Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Leighton
I give my coworker the info on all my patients before I grab my lunch.
I go to the outside patio and sit at a table away from everyone else.
It’s another nice spring day, and I tip my head back to feel the sun on my face before I call Callie.
She told me she’d make sure to take a break because it was going to be bestie bitch time.
She answers before it rings twice.
“I miss you. I’m going through Leighton detox. I wish you were here with me.” The sadness in her tone is another realization of how much my life has changed.
“I should’ve been, but then my cousin died.”
“God, Leighton, you just ruined the moment.”
“Sorry.” I sigh and get more comfortable in my chair.
“So, tell me everything.” She jumps to another topic as she always does.
“I have your entire lunch hour marked off as bestie bitch time. I’ve told everyone not to bother me, that this time is reserved for Callie and Leighton, and if you’re not named Callie or Leighton, fuck off. So, tell me, how are things going?”
I blow out a breath. “I really don’t want to ruin this conversation with all my drama.
I mean, I’m not joking, Callie, it’s a different world.
I keep thinking someone should’ve given me a map or a manual.
Every day there’s some new crisis. I feel like someone just picked me up and plopped me in some remote place—I might as well be in the middle of the jungle struggling to survive. ”
“First of all, did you miss the most important word in our ritual? Bitch. So…” She sighs. “Get everything off your chest.” There’s kindness and genuine love in her voice.
“I thought I knew what Sky’s life was like, but I had no fucking clue.
You don’t get a minute to yourself. You don’t even get a second.
I was in the bathroom the other day and I’d just gotten out of the shower and Monroe just sauntered in.
She opens the door and doesn’t even flinch at my naked body. I reached for a towel so fast—”
Callie bursts out laughing. “Oh my god. Well, good thing it wasn’t Linc.”
“Yeah. He at least knocks. But Monroe—my god—she thinks every place in the house is hers.”
“Well, she’s six,” Callie says.
“I’m gonna have you babysit for a week, then you’ll understand where I’m coming from.” I stab my salad, wishing it were anything else, like two rolls of sushi.
“All right,” Callie says. “So, Monroe is a little peeping Tom now. What else?”
“And then Lincoln… Your brother was over the other day, you know. By the way—thanks for recruiting him to come help me.” I’m slightly upset she put it on him, but at the same time, he was so much help that I can’t even be that mad about it.
“Oh, come on. I know Hayes doesn’t check the boxes on your Safe Guy Shortlist, but he was happy to help. He needs something to do anyway since he has to be on his best behavior. He can’t go out with the guys. He can’t celebrate in a bar.”
She’s delusional. She has no idea that she’s playing with fire every time she asks him to help me.
Because every time our eyes meet or his arm brushes mine, that slow, burning spark I try to ignore flares up.
And for a split second, I imagine what it would be like to give in to my desire for just one night.
One night where he helps me forget every responsibility and problem.
“Thanks for the reminder to add ready to be an instant father to the Safe Guy Shortlist.” I try to deflect the conversation away from Hayes.
I’d rather listen to her rant about my list with the qualities I need in a man in order to feel like he won’t hurt or disappoint me. She thinks it’s ridiculous, and maybe it is, but I like lists, and it’s a reminder that the men who can’t check off the boxes will eventually break my heart.
“God, you and that list.” I can practically hear her roll her eyes. “You’re keeping Hayes busy—think of it as you helping him.” Usually, my diversion tactics work better on Callie.
“I am not helping him, believe me. Lincoln asked him to be his rec league coach.”
She laughs but stops abruptly. “That’s perfect! Yeah, totally. He should do that.”
I wish I could live with her blind optimism. Where does she think her brother would fit that into his schedule?
“No, he shouldn’t! He’s a professional baseball player who plays 162 games a year.
He’s literally home for, what, seven days this month?
Then he leaves again right away—not even a full day off.
He’s got a travel day, then he’s on the field the next day.
He does not have time to coach a bunch of nine-year-old boys. ”
“Huh. Someone’s keeping tabs on my brother’s schedule.”
I grunt, and a couple at a nearby table glance over at me. “Stop it. Everyone knows the life of a pro baseball player is demanding.”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I think he’d enjoy it.”
“You think I should let him do everything. And stop calling him to come over, all right? It’s bad enough what he’s doing on Friday… one thing just steamrolls into the next.”
“What am I missing?” she says in a singsong voice, and my head drops. That was a stupid slip on my part.
“When he was over helping me the night you overheard all the screaming in the background, which, by the way, I had handled.”
“I believe you,” she says with a laugh to say she didn’t. She might be right on that one.
“I would’ve had it handled. Sure, I might’ve had a good cry after they went to bed, but I could’ve gotten through it.”
At least the crying every time they go to bed has subsided for now.
“Well, if you—”
I cut her off. “I started talking about this National Days thing with Monroe. Can I tell you what I’ve done this week? Hayes actually gave me a good idea—to get space ice cream for Space Day. I ordered the freeze-dried stuff. Thank God for . What did we do before Prime delivery existed?”
She laughs.
“Then there was Brothers and Sisters Day. That was easy. I took them out for ice cream. World Laughter Day? I bought a joke book, and we told jokes all night. Orange Juice Day was handled by seven o’clock that morning.
It was like I won the lottery, having an entire day without that weighing me down.
But of course, when he was over, Monroe brought up Nail Day. ”
“That might be above his pay grade.”
“Yes, and I have to work. Then Lake wanted to go to a birthday party, but I was going to have Lake do her nails because I figured that would be the easiest. I mean, do people really take a six-year-old to a salon?” I barely take a breath, my salad long forgotten.
“So yeah, Lake was going to do it because Monroe looks up to her—just like I looked up to Sky all those years.”
I pause, realizing I’m rambling. But Callie is the one person I can tell everything… well… except anything that has to do with her brother.
Still, it would be really nice to tell her that I kept seeing his eyes on my body the whole time he was over, how that sparked a sick desire inside me.
Because how can I even want sex with everything going on in my life?
With everything I’ve lost? Besides, I feel gross most nights after they go to bed.
I’m constantly running around, sweating in areas I didn’t know could sweat.
The word relaxed is a foreign concept nowadays.
But then Hayes looks at me, the way his jaw tenses and his teeth bite his bottom lip, and suddenly all I can think about is sex.
“Are you lost in your head?” Callie interrupts my thoughts.
Thank God, I do not need to be in that thought realm.
“Sorry. Anyway, this is what happens to me now. Motherhood, apparently. You have all this shit in your head, and you’re shuffling through it like a stack of tax papers that you don’t understand. Just warning you.”
She laughs. “That’s a long way off for me.”
“Anyway,” I continue, “so they’re talking about Nail Day, and your brother just says, ‘I’ll take her to get her nails done.’”
“Ah! I’m so proud of him! Hold on a second. I’m having a proud sister moment,” Callie gushes. “I didn’t think he had it in him. He’s doing so well—I want to send him a ‘you go’ meme.”
“Callie, you’re not helping.”
“Yeah, I know, but let me have this.”
“Fine. You get one minute.”
She giggles. “Okay. Moment over—turns out, it only took ten seconds.”
The sun is warm against the side of my face, the glare bouncing off metal benches.
“So yeah, he wants to come over today to watch Monroe and Lincoln and take Monroe to get her nails done for Nail Day.”
“I don’t see the problem,” she says. “He wouldn’t agree if his schedule didn’t allow for it.”
“This can’t be a long-term solution though. I have to figure out how to navigate all of this on my own. Your brother can’t be the savior. He has his own life.”
“Are you sure that’s it?” Callie asks. “Is that the real reason you don’t want his help? Could it be because you feel like you have to do it all by yourself?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Callie, don’t start with this shit. Please, I’m in no mood.”
“Sorry, it’s my duty as your best friend,” she says gently. “Only best friends can tell you the truth when you don’t want to hear it. I think you’re afraid to lean on him because you never want to lean on anybody.”
I tear a napkin into strips, my knee bouncing. A gust of wind carries the faint smell of cafeteria fries my way, and my stomach grumbles. I should’ve eaten from the cafeteria today.
“Callie, I don’t want to have this discussion.” I look around, making sure no one’s nearby. The couple that was closest to me is gone.
“Of course you don’t. No one wants to hear about their flaws—and I’m sure, at some point, you’ll tell me about mine.”
“Would you like me to start a list now?” I say, flicking the napkin scraps into my salad container.
“Oh, okay, is that how we’re playing it?” she teases. “I was just trying to tell you that you can depend on Hayes. I don’t think he’ll let you down.”
I squint against the sun, shading my eyes with my hand. “Let me down? He’s not anything to me. Why are you talking like that?”
“Because Leighton, come on. Let’s not play dumb. You know.”
“Oh my god.” I roll my eyes.
“You know what I mean. Your parents’ divorce. Their fighting over having you. That asshole boyfriend from your freshman year of college.”
I groan softly, tossing what’s left of my lunch into the bag. “Your list of flaws is going to be so long.”
“I’m not trying to call you out. I’m just saying that sometimes you get stuck in a pattern. You feel like you have to do everything yourself because you don’t want anyone to disappoint you. It’s a just wound. Everyone has them. I have them. People develop new ones every day.”
I pick up my water bottle and swirl the ice around. “You talk too much. That’s at the top of your list.”
She laughs, and the sound is muffled as though she’s flopped back on her hotel bed. “In the end, I think he’s someone you can trust. That’s all.”
“Okay, well, you’re related to him, so of course you think that. But I don’t need to trust him because he is not my savior, and I’ll be fine without him.”
Will I? What would I have done if he hadn’t offered to help tonight?
An ambulance blares nearby. I glance at the hospital doors, picturing how I’ll be back in there soon, pretending I’m the cool and calm nurse my patients can depend on.
She says all this, assuming her brother and I are platonic. That we’d never cross the line she’s drawn.
“Just let him do it,” she says. “You’ll survive even if he stops helping, but you might as well take the help while you can. Get through this guardianship thing—you should know about that soon, right?”
“Yeah.” As I’m about to continue, another call beeps through. I pull my phone away from my ear, nearly dropping it. “Oh—it’s Mr. Notting. Hold on one second.”
My heart lodges in my throat. I really hope this is good news.