“I’m just saying—a woman only wears that color on dates when she wants to get laid.”
I shake my head, laughing, and he laughs along, holding me tighter. We’re quiet for a while, and I think maybe he’s fallen asleep. I feel myself relax, and sleep begins to drag me under again. When I wake up the next day, to the sun blasting in my face, I realize I’m alone in bed. A sense of sadness threatens to wash over me, but I push it aside. This was my own doing. I asked for it. I pushed him for it. Those thoughts don’t alleviate the pain I feel though. I close my eyes again and exhale. When I open them back up, I spot Wyatt’s discarded shirt, thrown in a corner like some washed up memory, and suddenly I get even sadder. He may not have been the perfect man, and we may have had a lot of differences, but Wyatt never made me feel like I wasn’t special to him. He never walked out after sex without giving me a kiss or telling me how lovely I was. He would have never, ever just left me alone in bed without acknowledging that we shared something special.
Tears brim in my eyes as I stagger to the closet and pick up the shirt. I hug it to me, asking it for forgiveness, because that was a total dick move on my part. Then I start crying because I’m talking to a shirt while wearing another man’s shirt. A man I let touch me, a man that once again left me without a goodbye. The door opens suddenly, and I look up just in time to see Oliver walk in. The smile on his face instantly drops when he takes me in—the crying face . . . me clutching my dead fiancé’s shirt for dear life . . .
“I thought you left,” I say in a hoarse whisper.
He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak . . . just stares for a moment longer. Finally, he walks over to me and wraps his arms around my head, pulling me into his hard chest.
“I wasn’t going to leave without saying goodbye,” he says against my hair. I think of all the times he did . . . all the times we did . . . and wonder if this time it’ll be different. “I had a great night.”
“I did too,” I whisper against him.
He drops a kiss on my head. “I don’t want to mess this up, Elle. So I’m going to give you some space, okay? Not because I don’t want you . . . not because I don’t think last night was incredible . . . but because I don’t want to push you.” He tilts my face to look at him, and my heart lodges in my throat as I wait for those green eyes to spear through me. “I want this to happen.”
“Okay” is all I get to whisper before he drops his hand and walks out the door. I’m not sure what to do with any of that. I don’t know what “that” is. All I know is that I’m scared to want him as much as I do. I’m terrified that I’ll get burned again.
A couple of days later, I wake up and throw on the navy scrubs Nurse Gemma gave me on a day that painting got extra messy. When I show up at the hospital, I see her at the nurses’ station, and she laughs.
“You here to offer back up?” she asks.
“Not unless you want the malpractice lawsuits to start pouring in.”
“Never give Estelle anything with a needle. Noted.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “I’ll be quick today. I just want to make sure it looks perfect.”
“Last day,” she says, smiling. “I won’t lie; I’m going to miss having that Micah guy around.”
“Well, there’s always the maternity wing.”
“Nooooo! Don’t send him over there! I have to stake my claim over him first!”
After talking a little longer, I finally make it to the room we’ve been working on, and pull the blinds open to check on the progress of the drying paint. I smile at the beauty of what we created and select a small brush to touch up the clouds that are missing some color.
“I heard you were in here,” Oliver says behind me, almost making me paint outside of the lines.
“Never sneak up on a person holding a paint brush.”
He chuckles. “Sorry. You want help?”
I stop moving the brush and shoot him a frown over my shoulder, which makes him shrug.
“I can fill in.”
“Grab a brush. The clouds need another coat.”
He does as I ask and stands beside me. I look over at the cloud he’s painting and move on to the next one, which is a couple of steps further away.
“You look great in scrubs, by the way.”
I try not to smile and fail. “Thanks.”
“You would make a good nurse,” he adds.
I stop painting and turn to him with a raised eyebrow. “But not a good doctor?”
“Entertaining that question would mean that I’m saying doctors are more important than nurses, and they’re not. If anything it’s the other way around . . . either way, I’m not going there. I will say, though, that you would be good at any profession where you deal with people.”
“I’ll keep that in mind if this painting thing doesn’t work out,” I say with a smile.
“Meaning never?” he responds with a chuckle as he moves to the next cloud, on the opposite side of the room. “What do you think you would be if art didn’t exist?”
“Dead.”
Oliver lowers his paintbrush and looks at me. “Don’t ever say that.”
Somehow, with one look, he makes me feel the intensity in his words.
“Okay, fine, probably a teacher or a school counselor.”
He nods and goes back to painting. “For the record, I think what you do for a living is perfect. This whole project is really incredible.”
“Just doing what I can.” I shrug.
“Why are you doing it?” he asks, walking toward me. “I know how much you love working with kids, so I knew coming here and painting with them would be something you would like . . . but this? This is a lot, Elle.”
I turn away from his gaze—back to the cloud in front of me—and look at the wall as I answer. “It sucks to be having a bad day and have to get up in the morning and go about your business because it’s expected. Imagine having an illness and having no choice but to come here and be stuck looking at the same four ugly walls, every single day. It makes all of my bad days seem so stupid when I hear these kids talk about what they’re dealing with, and they don’t even complain about any of it,” I say, letting out a breath as I drop my hand and turn to face him. My heart skips a beat at what I find in his eyes. I walk to him and brush my fingers under his left eye. “You look so tired.”
“This is what twenty hours straight looks like, but it’s like you said, they don’t complain, and that gives me no reason to complain either,” he says.
I drop my hand and rock back in my heels, still looking at him. “You’re a good man, Oliver Hart.”
His lips curve into a smile, and I watch his hand come up. I brace myself for his touch, but he drops his hand before it reaches my face. “You’re a great woman, Estelle Reuben.”
“Art is pretty selfish. I create things for myself and hope others like it, but it’s not like I’m thinking about the greater good when I make anything. What you do, on the other hand, is completely selfless.”
His green eyes twinkle. “That’s where you’re wrong. This job may seem selfless, but helping those kids makes me feel like I’m leaving my footprint. When I help them leave in a healthier state than when they got here, that’s . . .” He sighs, looking away for a moment. When his eyes meet mine again, he looks completely happy. “It’s everything. It makes me feel like I matter.”
“You do matter,” I say with a smile.
“So do you. You think art is selfish, but I think it’s pretty giving. I can’t do this.” He waves his hands around the room. “I spend sleepless nights and endless days in here making sure these kids are getting better, but aside from the days that I announce that they can go home, I won’t put a smile on their face like this will.”
His words make my heart soar. I turn back to the wall and finish the cloud I’m working on before walking back to the supplies and dropping my brush there. Oliver has a way of making even the smallest things you do, seem like they’re making a worldly difference. It’s part of his charm, I guess.
We say goodbye, teetering on unchartered territory. I’ve never gotten one hundred percent of Oliver. As far as I know, only his job gets that. In the past, we’ve been friends . . . and then more than friends . . . but this feels like something else. I’m scared to let go and get more than what I bargained for. I’m also scared that I won’t.