Chapter 17 #2
On the one hand, Felicity was impressed by his reading taste. On the other, he had cracked the spines of his books. While this revelation was deeply alarming, it meant the man wasn’t actually perfect.
A useful thing to keep in mind.
He had been snoring for a couple of minutes when finally she stood, remembering that she needed to finish cleaning up the kitchen disaster before she opened the store.
“Thank you, Nurse Felicity,” he said, his voice muffled by the comforter.
“You’re welcome, Sir Nico.” She smirked. The word nurse wasn’t triggering at all when used like that.
“Tell Saj I’m going to kill him when my strength comes back.”
“Will do.”
As she walked downstairs, it struck her that it had been over nine months since she had put on scrubs and walked into the ER.
She had forced herself to go back to work after being medically cleared.
She had worked up until a couple of weeks before getting the call about her aunt’s death.
While she loved the competence and excitement she’d felt during her first years of working in the hospital, she got that same feeling from growing things in her aunt’s shop.
Obviously, plants weren’t people, and it wasn’t the same thing to coax a monstera or fiddle-leaf back to life as it was to help resuscitate someone during a code, but she didn’t go home every day and have nightmares either.
She didn’t wake up at night to the sound of a heart rate monitor beeping in her brain.
She didn’t replay the day’s events over and over and over again to convince herself she didn’t accidentally kill someone without realizing it.
She loved caring for people, and she could still do that where she was.
Whether by teaching her orchid classes at the nursing home, or by accidentally almost burning down her best friend’s rental house on his birthday.
Felicity groaned at the disaster area, twisted her hair up on top of her head, and donned dish gloves.
By the time she was done, the kitchen was sparkling clean. Nic was snoring loudly when she checked on him, so she restocked his nightstand with another chilled Gatorade, crackers, and an underlined note in all caps telling him exactly when to take his next round of medicine.
Her coat was on and her hand was on the doorknob when voices traveled in through the window that she had cracked to let the smoke out—a needed reminder to close it before she left.
“Long time no see, Courtney,” Saj said. He stood on the sidewalk outside, holding a pink box in one arm, and using the other to pull Courtney into a brief hug.
Courtney and Thea must have just arrived home, since they were both carrying bags up the sidewalk. Shit, Felicity shouldn’t have parked in the little driveway where their car usually was. They must have had to street park.
“Guess it’s okay for me to deliver the cake now,” he continued.
“Why wouldn’t it be? You’ve been waiting out here?” Courtney asked.
“Eh, no big deal. Just a few minutes. The man already hates his birthday enough. Didn’t want to screw it up for him more when he’s already sick. Didn’t want to interrupt if he had the secret woman over. Don’t want to be that guy.”
Felicity couldn’t see Saj’s face, but there was something in his suggestive tone that made her feel like an anvil had been dropped in her gut.
“What woman?” Thea asked with a glance at her wife.
“You know … the one that got away. We all have our theories about her. He stopped talking about her as much a few years back, but we figured he finally decided to try and make it work since he finally moved out here.”
“I’m…” Courtney cleared her throat. “I don’t know who you’re talking about. Making him a cake’s really sweet though. Birthdays have always been tough for him.” The last sentence was mostly to her wife.
Was she lying about not knowing who Saj was talking about? Felicity couldn’t tell, but the exchange reminded her of the night Felicity had found Nic outside with that guy who’d asked him if he was still pining after someone.
Maybe the reason why nothing had happened between Felicity and Nic was because of this “secret woman,” whoever she was. What had happened with her?
A million scenarios played out in Felicity’s mind about what had happened between Nic and the secret woman, each more tragic than the one before, all of them making Felicity feel like she was going to puke her brains out if they were true.
“No, no. That’s Felicity’s car,” Thea said.
The sound of Felicity’s name pulled her back to awareness of the conversation she should not be overhearing. It was too late to awkwardly close the window now.
“Ah, okay. Cool. He and Felicity are just friends though, right?” Saj shifted his grip on the pink cake box.
Even distorted through the stained glass window to the side of the door, Thea’s mouth looked like the Jaws of Life couldn’t pry an answer to that question from her.
“Er—” Courtney’s gaze flicked up toward Nic’s room. “Yeah. He’s been pretty clear on that, with me at least. He says they’re just friends. Both focused on work stuff. I get the sense that they’ve each been through a lot.”
“Cool. Not trying to be nosy. Just didn’t want to interrupt anything with the delivery.” He held the cake up a little. “I was going to leave it on the porch, but I’m glad I got to say hi to you before I head out of town tomorrow.”
“Here, I’ll take it.” Thea accepted the box, and the two women stepped onto the porch, out of the window’s sight line.
Felicity eased the window shut.
She pretended to be walking down the stairs with an empty mug as the door opened.