Chapter 26

 

 

 

 

 

Gia

 

“Will this night ever end,” I whine, sitting behind the nurses' station with my feet propped up. I’ve been chatting with a few of the nurses for the last hour. They’ve been telling me about their husbands and kids, because there isn’t a single pregnant lady in need of delivering a baby.

It’s freaking unheard of and if it continues likes this, it’s going to be the longest night ever.

I could probably go and sack out in the on-call room for a bit. Especially since Finn and I have the football game tomorrow. But I don’t like to do that. If I fall asleep, I’m usually groggy when woken and that’s just not safe for patients.

Not that we have any.

“You could catch up on your charting?” one of the nurses offers.

“Done,” I say.

“You could read a journal? Catch up on your CMEs?”

“Done and done.”

“Then you can go thank the gorgeous doctor who delivered this to you.”

I glance up to see Rachel, one of the OBs, who is smiling from ear to ear as she reaches out her hand holding a very large to-go cup of coffee.

I can’t stop the bubble of laughter as it climbs up my chest and out my mouth. I get up out of my seat and take the warm cardboard cup from her. “Is he waiting on me?”

“I don’t think so. He just asked me to deliver this to you and then walked away as fast as he could like the floor was on fire.”

I thank Rachel and move quickly to the door which leads out of the L&D floor, smiling as I hear Hannah, one of the nurses, laugh about how afraid men are of laboring women and babies.

Just as I reach the elevator, I spy Finn stepping on. “Hey,” I call out. “Wait up.” Finn sticks his arm into the closing doors and then they open for me with a loud angry ding. “Why the delivery and ditch?”

He smiles, but his eyes glance beyond me at the sign which says Labor and Delivery. “Not my department.”

I roll my eyes at that and step on next to him. “But you brought me…what?” I look down at the cup in my hand.

“Hot chocolate.”

I laugh. “Of course, but you do realize I’m in the middle of a nightshift and actually require caffeine.”

He grins down at me, shifting ever so slightly to face me better. “That’s why I had them add a double shot of espresso.”

“And whipped cream?”

“You can’t have hot chocolate without whipped cream.”

“You’re amazing,” I say, taking a sip of my espresso-filled hot chocolate. “Yum. Where did you get this?” No way this came from the hospital cafeteria and the coffee shop off the lobby is closed at this hour.

“The coffee shop where I met your boyfriend last week.” I peer up at him, trying to gauge his expression, but he’s not giving me anything to work with.

“And how is it that you have time to walk over and get coffee?”

Finn takes a sip of his own large coffee with a smile. “It’s Q in the ED.”

“Ah,” I say with a nod of understanding. “Us too.”

In hospitals, it is against the superstitious laws to ever say the word quiet. It’s considered bad luck. A jinx. Like saying good luck to a dancer before they go on stage instead of break a leg. It’s simply not done.

“Then you have a minute to ride down the elevator and share your espresso-chocolate drink with me.”

“Isn’t that what I’m already doing?” I tease but then the doors open on the ground floor and we step out into the back end of the ED.

“What time am I picking you up tomorrow?”

Finn spins around on me, taking my arm and leading me down a vacant hallway. I feel like I shouldn’t be here with him. That’s it’s too intimate of a setting. But then again, we’re going to be alone all afternoon tomorrow.

“The game is at four-fifteen so how about two? Or is that too early? Will you need more sleep than that?”

Finn smiles down on me, edging the border of my personal space. “Two is a perfect.” I take a sip of my drink and do my best to appear like he’s not invading me. Like I’m completely unaffected by him. I figure this is just how it is with us and there isn’t anything I can do about it. That it’s just going to be my thing with him.

Finn is the emotional equivalent of an old tattoo. A permanent fixture, even if it’s not the most prominent anymore. Even if it’s slightly faded or maybe even partially covered by another one. A brighter one. It’s still there. Forever a part of your skin.

That’s Finn.

I tried getting rid of him, but found it was impossible. So now I live with it. Accept it for what it is. We fall silent and do that staring thing with each other which we’ve managed to perfect. The one that makes my heart beat just a bit faster. The one that makes my stomach swoosh.

“What did you tell Mason about tomorrow?” he asks, leaning into me just a touch more, those bright-blue eyes drifting all around my face.

“I told him I was going to see the Patriot’s play the Jets.”

He grins. “And who did you tell him you were going with?”
      “You,” I say.

That grin turns into a full-fledged smile. “And what did Mason have to say about that?”
      I shrug because Mason wasn’t happy about it. I never mentioned how I got the tickets. Or that they were even technically mine. I played the whole thing off like it wasn’t a big deal and he didn’t fight me on it, though I think he wanted to.

To be honest, I don’t know why I asked Finn to come with me. Yes, he sort of asked himself along, but I could have said no. I should have said that I have a boyfriend. It was a moment of weakness, I think. It was the first time Finn and I had seen each other in a few weeks, since that ill-fated night in my apartment. And I was swept up in the idea that he and I could actually be friends.

It was idiotic.

Even now, standing here with him in the middle of the night, in a vacant part of the hospital, I know what I’m doing with him is wrong.

I can’t make myself stop either.

Every little inch he gives me, I just want to take more, knowing full well it will never lead anywhere. It’s a tease. A peepshow. But if you run your hand quickly enough through a flame, you don’t get burned. That’s what I’m banking on.

“He didn’t like it, did he? You taking me to the game instead of him? Or didn’t you tell him that’s how this is happening?”

“Does the idea of Mason being unhappy about us going together make you happy?”

“I don’t believe happy is the word I would use.”

I want to ask him which word he would use, but I know Finn well enough to know he won’t tell me. And really, what am I hoping his word would be?

“Mason knows nothing will ever happen with us,” I say and instantly regret it. I don’t know why I’m being petty with him. That’s a lie. I know exactly why I’m behaving like this.

Finn steps into me, crowding me until my back hits the wall. He sets his coffee on the floor and then brackets me in with his arms. His face dips down so close to mine that his blazing eyes take up nearly my entire field of vision. His warm sweet coffee-scented breath fans against my lips.

“Is that what you told him?”

I nod. It’s the truth, but I find myself daring him to contradict me.

“And what did he say to that?”

“Nothing,” I say. “He didn’t say anything.”

“Does this feel like nothing, Gia?”

No. It feels like butterflies. It feels like heart palpitations. It feels like warm delicious tingles zapping each of my nerve endings in a synchronized dance. It feels exactly how it felt that night in my apartment and for that very reason, I need him to stop.

“Does it matter, Finn?”

He grins big and wide, his nose brushing against mine. Once. Twice.

“No,” he whispers, his lips a half an inch from mine.

His answer is a relief and a punishment. But I refuse to let him control me any longer. Pushing against his chest so that I can breathe without tasting him, I duck under his arm, freeing myself. Finn steps back, his hands going to his hips as his eyes close, his face pinching up in regret.

He’s shaking his head, chastising himself for…well, probably for everything.

I let him wallow in it. Succumb to it. He deserves it, and I think he knows that.

I turn away from him and walk back down the hall to the elevator, pressing the button and taking a sip of my now very cold drink. “Thanks for the espresso-chocolate. It was delicious,” I tell him as I drop it into the trash bin. “I’ll see you tomorrow at two.”

The elevator doors open just as I say two, as if they knew I’d need to make an exit at that precise moment. Stepping on, I hit the button for my floor and close my eyes.

I can’t look to see if he’s there watching me.