George brooded the entire trip back to the station. My dick put Faith and I both into an awkward position, coming out of the darkroom with George standing right there.
I couldn’t help but wonder if I took advantage of Faith’s vulnerability. She wasn’t that kind of girl, or should I say woman. She had always been faithful one hundred percent, never casting any doubts.
I felt so ashamed I could barely get myself to look her in the eye. I managed one fast glance, but I think she missed it. I had to take one more look at her gorgeous face. Not to mention the big red mark I left from the bite that was flashing like a big neon sign on her neck. It was kind of hot, though, marking my territory.
On George’s heels making our way out of the ER, winding between bustling nurses and techs, I spotted Dr. Price. His back was to us with an outstretched hand resting on the pyxis, strumming his fingers against the top of the machine as he casually watched June pull out a dose she needed. The poor woman must have been getting run ragged. She appeared frazzled while fumbling with the code. The scenario sent an inexplicable wave of unease through my bones. What in the world is a doctor doing hanging around the machine observing? Doesn’t he have better things to do than watch over an elderly nurse? I’m pretty confident no other doctor supervises drug dispensing.
George settled into the driver’s seat of the ambulance with a grunt while I drove shotgun to head back to the firehouse. The scene between Dr. Price and June ate at me. I would ask George if he noticed anything strange later. Right now I had other concerns. I was unable to push Faith out of my mind. She burrowed herself in my head so deep nothing would get her out.
I guess now was as good a time as any to approach George about her.
“George, how serious are you and Faith?” I looked over at him briefly then watched out my side window so my reactions wouldn’t give me away one way or the other.
“Why? You want to screw her don’t you?” He still had a scowl on his face like someone was twisting his nuts. Was he going to punch my face in?
Grace had come up with the scheme to get me time with Faith. As we stood outside of their department she said, “Listen, I know Faith like a sister and if she sees you she’s going to bolt like she did at the bar. Wait for me to get in there and she’ll go in the darkroom. That’s what she always does because she feels guilty that I go take the X-rays all the time. After a few minutes you can go in. I’ll stay out here as a lookout while you two talk, if you know what I mean,” giving me a conspiratorial wink.
I could see why Faith was friends with her. She had spunk just like Faith use to have, like she needed to get back.
I hadn’t planned on doing anything except talk to her and tell her I was here for her if she needed an old friend to talk to. One she could trust. I just wanted to convince her that she could count on me.
I hadn’t figured out the extent of her relationship with George yet and I needed to get that straightened out. When I was at her place she looked so lonely, her spirit completely shattered. I didn’t know what Dr. Price did to her, but whatever it was destroyed her.
When I went into the darkroom I stood for a few moments letting my eyes adjust to the different light and absorbing the smell that was Faith and fresh flowers. It followed her everywhere. It didn’t matter what time of year, she always smelled like a field of flowers in spring. I missed it.
I saw her leaning against the counter with her shoulders slumped in defeat, hiding her face. I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t want to scare her. I simply wanted to hold her so she knew she was wasn’t alone and was loved, even if it was by someone she didn’t love anymore.
I didn’t expect her to start crying, and when she heard my voice and froze I didn’t know what was about to happen next. I thought she was going to turn around and punch me. I was relived when she turned into me.
When I touched her skin and got the familiar tingle along with the look she gave me I couldn’t resist the urge to kiss her.
I could still smell her from the hug I gave her and the thought of it made my cock twitch. I didn’t even dare put my hand that still had her scent to my face. I would get a full blown hard-on. My poor cock had been asleep for so long I think it was confused, but once it knew who was in front of me there was no stopping it.
Shit, this is more uncomfortable than I pictured. I guess what Faith and I had done wasn’t as obvious as I imagined. I gave George an answer I thought could be believable.
“I may want to get to know her better, that’s all. Not necessarily have sex with her.”
Liar. I already did, and I wanted more. Forever.
I had to give myself a pep talk to remain cool. Keep your eyes focused outside, if he sees them you’re dead. He will probably pull the ambulance over, beat you to a pulp, pull you into the back, fix you up, and keep going like nothing happened. He is an ex-Marine after all. He knew how to do things I had never heard of. That’s what I’d do if I saw someone messing with my girl.
“Do you care if I date her? I don’t want to step on your toes,” I said nonchalantly.
George snorted, “Good luck. She’s a hard woman to catch. Some competition would be fun. Luke is no challenge at all. He practically has his dick out of his pants before he even goes to talk to her. I think he creeps her out.”
I let out a laugh at the image of Luke. The tension I had been holding since walking out of Faith’s department flowed out of my chest with relief that George and Faith weren’t anything serious.
“All right, game on buddy,” I said while looking out the window, this time with a huge smile on my face.
Finding this out was almost as good as my first lay. Almost. Since Faith was mine already, nothing would beat that. The only thing that could possibly be better would be keeping Faith in my bed.
“I have to get Luke to try to stick his penis in someone else and I’m home free,” I said distracting myself from getting another hard-on.
The scowl on George’s face was gone, replaced with a goofy grin. “That shouldn’t be too hard. You could probably put a pie in front of him and convince him to screw it.”
We laughed at Luke’s expense the rest of the ride back.
Back at the station, shouting echoed into the hallway as we came in from the ambulance bay. Luke was bellowing, “You’re going down Mo foe!”
James countered with, “Not a chance pansy ass.” Then rapid gunfire erupted from the TV.
They were playing Call of Duty on the Xbox 360 that was given to us by a thankful citizen. The other guys were sitting in a semicircle in front of the TV enjoying the show.
I found my chair, plopping down into it exhausted from the satisfying extracurricular activity I had done not too long before.
George roamed into the kitchen and started picking at the food that had been left out for us from dinner saying, “Hey, Luke, guess who Killer was talking to today?” He had a shit eating grin on his face that only meant one thing, trouble.
“Who?” Luke’s attention was still on the game, eyes unblinking, blasting away at a wall that James’ man had run behind.
“Your dream girl.”
George still had a smirk on his face, waiting for the reaction he was baiting for.
“You sneaky bastard, get out of there. You afraid?” Luke let more shots go, ignoring George.
“Luke, did you hear what I said?” George had a roll in his hand, tossing it up in the air and catching it like a baseball. That was a sign that someone was about to get pegged in the head.
“Yeah, my dream girl,” Luke started to repeat, finishing it in slow motion. Then he went quiet like the light bulb went on.
“What? Hell to the no! When did he talk to her? God dammit, so not fair,” he said throwing his game controller, stomping his foot before jumping up and down a couple of times.
“Ha, you suck. Eat bullets and die sucker!!” James yelled, wailing away at the TV like Rambo as Luke had his girly tantrum.
“Ha, mission accomplished,” George said biting into his roll, ripping a piece away like a dog with a piece of raw meat.
Is that what I looked like with Faith’s neck? Man, I sure hope not. The thought disturbed me slightly, then I remembered her smile and my cock twitched in agreement that she liked it. Hell, I loved it.
Luke interrupted my sex dream with his whiney voice. “What the hell, John. When did you see her? You never talk to anyone when you go to the hospital unless you absolutely have to.”
He threw himself into his recliner, shaking his head and crossing his arms across his chest.
“Man, I knew I shouldn’t have said anything to you about not paying attention. Damn.” He punched his thighs with his fists. Better his thighs than my face. Why was I so worried about these guys? She was mine before they even knew she existed.
I got up from the recliner feeling good about things and headed into the kitchen, passing Luke as I went and said, “Game on, bud.”
“I’m so close. She wanted me at the bar, I know it! If you hadn’t shown your rugged lumberjack face I could have had her in the bathroom,” Luke protested, his voice even whinier than before.
“What fantasy land are you in? She never even talked to you. I saw her go in the complete opposite direction of you,” George said, hunched over his plate of food.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” he added. “I’d say by the way she came out of that darkroom you’ll have to practically walk around naked with a massive hard-on bigger than your arm for her to notice you. She was so flustered. I’d never seen her like that before,” George said, eyeing me as he chewed his mouthful of food.
George was trying to catch himself a second fish. Luke wasn’t enough. Do I respond or ignore him? That was a tough call.
Luke came into the kitchen and eyed me. He leaned back against the counter, arms crossed, a quizzical look on his face. “Dude, what did you do with her in there? Did you bone her?”
“Luke, I’m not even going there with you. The next thing I know you’ll be having dirty dreams with me in them, and no thank you,” I said, clasping him on the shoulder.
I was thankful that James had convinced Colin to play him in another game so no one was paying attention to Luke.
“Come on, you gotta tell me. I need to know what my dick is missing,” Luke answered.
“Did you really just say that to me?” I was staring at him in disbelief. I had to put my fork down so I wouldn’t stab him in the throat.
“Yeah,” Luke said, as he pulled out a chair at the table to sit with us.
I looked down at my plate so I could regain my composure. When I looked back up at him through slits I asked, “You wanna do some pie while you’re at it?” I had to remind myself that Luke was a moron.
“Pie? Sure, I’ll do some pie. Who wouldn’t? But only if it’s warm. I don’t want blueberry, though, because it wouldn’t be pretty if the seeds got stuck in the one eyed-monster,” Luke said, completely serious.
George and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.
It’s official. I went crazy. How did I not punch John in the face for following me into the darkroom, or at least give him a good knee to his family jewels? No, instead I had sex with him. He did give me three orgasms, but that’s beside the point.
Then, to make matters worse, I got John’s number from Mike and texted him that we needed to talk. I regretted sending the text the instant I pushed the green button.
I didn’t have time to be worried about him when I was going to see the hospital board in a few days to find out their decision. My lawyer seemed to think I was in the clear, but I was still concerned. He told me I didn’t have anything to worry about. My blood work and hair sample showed I was clear of all drugs. The ledgers never showed a discrepancy in the number of narcotics used on the days I worked. No one else who had made a statement made any sort of accusation or said they witnessed me do anything wrong. It was only Brad’s word. The lawyer felt I was going to be let off and told to be more careful with whom I associated with.
As I rolled over to get out of bed my phone beeped. It was a text from John.
Can’t do lunch. Sorry, sweetie. How about dinner?
Sweetie? When did I get the moniker sweetie? Probably when he stuck his magic stick in me. I need to ask Grace what she thinks I should do.
I sent Grace a text to come over, the door was unlocked. A minute later I heard, “Hello, what’s the emergency that I had to leave my nice, warm bed?”
I gasped, “Oh, no! You don’t have a guy over there do you? Is it Mike?” I whispered as if someone would overhear us.
“Actually, yes it is,” she said proudly, standing up straighter and sticking her chest out even farther.
“How was he? Wait, never mind, I don’t want to know.” I shook my head. “Does he have a big package? Wait, no, no, never mind I asked,” I rambled, embarrassed that Mike was over there knowing that we were probably talking about him and his package.
Grace rolled her eyes and said, “Relax, it’s not what you think. He came over after his shift to drop off my phone that I had left at the hospital. Then he hung out for a while. We both just ended up falling asleep, unfortunately.” She let out a disappointed sigh, making her shoulders heave up and down.
“I think he’s afraid to touch me. He didn’t make a move the other day either. What am I going to do?” Grace asked, a sad look in her eye.
“Grace, he’s a really nice guy that’s all. You don’t have to sleep with a guy the second you’re alone with him.”
How did this turn out to be about her? I almost forgot why I had called her. And who was I to dish out that kind of advice?
“Focus, Grace. Back to me so you can get back to him.”
She trained her eyes back on me and I kept talking.
“I asked John to meet for lunch. I thought it would be safe in daylight out somewhere in public. Well, he can’t meet me until later and asked me if I want to do dinner. Should I go?”
I stood staring into Grace’s face, which had ‘are you stupid’ written all over it. “Yes! Why wouldn’t you? He’s a total hottie, who, by the way, still loves you. Not to mention you already slept with him, so what’s the big deal?”
“He doesn’t love me, and how would you know I had sex with him?” I asked. I had my hands on my hips, giving her my meanest look, trying to confuse her.
“Faith, did you forget who you’re talking to? I’ve seen you after you’ve had sex, and to be perfectly honest you weren’t that quiet. I had to toss cassettes around and drop stuff to muffle the noise so George wouldn’t hear you two. I was starting to get afraid that he thought I was having the beginnings of a grand mal seizure. Good thing he’s such an old man.”
She started to laugh. “If denial is the game you want to play with yourself go ahead, but the truth will slap you in the mouth eventually,” she said, waving a hand at me.
I furrowed my brows at her. I’d never heard it put like that before. “Don’t you mean slap me in the face?”
“No, mouth,” she said sure of herself. Grace always did make sure to say things exactly how she meant them, even if it meant a common saying.
“What do you know, Grace?” I eyed her cautiously. She usually had a reason behind everything.
“I don’t know as much as I think I should know considering I’m your best friend. He only told me that he was an ex of yours. How important of an ex are we talking about, Faith? Is he an I-only-dry-humped-you-in-high-school ex, or the could-have-been-my-husband ex?” She arched a brow, daring me to answer her.
When I didn’t she said, “I have a fairly good idea by the way the darkroom was torn apart. Not to mention the little love bit on your neck.”
She eyed my bruise, innocently batting her eyelashes.
I could feel my face turn bright red.
“Okay, I think you better go back to your human blanket. I’ll talk to you later,” I mumbled, pushing her back toward the front door.
“He’s more like a throw your grandma crocheted that you don’t use since he’s on the couch, but I can take a hint. And we will talk about you and John again.”
Before she walked out the door, Grace turned to Faith and whispered, “Don’t be stupid and chase this guy away.”
With Grace finally gone, I texted John back.
Dinner will work. 8 at Francesca’s.
I held my breath in anticipation. When I didn’t get a response I let out a gust of air in relief. It would be easier to handle the rejection if I didn’t see it until later instead of being a text stalker.
But I thought too soon.
John: Nope, 7 at Spiaggia. I’ll come get you.
What? Since when did he get to call the shots! I always made the plans. I replied.
No! 8, Francesca’s <:(
It may have been years since I’ve seen him, but that doesn’t mean I have to agree with everything.
His next text was taking too long. Instead of staring at my cell willing it to beep, I decided I’d go for a run and waste some time.
On my way out I saw Mike coming out of Grace’s place doing the walk of shame. “Hey, Mike.”
His eyes bulged out in surprise, but before he could answer me Grace stuck her head out. Seeing how I was dressed she said, “Wait for me, I wanna go.”
Giving Mike a sour-puss face, she said, “I have a bunch of unexpended energy to burn off.” She headed back in, shutting the door on Mike.
Poor Barney, he didn’t know where to look. At one point he was staring at the dirty diamond shaped pattern of the hall carpet, probably wishing it would open up and swallow him alive. Finally, with his eyes aimed at the ground, he sped past me mumbling, “Hey, Faith.” He passed the elevators and went straight to the stairwell without glancing back.
Grace was back out in a matter of minutes and didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see Mike gone.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“When you tell me yours I’ll tell you mine,” she replied, sticking out her tongue as we got in the elevator. While we stretched outside she asked, “So, did you call him?”
“I texted him.” I had an idea of what was coming next. I wanted to get our stretching done before I had to get the lecture, but it was too late.
“Ugh, really? Why didn’t you call him? Texts are so impersonal, and you’re less likely to get your way because you can’t turn on the sexy voice.”
“Oh, yeah, you mean the same one you used on Mike last night?”
“I told you, I’m not talking about it until you do. But, yeah, he’s starting to really tick me off.”
“Have you even kissed him yet?”
“Eh, you go I go.” She put her ear buds in and we started our jog with only the music playing in our heads.
The jog was just what I needed to clear my head and figure out my game plan without Grace’s influence. I mapped out exactly what I was going to do.
The cool wind that greeted us on our warm-up now turned into a welcomed breeze as my body heated from the run and thoughts of John.
First, I had to stop bouncing back and forth like a yo-yo, changing my mind on what I wanted with him. I was conscious of what it had to be, and what happened in the darkroom would not occur again, ever. It wasn’t fair to tease him that way.
The hour of uninterrupted thinking was what I needed. The second we popped our ear buds out Grace started up again.
“So where are you going?” she asked to the ground as she stretched out her hamstrings.
“I want Francesca’s, he says Spiaggia. I told him no.”
Now standing up on one leg with the other braced behind her to stretch her quad, Grace said, “You’re going to argue with him about going to Spiaggia? I really do think I need to commit you.”
“Grace, it’s not about the status of a restaurant.”
“Right, it’s about you controlling the situation.”
“What? How can you say that?” This was the first time I’ve heard this from Grace.
“Because that’s how you are, Faith. You have this control issue. You’ve always had it, but since Brad its gone haywire.”
“I do not.” I took advantage of the wall to give Grace my back as I stretched my calves. If I had to listen I didn’t want to see her, too.
“Oh no? What about me having to go over to the ER every time Brad is working, which has been every night we work.”
I could tell how she was standing without having to see her. It was her don’t mess with me stance, her arms folded across her chest. I could feel her eyes on me, watching expectantly.
When I didn’t answer she said, “Why do you think your sisters don’t call you, or want to move in with you for that matter?”
I gasped in a breath and tears sprang to my eyes. How could she bring them into this? Didn’t she know how much it killed me that they chose a place to live without me?
I turned and ran into the building, taking the same stairwell Mike had two steps at a time. I wouldn’t beat her up to our floor but I needed to expel the feeling I was having and this was the only way.
Grace was standing outside of the elevators facing the stairwell waiting for me. I charged past her. “Don’t even say another word, Grace. You’ve said enough!”
“Faith, I didn’t mean to…”
I stuck my hand out in her direction and said, “Stop! You may not have meant for it to hurt, but guess what? It does. I really don’t feel like discussing two out of the three most important things in my life out here.”
The tears were on the verge of slipping out of my eyes. I wouldn’t cry. I. Would. Not. Cry.
I ran inside closing the door, wanting to get away from Grace as fast as possible. She followed me in silence.
I spun around, my eyes completely filled with tears. The smell of flowers invaded my memories, making me more emotional. Grace looked like she was under water.
“Don’t you think it killed me to come here and tell them to stay there with her?” I shouted, the veins in my neck straining as I got the words out.
Grace was the only person who knew who I left behind and why. She was the only one who knew every detail about my old life, except for my history with John.
I had chosen to leave him out on purpose. He was my special set of memories. I didn’t want to share those, and now he was here and I had to explain after all. But not now. I couldn’t.
I saw my phone sitting on the half wall where I’d left it before my run and grabbed it, not so much to see who called but to give me something else to do. Great, John responded back. Bracing myself I read the word: “No.”
Feeling like a cornered animal I had to agree or that would make Grace right, and I refused to give her that satisfaction. I replied: “Fine, whatever you want.”
Unlike the last time I texted him he didn’t wait to answer: ?K.” He must have been expecting more of a fight from me. Shit! Even John thinks I’m controlling.
I pushed my hands into my eyes to ward off the quickly dissolving tears. All I could do was shake my head.
“Am I that bad?”
Grace came up and wrapped her arms around me. “No, Faith. You don’t do it to be mean. You do it for protection, whether for you or the ones you love. Don’t you think I figured that out? How else do you think I could stay around your bitchy, controlling ass?”
Then she laughed, hoping that would make me feel better. It did because she got me. I knew I didn’t have to pretend around her. I smiled back at her.
“OK,” she said, her arm around my shoulder, “now that you’re done being overly sensitive let’s go pick out something sexy for you to wear.
“Not sexy. Pretty.”
“Fine, pretty.”