Chapter 17
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
STEVIE
“Grams, where are you at?”
“In the kitchen!” I pass by her caregiver and let her know she’s good to head out.
Caring for my elderly grandma is the closest thing I’ll experience to having a kid and paying for daycare, but it’s better in my opinion.
Hailey, her caregiver, is cool as shit, and Grams is a fan of her to say the least. So I can’t complain.
She gets treated like a queen while I’m working and can’t care for her myself.
There’s no way she would be able to stay here by herself during my seventy-two-hour shifts, so I hired help.
And there’s nothing wrong with finding help—at least that’s what I keep telling myself.
“I’m making potato soup for the week,” Grams tells me.
She’s having a good day, and those have been few and far between recently, so I won’t throw a fit about her using a knife. I just wash my hands and see where she needs me.
“How was work?”
I think about it for a moment and decide what’s it going to hurt telling my grandma with dementia that my childhood best friend’s mother had her tongue in my mouth at work?
Not in that much detail, but you know.
“I need your opinion…” I say, chopping potato after potato as she places them on the cutting board once they’re peeled. “Say hypothetically you were to sleep with your best friend’s parents.”
She pauses peeling the potato in her hand but doesn’t say anything, just hums, nodding her head.
“And say the mom is now working with you as an L&D nurse… and she kissed you in an on-call room.”
“Is this the couple you told me about when you were at the club?”
Grams may be old, but she’s always been so accepting of my sex work and being pansexual. Even if I have to explain what pansexuality is to her every time I say anything about it.
She was in her mid-twenties during the seventies, after all.
It’s always “now, why can’t you just be bisexual” when we go over the difference, and rightfully so—it’s what she knows. “Well, the first experience and only experience with both of them was at the club… It was only Audrey I kissed today.”
She looks at me, potato completely forgotten, and raises her eyebrows in surprise before they pull together in confusion when she notices I’m not joking in the slightest. “So this could possibly be a long-term thing you want to give a try? Are they separated?”
Why does everything have to be a long-term commitment? And why does the idea give me that sickeningly sweet feeling in my stomach thinking about being with both of them.
Here we go explaining what polyamory is.
Grandma is thinking more clearly today than she has in a long time, and I’m ignoring the thought that these amazing days are usually followed by really shitty ones.
But I have the grandma who raised me right now, and I’m soaking that in while I can.
I shrug. “No they’re not separating. And I guess it could be a thing, but then there’s Daniella—what the hell would she think?
People do practice polyamory a lot more now…
but probably not with their daughter’s best friend.
And Bo still has no fucking clue what’s happening.
” There’s no way they would entertain me joining their marriage, or even both of them dating me… right?
“Now, I’m too old to be learning more of these hip terms.” She shoves my arm lightly with the back of her hand that’s still gripping a potato.
“Polyamory is an easy one. It just means more than one partner, and all partners can be partners if they want. It can be more complicated, but I don’t want to stress you with all the info.
” I chuckle at her wide eyes but quickly redirect back to get the answers I need from her.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about them, even years later after they left me there at Sin’s.
And I know it makes me a horrible person knowing who they were when they walked into my room, but I wore my mask so they had no clue who I was.
” Grams chuckles at that, and I swear to fuck I almost lose it to hysterical laughter myself.
I mock pout, looking over at her, and she barks at me, “What? An old lady can’t find her granddaughter and her antics funny?”
“Do you think I’m going to get in trouble for sexual harassment or something?”
“As long as you both are consenting, which it sounds like she kissed you, then no. You should be just fine.” She smiles at me one more time. “Now get to chopping, you’re slacking.”
Audrey hasn’t been my nurse for about a week now, and I’m starting to wonder if she’s doing that on purpose.
Not being around her is making me a lot sadder than I ever thought it would.
I don’t know who I’m trying to fool—the two of them had me fucked up after only spending a couple of hours together at the club.
*I blamed it on falling asleep after a session and tried chalking that up to my body just being comfortable around them, but I think it was a lot more than that…
But in that same breath, I’m trying to keep my distance too.
I can’t be caught up in some kind of work romance with a goddamn married woman, let alone in this small town with how closed-minded people can be.
Plus there’s Daniella. I don’t want to hurt her either.
We’re nowhere near as close as we were in high school, but I still care about her.
I’m on hour twenty-eight of my shift and heading back to the on-call room to try to catch some sleep after we had to call a C-section on my last patient.
I sat with her in the OR while she gave birth, and even though it was an unsuccessful VBAC, she still let me know it was healing being able to labor and eventually make the call for herself once she started progressing backwards.
Right as I close the door to the single on-call room, it’s clicking back open, and I’m kicking myself in the ass for not locking it immediately.
I got here first, as sleep deprived as I am, I’ll throw a fit to keep it.
* Threatening - Landon Tewers