EIGHT
ZETH
2 YEARS AGO
St. Peter’s is packed. It’s New Year’s Eve, and the hospital’s waiting room is overflowing with drunk, fucked-up frat boys, in varying states of consciousness. Some are asleep in their chairs, mouths hanging open, snoring, while a few other others, the green around the gills ones, are visibly fighting their need to puke. Sitting across from me, a girl wearing pink stilettos and a matching pink sequin dress is holding a bag of frozen peas to her bloodied nose, while her wasted friend apologizes repeatedly for hitting her in the face with her purse.
The nursing staff are literally running from one end of the building to the other, harried expressions on their faces, beads of sweat on their brows. The woman in scrubs at the reception desk is a picture of calm, though. She carries a tablet from patient to patient, asking them questions, grading their level of need as she goes. As she passes me, she places a hand on my shoulder.
“How you doin’, honey? The headache getting any worse?”
I give her a bland smile. “About the same. Just...y’know. Throbbing.”
She nods, and I can read her mind perfectly: Go home, take some aspirin and go to sleep, you jerk. You’re cluttering up my E.R. She suggested as much when I checked myself three hours ago with a mild migraine, but I’d politely smiled and sat myself down, telling her I didn’t mind waiting.
And here I’ve sat. Waiting.
The nurse with the tablet moves on, and I look up to find that the two girls sitting opposite me are staring at me. Not even hiding the fact. They look me up and down, head to toe, conducting some assessment of their own. “You’re here for a headache?” the one wearing pink sequins asks.
I angle my head to one side. “Problem?”
“It’s New Year’s Eve, dude. Drink a few beers and get over it.”
“Yeah,” her friend agrees. “Drink some water, and then drink some beers. You’ll be fine in half an hour. Geez.” They’re both looking at me like I’m failing at life. The girl who apparently broke her friend’s nose stops frowning and gives me a non-too-subtle smile. “You are super hot by the way. Do you have a girlfriend?”
Oh lord. I look away, watching a balding guy smashing his fist into the vending machine, the top of his head growing redder and redder as he struggles to make the machine comply.
“Hey, I asked you a question. Do. You. Have. A. Girlfriend.”
I slowly turn my gaze back to the girl. “No. I do not have a girlfriend.” My response is clipped. Cold. It’s the kind of tone that speaks volumes to most normal, sane, intelligent people. It’s the kind of tone that says, run for your fucking lives. These girls aren’t smart enough to register this, however.
“Why not? Are you one of those assholes who dates a bunch of women at the same time?”
“No.”
“Then spill. Are you gay?”
“No.”
They roll their eyes in unison. “There’s no need to say no like that.”
“How did I say it?”
“Like you’re a fucking homophobe or something.”
“I’m not a homophobe. I’ve slept with men before.”
This stops them both in their tracks. Their eyes double in size. “Are you for real?” Sequins drops her bag of frozen peas on the floor.
“Yes, I am for real.”
“That is the…hottest…thing…I have ever fucking heard,” she whispers. “I can’t even…fucking…” Her eyes roll up to the ceiling, like she’s beseeching whatever god she believes in for assistance.
I don’t smile. I shrug my shoulders, eyes scanning the waiting room. “People are people. You either wanna fuck them or you don’t.”
They don’t say anything else. My eyes rove from the set of double doors at the far end of the E.R. to the entrance, studying the faces of the female doctors who breeze and out of the space. A minute passes. Two. When I turn back, the girls, who I’ve frankly forgotten about, are staring at me with their mouths open. Still staring at me. I get the feeling they haven’t looked away since I spoke last.
They share a brief, loaded look, and then the one on the left says, “Have you ever been with two girls at once before?” in a secretive, suggestive manner, her voice lowered.
I rock my head back, and I laugh. I can’t fucking help myself. The sound of my amusement booms over the chatter and drunken shouting filling the E.R. Have I ever slept with two girls at once? Have I ever…
If only these two knew the depths of my depravity, they wouldn’t be fucking talking to me right now. They’d be asking for an armed guard for their protection. My insane reaction to their poorly veiled offer must be incredibly offensive to them, because they get to their feet, wobbling on their ridiculous fucking heels.
“You’re a rude cunt,” the girl with the broken nose informs me. Like this might be new information to me. My smile fades, and I allow my face to remain utterly unmoved by her anger.
“I’m sorry,” I say stiffly. “You just fall into the, ‘people I don’t want to fuck’ category.”
“You’re lucky our boyfriends aren’t here,” Sequins spits. “They’d kick your fucking ass.”
“Or maybe they’d thank me for revealing to them what ungodly whores you are,” I shoot back.
The girls’ expressions fall blank, like they can’t actually believe what I’ve just said to them. They’re about to cause a scene, I can tell, but a male doctor with latex gloves heads into the waiting room. “Lauren Pinskey?”
They both glare at me as the doctor shepherds them away to a treatment room. A gaggle of frat boys hiss and laugh as they disappear. “Yo, dude. You got some serious game. That was hilarious,” one of them says, holding out his balled up fist me to bump. I get up and I move instead, shifting to the emptiest corner of the waiting room. I’m just making friends all over the place tonight, and that’s not why I came. I came for a very specific reason, and it has nothing to do with my phantom migraine.
An hour passes.
Then another hour.
It’s two thirty in the morning by the time I finally get what I came for. She emerges through the set of double doors to the right, her hair pulled back into a neat ponytail, her face a mask of worry as she surveys the carnage of the E.R. room before her. She looks tired. I know she started work nearly eighteen hours ago, so she must by dead on her feet by now.
I keep my head down as she talks to the woman at the reception desk.
“Is Olly around, Gracie?” she asks. “We were meant to meet half an hour ago, but my surgery ran long.”
“Hasn’t been down here yet. I’d say he was delayed, too. You breaking for something to eat?”
“Yeah.” Sloane presses her fingertips into her temples, groaning. “I need coffee. Like, right now.”
I casually observe her out of the corner of my eye as she stands and talks to the nurse she called Gracie. Sloane’s not supermodel rail thin—she has curves in all the right places, visible even through her scrubs. Her hair is a little longer than the last time I saw her. She’s pale. Always so pale. She works every hour god sends at the hospital, so it’s no wonder she’s white as a sheet. She looks beautiful with it, though, instead of sick like some of the other doctors who work here.
I haven’t made a habit of this. I’ve checked in on her a grand total of four times since that night at the hotel. The last time I stopped by the hospital to catch a glimpse of her, I told myself I wasn’t going to do it again. When I woke up this morning, though, I knew I was going to come here. I just needed to make sure she was okay. I just needed to see with my own two eyes that she was alive, well and happy. And now here she is, standing ten feet away from me, playing with a ballpoint pen as she chats aimlessly with her friend, her eyes shining brightly under the strip lighting despite the subtle shadows hover beneath them.
She is alive.
She is well.
The happy part, though? I can never fucking tell. She puts on a good show most of the time, but there’s always this sadness that clings to her. Always.
I get to my feet, heading for the elevator. I can’t sit here all night, and now that I’ve done what I set out to, there’s no reason for me to stay. Only…it’s so fucking hard to walk away.
Fuck. Me.
I stab the call button for the elevator, my back to Sloane. I haven’t been able to forget her. In all the time that’s passed since we met in that darkened hotel room, I haven’t been able to get her out of my fucking head. It’s been fucking torturous.
“Oh, hey, I came down here looking for you,” a voice says behind me. Her voice. I cast a quick glance over my shoulder, and Sloane’s standing even closer now, only three feet away, talking to some tall, blond haired guy with a jaw like a motherfucking Ken doll. I turn back around, closing my eyes, my body fizzing with unexpected anger. Who the fuck is that guy? She’s smiling at him. Fucking smiling at him. And the way he was looking at her in that brief snapshot I got of the two of them together…I did not like the way he was fucking looking at her.
“Good. Are you ready? I’m starving,” the blond guy answers her.
“Yeah, let’s head for the canteen. If I don’t fuel up, I’m going to pass out.”
The elevator doors slide open, and people exit. I wait until the car is empty before I enter, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end when Sloane and the blond guy get on after me.
He reaches out and hits the button for the second floor. I freeze for a moment, considering my options. I’m meant to be heading down, into the basement, to the parking level, but something inside me resists hitting the P1 button.
I inhale deeply through my nose, trying to maintain my calm. Big fucking mistake. The second the air hits my nose, I smell her. Her scent. The same perfume she wore the night at the hotel—light, floral, slightly sweet and impossible to forget. I have no control over the way my body reacts to that smell. My dick is instantly hard, straining against my pants, my heart thundering in my chest. I can’t fucking breathe.
She’s standing right in front of me, laughing at something Dumb Blond Guy has said, and all I can do is stare at the tiny, fine hairs at the back of her neck that won’t reach up into her ponytail. I want to take hold of her and bite the back of her neck as my hands rove all over her body. I want to make her moan. I want to make her fucking shake with her need. I want to hear her gasping my name.
I also want to punch my fist through this fuck boy’s larynx. I’ve been trapped in an elevator with him for less than ten seconds and I can tell he’s in love with her. It’s painfully fucking obvious. Does Sloane know? How could she not? My mood blackens as I imagine what that means. If she knows how he feels about her, and she’s joking and laughing with him like this, does that mean they’re fucking? Goddamn it, I need to get out of this elevator right fucking now. I’m already grabbing hold of him in my head, wrapping a hand around his throat as I smash my other fist repeatedly into his face. I’ve already broken his nose. I’ve already knocked him the fuck out. He’s already dead, lying in a pool of his own blood on the elevator floor.
Mercifully, the doors sweep back and the two of them walk out, still talking about their respective patients. I don’t follow after them. I was going to head to the canteen, to sit at a table close to them so I could watch her some more as she eats, but I can’t.
He’s going to lay a hand on her at some point. It’s going to be a friendly cuff of the shoulder, or a barely-there graze of his fingers against hers as they line up to purchase their meals, and I am going to lose my fucking mind. I won’t be able to stop myself from launching at him, teeth bared, the testosterone on fire in my blood stream. I will rip his fucking throat out.
As if she senses the intensity of my gaze on her skin, Sloane looks back into the elevator as the doors close again. Our eyes meet for the very first time. She smiles softly, her mouth quirked up at one side as she finally sees me…
And then she’s gone.