for two or more hours, but he’d pit his game against any of his peers any day of the week.
Friendly pickup games with his boys ensured he would never completely lose his swag. A fact Adam was pleasantly tickled by.
Their opponents groaned before lining up to shake Michael’s, Derrick’s, and then Adam’s hand.
While his friends stayed and talked with the other players, Adam went to his bag on the side of the court, checking his phone for a call, text, even a messenger pigeon would do to settle this anxiety he had where Janae was concerned.
Adam had never had to chase women, so this was a new experience of waiting and hoping a woman would check for him.
“Come on, Janae. Why you doing a brotha like this?”
“Air ball!”
Adam didn’t react quick enough to the warning before the basketball binged him on the side of the head.
Fortunate for him, the culprit throwing the ball didn’t put too much force on it, so only Adam’s ego was bruised.
Michael and Derrick walked over to where he was on the court. “Man,” Michael said. “Where was your head? We were yelling for you to move for a minute.”
“Uh, I was just thinking about work.”
Lies, all lies. He wasn’t thinking about work. He was thinking about Janae.
She’d been front and center on his mind all week, ever since he’d run into her at the hospital.
She’d done his pops a real kindness. As far as he knew, she wasn’t particularly close with his mother and father.
But the fact that she would use her connections to get his father’s grumpy ass out of that waiting room touched him.
“What’s happening at work?”
“I’ve got an upcoming board meeting. It’s my first since I joined the district. I’m not sure what to expect from the parents.”
“This is Monroe Hills,” Derrick said. “Ain’t nothing change since forever. You know the folks that’s gonna be there and they’re still the same as they always have been. They still gon’ love you like they always did.”
Emotion welled up in him at Derrick’s words.
That was his boy, always having a positive upbeat word to make you feel like you can tackle anything.
As Adam looked back, it seemed that had always been the case.
Derrick’s boisterous voice rising above the crowd to shout his excitement for Adam on the court, Adam in school, Adam in his first NBA game.
Here he was again, ole tried and true, making Adam remember he was capable of great things.
Adam cleared his throat, focusing on the now to keep his composure.
If Derrick was right, and he usually was when it came to things like this, that eased some of the pressure he was feeling about his situation at work.
Even if that hadn’t been what was on his mind when he was binged against the head with a fly ball, it definitely did help to think this meeting might be as benign as Derrick said it would be.
“Do either of you wanna grab dinner tonight? Between working like crazy for the last week, and dealing with my dad’s medical appointments, I’m in need of some time with my boys.”
Michael shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t. Vanessa was supposed to hang out with Janae and Cree, but Janae got stuck with an extra shift when someone called out.”
“Does that happen to her frequently?”
Michael shrugged. “It’s always a possibility when you do shift work. I don’t think Janae was expecting it this time, so she sounded a little peeved when she was on the phone canceling with Vanessa. Anyway,” Michael continued, “I decided to take my girl out instead.”
Adam couldn’t blame Michael for that. Vanessa was gorgeous, and she only had eyes for his boy, and if Adam was in his shoes, he’d ditch the Messiah himself to have his woman look at him the way Vanessa did Michael.
“What about you, D? You game for dinner or has Cree roped you into one of her chick-flick marathons?”
“Bruh,” Derrick countered. “Don’t knock ’em till you try ’em. Those movies are both entertaining and heartfelt. Maybe if you watched a few, you’d learn how to get a woman of your own.”
“D, Cree is not your woman.”
“No,” Derrick answered with a bright smile. “She’s my best friend, and that’s ten times better.”
His friends left him standing there on the court, wondering what his next move was going to be.
It didn’t take him long to figure it out.
But a quick whiff of sweaty B.O. from his pickup game with his boys told him a hot shower was the first thing on his agenda, before he could set his plans for the evening in motion.