Chapter Three #2
Vi kept her fingers locked around the phone as she paced the waiting room. Another thing to put on her to-do list. She’d hoped she’d had her Nick quota met for the next few months at least. Her bizarre attraction to him wasn’t worth how humiliated she felt whenever he opened his mouth.
He’d been okay this time, Vi told herself as she paced.
After Chester fell anyway. Apparently, a crisis was all it took for the orc to finally stop making fun of her for five seconds.
Nick reminded her of those jerks in high school who thought it was funny to try to make her snap at them.
She never did, of course. But god, she came close.
She was so busy rubbing the phone in her pocket that she didn’t notice the footsteps until they were behind her.
“Vi,” said Dr. Gert, an orc with an elegant knot of hair tied between her horns. “You look great. How’s your sister?”
“Gabby’s doing well,” Vi said, letting genuine warmth seep into her voice.
Dr. Gert had been the one who helped her sister out of the hospital waiting room.
Gabriella had refused to leave for five hours after she found out her husband was dead.
Vi had been at the end of her rope, suggesting baths, food, a bed.
Dr. Gert had folded her giant body into one of those tiny chairs and talked with Gabriella in a low, comforting tone until her sister finally agreed to leave.
Dr. Gert gave Vi a brief arm rub. “Glad to hear it. How are things with you?”
“The same,” Vi said, walking faster. She could hear Chester’s voice echoing from one of the rooms down the hall, almost drowned out by an explosive laugh that sounded vaguely familiar.
Dr. Gert sighed. “Jasper’s in there. You know Jasper?”
Vi thought about it. “The vampire?”
“He works here.”
The vampire’s laugh was still going strong when Vi walked in. Chester was laid up in a hospital bed, his leg in a cast, an IV in his scaly arm. Jasper was dressed in a tight-fitting custodial uniform, body folded around a broom, long hair hanging in his face as he giggled.
“Heeeey,” he rasped when he spotted Vi. “Looks like the ladder finally got him!”
“It was the slippers,” Chester protested, slurring with the pain medication. “I’m not at fault.”
Jasper let out another loud laugh, fangs flashing. “Whatever helps with your insurance, my guy.”
Dr. Gert gave him a fond, if exasperated, smile. “Jasper! This is a big hospital, and I am one hundred percent sure you have something you should be cleaning.”
Jasper sighed, scraping his long hair into a ponytail. “And cut off the truly intriguing explanation for why I’m wrong to not like the book my coworker got me for Christmas? For shame, Doctor.”
“Would someone tell me what’s happening with my leg?” Chester asked.
Jasper ducked around Dr. Gert, peering over her shoulder at the clipboard. “Oooh. Leg’s busted. They gotta go in there and shove a rod in.”
He made a clicking sound with his tongue, hands miming a rod snapping into place. Vi held back a wince.
“Thank you for your expertise,” Dr. Gert said. “I would’ve phrased it differently, but unfortunately Fangs over here is correct. You do need surgery, and we will be inserting a rod.”
Chester pinned Jasper with a dubious look. “As long as you stay away from it, I’m alright with that.”
Jasper guffawed, slinging an arm around Gert’s shoulder. “Hear that, Gert? He’s bullying me.”
“We’ll keep the custodian away from the surgery while it’s in session,” Dr. Gert said dryly. She didn’t push Jasper off, too used to his antics.
Vi nodded at the X-ray. “What’s the recovery time on this kind of break?”
Jasper hummed, leaning on his broom. “For a gentleman of his advanced age—”
“Go suck scales,” Chester mumbled.
Dr. Gert cut in. “I’d say a good few months after the surgery. He’ll have limited mobility for most of that.”
Vi pushed back her annoyance and started another mental list. She was going to have to find someone to take care of Chester.
It would most likely be her, but she would also have to run the shop and find someone to cover the days she couldn’t work.
She’d cancel a few of her regular appointments for the time being.
Miss a few weekly video chats with her mom, find someone else to host the biweekly quiz night at Cozy Grotto Café, and tell Heath Astarot she couldn’t volunteer at the food bank for a few Fridays.
“Guess someone else will be corralling the book club on Thursdays,” Chester said, cutting off Vi’s endless mental list.
Vi blinked. Shit. The book club.
“Right,” she said. “I can—yes. Corralling. I can do that.”
Chester pulled himself up, the movement slow and laggy with painkillers. “No, you’re not. Thursdays are supposed to be dinners with your sister. That’s been the rule since you moved here.”
“You were going to get me to do it anyway,” Vi protested, but he was already shaking his head.
“One time is fine, but I won’t make you forfeit your rule for book club.”
“We can change the nights,” Vi tried.
Chester blew a raspberry. “To when? You’re busy every night, Vi.
Dog walking! Babysitting! Staying late to do the online orders those bastards won’t stop putting through our stupid website!
Taking your sister out of town to look at those tacky garden ornaments!
Quiz nights! Volunteering! God forbid you get one night to yourself. ”
Jasper cleared his throat, jabbing his pale thumb at the hallway. “Uh, I’m gonna go.”
Chester continued. “Dinners with your sister are the closest you get to having you time, and I won’t make you give that up! We’ll find someone else.”
Vi gritted her teeth in a smile. “Ches. It’s you and me and sometimes Triss. You know her schedule. There’s no way she can commit to book club every Thursday. I’ll move some things around and—”
“I’ll do it.”
Vi stopped. She knew that voice. She’d spent two years dreading that voice, deep and raspy and never serious, even when he was watching an old dragon writhe in pain on the carpet.
She turned. Nick Wicker stood in the doorway, hair even messier than usual in a way that Vi refused to find rakishly handsome. His giant green shoulders twitched as everyone turned to stare at him.
“What? I read books. How hard can running a book club be? Shit, also—” he snapped his fingers toward Vi “—did you steal my phone?”