Josh burst through the sliding doors of the emergency room and searched for Kimmy. After inquiring at the front desk, he learned they’d been taken back to triage, so he followed the signs and joined them. Kimmy was sitting on the side of the hospital bed, Sasha in her arms, and both of them were crying. Kimmy’s tears fell silently so as not to alarm Sasha, whose head was pressed against her mother’s chest. Sasha’s whole body shook with the force of her discomfort, and he’d heard her wailing before he’d even reached the room.
“What’s happening?” Josh asked above the noise of Sasha’s crying.
“The nurse has been in,” Kimmy said. “They swabbed her throat for strep and now she won’t stop crying.”
“Here, I can take her,” Josh said.
Kimmy handed her over and Josh stroked Sasha’s head. Her cries intensified and he could feel the heat coming off her body. Where was the nurse? Where was the doctor? Where was someone who knew what the hell they were doing, because he and Kimmy certainly didn’t.
Sasha had been sick before, but never like this. He stood in the middle of the room swaying from side to side the way he used to when she was a baby and couldn’t settle. A harried doctor joined them a few minutes later, and after a quick introduction, he looked in Sasha’s ears and down her throat. “Both of her ears are infected, and the rapid test was positive for strep. We’ll get her a dose of pain meds and write you a prescription for an antibiotic. She’ll be feeling much better in a couple of days.”
“Thank you so much,” Kimmy said. She looked like she wanted to hug the doctor. Josh knew that she’d been mentally rifling through the possible worst-case scenarios, and though he hated that Sasha was sick, he was relieved that they’d received a diagnosis. Nothing would be worse than a doctor coming up empty-handed and telling them they’d need to move on to more invasive and uncomfortable testing.
There was a pharmacy in the hospital, and they sat down on a bench to wait for the prescription to be filled. The Motrin the nurse had given Sasha started to kick in and she stopped crying. “Can I take her?” Kimmy asked.
“Of course.” He tried to hand her back, but Sasha wrapped one arm around Kimmy’s neck and kept the other one tight around Josh’s so that she was half lying on both of them. Josh didn’t mind and it didn’t appear that Kimmy did, either. He could smell his soon-to-be-ex-wife’s perfume and her shampoo, and he could picture clear as day the glass bottle on the dresser and the plastic one in the shower. Josh stretched out his arm along the back of Kimmy’s chair to get more comfortable, and Kimmy shifted slightly, trying to do the same. The only one who was comfortable was Sasha. Kimmy’s head ended up halfway on his chest, and he put his other arm around Sasha so she wouldn’t slide off his lap. As he held and comforted two of the most important women in his life, a fierce sense of longing for what he no longer had hit Josh like a tidal wave.
A nurse walked by and she gave them a smile and Josh could almost picture the thought bubble over her head that said, Look at that lovely family.
And if there was a thought bubble above Josh’s head, it might have said It was and Maybe we threw it away too easily and too soon.
chapter 38
Layla
Layla attempted to quell the butterflies in her stomach as she waited for Josh to arrive. Sasha had made a full recovery from the illness that had sent Josh and Kimberly racing to the emergency room, and it had been over a week since they’d seen each other. She was almost certain Josh had been about to kiss her that night, and she would have welcomed it. She wanted to be with him, and she could sense that he wanted that, too.
Maybe it was too soon for them to get involved with each other.
Maybe it wasn’t.
She’d taken a little extra care with her appearance. She was wearing jeans, but they were her nicest pair and they looked good with the heeled booties she’d chosen in lieu of the stylish winter boots she usually wore this time of year. She’d ditched her glasses, winged her eyeliner, and traded her cardigan for a formfitting top.
Maybe Josh was thinking about that kind of thing, too, because when he arrived, they both tried to act like it was totally normal that he was wearing a sweater and a wool coat instead of his usual sweatshirt and Patagonia jacket.
“Ready?” he said.
“Ready.” Suddenly, she worried about tripping over her words or, worse, literally tripping due to choosing fashion over function. She had already wiped out in front of him once on a hidden patch of ice when they’d taken Norton for a quick walk. She’d fallen right on her ass and they’d laughed so hard she almost peed. But that was before the almost-kiss, and she really didn’t want to fall again.
She needn’t have worried, because the driveway was clear, and she made it to the passenger side of his truck without incident.
“Sasha’s still feeling okay?”
“She’s great,” he said. “She had a rough couple of days until the antibiotic kicked in all the way, but she’s fine now.”
“Good.” As they buckled up, Layla asked, “So, where are we heading?”
“I thought we’d just get something to eat. I was going a little stir-crazy after being home a lot this past week. Wanted to get out of the house. What do you think?”
“Sounds good to me.”
* * *
They went to an Italian restaurant they’d both eaten at before and enjoyed. Any awkwardness she’d felt upon Josh’s arrival dissipated as they fell back into their normal, relaxed groove and flowing conversation. Maybe he hadn’t really been about to kiss her, she thought. Or maybe he had but the interruption and the time apart had cooled the way he’d felt that night. At the very least, it might have given him pause, and she understood that.
They’d each had a glass of wine with dinner, and afterward Josh suggested dessert or a drink at a place he liked that she’d never been to. She said yes right away, because she was having too much fun to even think about going home yet. There was nothing fun about realizing your marriage needed to end, and there was certainly nothing fun about moving ahead with ending it. For so long, Layla had doubted she would ever have fun again. And here she was, almost a year later, having the time of her life on a date with a man who might or might not be thinking about kissing her at the end of it.
The only spot available at the restaurant was in the expansive bar area, which was in a completely different room than the restaurant’s dinner tables. There was a tiny nook in the corner just big enough for two leather club chairs, and they grabbed them before anyone else spotted them. There was a fancy bourbon cocktail on the drink menu that Josh had tried before. “It counts as both a drink and dessert,” he said.
“Two birds, one stone. Sounds perfect,” she said. “Is it strong?”
“It’s got a little kick.”
The cocktail tasted both sweet and smoky and featured a slice of caramelized banana on top. It tasted every bit as delicious as he’d promised, and after a few sips Layla felt as relaxed as she did when she was home alone in front of the fireplace in her robe and slippers.