Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Miranda
“That one,” Brooke says, pointing.
“Brooke.”
“It makes your waist look incredible.”
“I have to catch two buses to get there. I am not wearing that on public transit.” I yank the blue dress off its hanger anyway, holding it against myself in the mirror. It’s nice, and it highlights my curves, but I just cannot bring myself to care.
“I don’t understand why you took that rental car back,” Brooke says. “You weren’t having to pay for it, right?”
“I really don’t have the time for this,” I comment, looking at my friend in the full-length mirror.
She’s sprawled across my bed like she lives here, surrounded by the three other dresses she dragged over in a bag this afternoon.
I wouldn’t even have said yes to this date if she hadn’t glared at me from across the nurse’s station.
“You already stood him up once.” The disapproval in Brooke’s voice is heavy. “And he’s still interested in you. I don’t know a man who would ask someone out after being stood up like that.”
“I know, but—”
“Girl, you need to get out. Working like a madman isn’t the way to live your life. You barely have a social life as it is. This is good. This is healthy.”
When I turn my attention back to the dress, she urges, “Dr. Hudson is cute. You said so yourself.”
I did say so. Six weeks ago when he first asked me out, I meant it. He’s tall, good-looking, and kind. He remembered I took my coffee black and brought me one during a twelve-hour shift. That’s not nothing.
“He is cute,” I say as I turn back to the mirror, but my words feel flat. I close my eyes to try to imagine him, to maybe summon that flare of attraction that I felt back then, but I can’t. All I see is a pair of amber eyes, a sharp jaw, and a smirk that should be illegal.
I open my eyes, and when I see the slight tinge of pink to my cheeks, I quickly turn around.
“Miranda.” Brooke’s voice goes quieter. “It’s just dinner. You don’t have to marry the man. You just have to eat food in his presence for two hours.”
I know what this is really about. She’s been watching me work doubles, skip meals, and deflect every question about how I’m doing with yes, I’m fine.
She wants to get me out of this apartment and out of my own head for one evening, and I love her for it.
But dinner with Dr. Hudson is not going to make the debt disappear.
It’s not going to make Kozlov’s people forget I exist.
I sink down onto the edge of the bed beside her. The blue dress pools in my lap.
“Hypothetically,” I say slowly.
She turns her head, studying me. “Hypothetically.”
“If I had a way to pay off the debt.” I stop and regroup myself. “If I had a way to pay off my debt, but it would force me to step on my pride, what would you say?”
Brooke doesn’t so much as hesitate. “Do it.”
“You don’t even know what it is.” I give her a dry look.
“Do it anyway.”
“Brooke.”
“Miranda.” She shifts to face me fully. “As long as you’re not sleeping with someone for money, I don’t care what it is.
Do you understand me? Kozlov’s people have been quiet, but that’s not going to last. You know that.
I know that. So whatever it is, you figure it out.
” She pauses and then lifts her hands to show me air quotes. “Hypothetically speaking, what is it?”
“I’m not entirely sure of the details yet,” I lean back on my palms. “But I think it might involve looking after a kid.”
Her eyebrows go up. “A babysitter?”
“Kind of. I genuinely don’t know the full terms.”
“Then get the full terms before you decide anything.” She reaches over and squeezes my hand hard. “But Miranda, listen to me. If there is a legitimate way out of this, your pride has no place in that conversation. None.”
I throw myself back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. “I know you’re right.”
“It would be life-changing, Miranda.”
I think of the way Grayson had me pressed against the locker, his mouth on my ear, and heat spreads through me. “I don’t know if I will survive it.”
My voice is low, meant only for my ears.
I usually find the man annoying, but sometimes he gets a little endearing, especially when he’s with his son. If I could just hate him outright, life would be so much easier.
Brooke lies down next to me, her head on my arm. “I wish I could fix it. If I had tons of money, I’d just give it to you, and then you’d be debt-free.”
“You being here fixes enough.” I touch my head to hers.
We stay like this for a moment before I look toward the wall clock. “Okay. It’s almost five. I need to actually get ready.”
She watches me sit up. “Isn’t he picking you up?”
“He wanted to.” I get to my feet, picking up the dress.
“And?”
“And I said no.” I step toward my dresser, reaching for my mascara. “If he drives me home, he’s going to want to come up, and I am not inviting anyone inside.”
Brooke laughs. “You know, I heard his apartment is really nice.”
I point at her without turning around. “I am not sleeping with him.”
“I didn’t say sleep. I said his apartment is nice.” She’s grinning. I can hear it. “Could be a fun after-dinner option.”
I reach back and hit her on the arm.
“Ow.”
“It’s a first date. We’re going to eat, he’s going to be charming, I’m going to be pleasant, and then I’m taking the bus home alone.”
“Try to sound a little bit excited.”
I open my mouth to say something clever and close it again.
I get ready by six, and Brooke fixes my hair.
“I forgot what it feels like to get dressed up.” I twirl around, amazed by how different I look in this moment.
Brooke grins. “You’re pretty. Start wearing makeup again, and maybe you’ll get more dates.”
She picks up the remaining dresses, and I say quickly, “I’ll wash this and send it to you in a few days.”
“Get it dry cleaned,” she suggests. “It’s my favorite dress. Although it’s doing more for your boobs.” She looks down at her chest and sighs heavily. “Forever flat-chested. I was so sure I’d grow into them in high school.”
I laugh as she heads out and then grab my bag and lock the apartment before heading downstairs as well.
The evening air hits me as I push through the building door, cool and carrying the faint smell of pine from the mountain range sitting behind the city. I’m calculating the bus route in my head, timing it, when a car rolls up to the curb and stops.
I look up.
It’s Grayson’s car. The window is already down, and there he is, one arm resting on the door. In the passenger seat, bouncing slightly with his seatbelt already half twisted around him, is Ethan.
“Miranda!” Ethan shouts, waving both arms.
Grayson says nothing. He just looks at me, and then his gaze drops, slow and very deliberate, and travels the full length of the blue dress.
When those amber eyes come back up to my face, something in them has changed.
“What are you doing here?” I ask with a frown.
“Miranda!” Not wanting to be ignored, Ethan has clambered clean across Grayson’s lap to get his head out the driver’s window, both arms waving. Grayson looks like a man who has fully accepted this as his life.
“Come to dinner with us! Dad said we could go get burgers!”
“Ethan.” Grayson’s hand comes up to grip the back of his son’s shirt, less out of irritation and more, it seems, to stop him from falling out entirely. “Seatbelt.”
Ethan ignores this completely.
I step toward the window. “Hey, Ethan. I can’t tonight, okay? We’ll do dinner another time, I promise.”
His face falls completely. Four-year-olds have no interest in subtlety. “But why?”
“Because she has somewhere to be.” Grayson’s voice is calm, but his eyes are narrowed. He’s looking at me over the top of his son’s head, and his eyes haven’t moved. Not once. “Where are you going dressed like that?”
I look at him. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“I don’t think I like your tone.” I cross my arms over my chest.
“I don’t think I like the dress.”
The audacity. I stare at him. He stares back, and there is something simmering behind those amber eyes that makes my mouth dry, not that I’m going to let him know that.
“I have a date,” I say because clearly bluntness is the only language available to us.
Something shifts in his jaw. Subtle, barely a flicker, but I catch it.
“With who?” he demands.
“None of your business,” I say with great relish. Sometimes it feels nice to have the upper hand.
“Miranda.”
“Grayson.” I say his name back at the exact same pitch. I lean toward the window and press a quick kiss to Ethan’s cheek. He grabs my face with both hands, the way children do, completely unselfconscious about it, like they have every right to you.
“We’ll do the burger place soon,” I tell him. “I promise.”
He makes a sound of protest. “But—”
“I really can’t today, Ethan.” I gently detach his hands and squeeze them.
His lower lip quivers, and I’m more than tempted to drop my plans. But I can’t stand Axel up a second time. I give him a wan smile. “Next time, okay?”
He sniffles and then deflates into Grayson’s lap as if the entire fight has left his tiny body. I feel horrible.
I turn around and walk away. I make it about ten steps before I hear it.
“Dad, what’s a date?”
A beat of silence. Then Grayson’s voice, easy and unbothered. “It’s when two people sit across from each other and pretend.”
I shoot a dirty look over my shoulder, but he’s already rolling up his window.
Axel Hudson is an attending physician at Silverpeak General Hospital. Since I am one of the senior nurses, our paths often cross, but till a few weeks ago, I never knew he was interested in me. But then again, I’m so busy that I rarely notice anything outside of patients.
He’s already at the table when I arrive, and he stands when he sees me.
Wearing a perfectly pressed dark blue shirt with brown slacks, he looks handsome, and his smile is charming.
But I feel nothing when he beams at me. My heart doesn’t so much as flutter when he hurries around to pull out my chair.
“Thank you.” I smile hesitantly. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting long.”
“No, I got here just a few minutes ago.”