Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
I’m sitting on a folding chair in a community center basement because my brain is a broken record that only plays songs about tragedy.
My mother looked off yesterday. Nothing major, but her speech was a few beats too fast. To a normal person, it was a good day. To me, it was a countdown to a catastrophe.
“Welcome, everyone,” says a woman in a floral blouse, clapping her hands with terrifying enthusiasm. “I’m Brenda. We have a very special guest tonight. He’s a trauma doctor who volunteered his time.”
I’m looking down at my notebook, my pen poised to take clinical-grade notes.
“Please welcome Dr. Beckett Lawson.”
My pen snaps. So does my damn neck.
Standing at the front of the room next to a pile of decapitated plastic torsos is the man who lives above me.
He’s wearing a gray T-shirt that shows exactly how much he uses that treadmill at 2:00 a.m. His eyes scan the room until they land on me.
I expect him to freeze or gape, but the fucker just smirks.
“Doctor?” Brenda prompts, beaming.
Beckett clears his throat, his voice deep and carrying perfectly through the basement. “Hello, everyone. I’m Beckett. Let’s get started.”
He spends twenty minutes talking about heart rhythms, but I don’t hear a word of it. I’m too busy glaring at the way his biceps move when he points at a diagram.
“Okay,” Beckett says, snapping me back to reality. “Practical time. Grab a partner and a Resusci-Annie. We’re going to practice clearing an airway.”
The room scatters. I try to make a break for an elderly woman in the back row, but Beckett is faster. He’s suddenly looming over my chair.
“Madison,” he says, his voice a low vibration.
“Dr. Lawson,” I reply. “What a surprise. I didn’t know you did charity work for the medically illiterate.”
“I didn’t know you were planning to perform open-heart surgery in your living room.” He gestures to my notebook. “You have three pages of notes. This is a basic CPR class.”
“I like to be prepared.”
“Come on.” He nods toward the plastic dummy on the floor. “Let’s see what you’ve got. Show me how you’d check for a pulse.”
I kneel on the floor, feeling ridiculous. The dummy is staring at me with empty, judgmental eyes. I press my fingers into its neck. “Nothing,” I say.
“That’s because you’re pressing on its windpipe. You’re effectively murdering the plastic woman.”
He drops to his knees beside me. I can smell his soap—something clean and dangerously delicious. Reaching out, he moves my hand two inches to the left. His fingers linger on the back of my hand for a second too long, sending a spark straight up my arm.
“There,” he says. “Now, the airway. Tilt the chin.”
I tilt. The dummy’s mouth hangs open.
“Now,” he instructs. “The rescue breaths. We have plastic guards.”
I look at the dummy’s mouth, then at Beckett. “I’m not kissing the plastic, Beckett.”
“It’s a life-saving skill. What if I collapse in the hallway? Are you just going to watch me turn blue?”
“Probably. It would be significantly quieter for my apartment.”
He laughs, a warm, rich sound. “Give her the breath, Madison.”
I lean down, press my mouth against the guard, and blow. The dummy’s chest rises. I feel a pathetic sense of accomplishment.
“Good,” he says. “Now, compressions. Hand over hand. Right in the center. You need to go deep. Two inches. Keep the rhythm.”
I lock my elbows and start to push.
“Stayin’ Alive,” Beckett says.
“What?”
“The song. You have to push to the beat of Stayin’ Alive.” He starts to hum.
This is absurd. Emmy and Celeste are going to think I’m hallucinating, because I’m sweating and pushing on a plastic torso while the man I’m desperately trying not to be attracted to hums disco music into my ear.
“Faster,” he says. “You’re losing her.”
“I’m trying,” I huff, my hair starting to escape its clip. “This is a lot of work.”
“It’s a workout. Keep going.”
“Has anyone tried to give Annie a margarita? I bet that would wake her up.”
He refuses to answer that.
Boring.
I’m pumping with everything I have. My face is bright red. Beckett is watching me with an intensity that only makes me hotter. I need a distraction, so I focus on the beat. It’s catchy. Because my brain has officially melted, I start humming. Then I’m singing.
I’m really into it. I’m not just pushing; I’m performing. I’m swaying my hips to keep the tempo, moving in a way that feels surprisingly fluid. I am the Beyoncé of cardiac arrest.
Beckett makes a strangled sound.
I don’t stop. I give the dummy another vigorous shove. “What? I’m staying on the beat.”
“Madison,” he rasps.
I look up. He’s stopped humming. He’s staring at my lower half with an expression that is somewhere between horrified and impressed.
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, rubbing a hand over his mouth to hide a grin. “You’re grinding on the dummy.”
I freeze. I realize my hips are moving in a very suggestive, circular motion against the plastic hips of Resusci-Annie. I am giving a lap dance to medical equipment in a room full of senior citizens.
“I am not!” I snap, scrambling back onto my heels.
“You were,” he says, his voice vibrating with laughter. “The dummy hasn’t seen that much action since it left the factory. You were supposed to save her life, not take her out for cocktails.”
“Did I save her, at least?”
“No,” he says, reaching over to wipe a smudge off my forehead. “But you’ve successfully bruised her plastic ribs.”
I sit back, exhausted. My brain has finally stopped looping about my mother. It’s too busy thinking about how Beckett is looking at my mouth.
“Let’s try again.”
I dip my chin, whisper an apology to good old Annie, and get back to the business of saving lives.
Thirty minutes later, I’ve saved Annie and her toddler.
“Well done,” Beckett says, squeezing my shoulder. “Don’t go tripping me so you can give me mouth-to-mouth in the hallway, though.”
I scoff, trying to find my armor. “You could never handle me, Doc.”
He stands, offers me his hand, and pulls me to my feet. “I’ll see you at home?”
“I’ll be the one complaining about the noise.”
“I’ll try to keep the thudding to a minimum since you’ve had such a big night of heroism.”
Then the bastard winks at me.
I walk out of that basement with a certificate and a very confused heart. I still think my mother might collapse, but at least I know that if she does, I’ll be humming the Bee Gees while I save her.