With better sleep and a clear conscience, Ariana headed to school the next morning with a much more amicable attitude. She smiled at her classmates—after all, they didn’t have white coats yet, either, and most of them were still decent people—and prepared for her exam.
What she hadn’t counted on was an inability to concentrate, her thoughts swirling back around to Vince every time she came across a question about assessing possible broken bones or how to determine the most likely injury in a leg. She remembered being in the back of the bus, looking at his bandaged thigh, treating the burn on his foot, and the way he stared at her as if she was his first meal in a month.
Ariana returned to her exam, but she couldn’t concentrate, and it took her much longer than usual to complete the test. She didn’t have time to review it, and she couldn’t guarantee she hadn’t flubbed several questions. She didn’t want it to affect her mood, but she couldn’t help worrying. She had so much to prove, and if she didn’t get high enough grades, she’d live with the stigma that Jennie had brought up yesterday.
She didn’t give herself a lot of time to think about it. Instead, she ran through a drive-through and ordered off the dollar menu on her way to work. She had her longest shift of the week tonight; there would be time for a quick dinner later, but that was hours away.
With her stomach no longer growling, Ariana was able to greet her partner with the same smile she’d had when she’d entered the classroom this morning. “Did you get to catch the end of your boy’s soccer game?” she asked, making conversation as she pulled her clean uniform from her locker and shoved the two dirty ones in. They’d be returned to her tomorrow, clean and ready to wear.
“Only a couple of minutes, but that was good enough. He scored the winning goal, and I got it on film.” He beamed, and his enthusiasm was infectious. She managed to forget her issues at school and went to change into her uniform in the women’s locker room.
She met Sal out by the bus and grabbed cleaning supplies. It was a daily ritual—cleaning the rig before and after each shift on most occasions. They took pride in the bus, more than any other paramedics she knew, and it was one thing that kept Ariana from feeling like she’d already been defeated. The people in charge took notice of their attention to details like that, and it would go a long way in getting her the recommendations she needed for the future.
But as she climbed into the back of the bus, her whole body tingled, as if the memory of riding Vince was still alive in there. She could almost smell him when she closed her eyes: the strange mix of antiseptic, cologne, sweat, and grass. And on top of all that, the smell of sex haunted her.
She shook her head to clear it, and Sal looked up at her. “Are you just going to sit there all day and let me do the dirty work?”
His tone was teasing, but coming off a body high she hadn’t wanted, Ariana didn’t really care. “I don’t know. Are you going to harass me all day, as if I never contribute to the team?”
“Damn, there’s that attitude again.” He was still joking, but the words crawled uneasily up her spine. “What’s gotten into you lately? You used to be so sweet. Did someone suck the warmth out of you?”
Maybe if she spent enough time in Vince’s bed, he could do just that, and she wouldn’t feel all the pain and shame of the horrible ideas people had about her. At least being around him could help her man up against her opposers. “I was young and dumb back then,” she said casually. “Now I’m jaded.”
“I can see that,” Sal said thoughtfully. Ariana scrubbed at the base of the rig, but Sal had stopped and was staring at her.
“You’ve been all kinds of rattled since the kid the other night,” Sal said. “Or was it the biker guy? I know he was kind of a dick, and I know how you feel about those guys anyway. But you can’t let that get to you. His opinion of you doesn’t matter, okay?”
Ariana shrugged, trying to play off the issue. “I’m not worried about him. He’s just another thug.” A thug you slept with again, and one you plan on cavorting with in the future.
“You say that, but I see the look in your eyes. You’re already trying to prove yourself to too many people, Ariana. You don’t have to prove anything to some piece of garbage like him. You have to worry about impressing the big kahunas in the medical industry, and you have to like yourself. Those are the only two things that matter.”
He was right, but for some reason, she still wanted Vince to like her. She could read the same negative stigma coming from him that she had felt toward him, and she wanted to resolve it, for whatever reason. But she wasn’t going to tell him that. Instead, she forced a teasing smile and went back to work. “There is one other person I want to please. I mean, my partner, Sal, means enough to me that I want him to like me and all.”
She heard his chuckle and the teasing attitude he put on in response. “Hey, all the ladies want Sal to like them. But don’t worry, sweetheart, aside from my wife and mi madre, you’re my number one gal.”
Ariana stuck her tongue out at him as they finished their cleaning, and she grabbed the supplies to restock on the shelves. She called back to him, “If we don’t get a call soon, I think we should give this baby a bath.”
“I think she’s alright.” He came up behind her and smacked her butt, probably the only person in the entire universe who could get away with something like that. “I say we practice our CPR on each other.”
She rolled her eyes and slapped him playfully on the cheek. “There’s nothing here for you, big guy. Save it for when you get home to your wife.” And she would save it for Vince.
That thought hit her like a ton of bricks. She could barely even remember the last time she’d had sex before him, and even then, it hadn’t been anything spectacular. Now, somehow, she’d gotten herself mixed up with a guy she barely knew who epitomized everything she despised but was a maniac in the sack. He made her wish she could just jump in bed with him and never crawl back out.
It made Ariana wonder if she even really knew who she was after all. She searched her soul for an answer she couldn’t find, and as they headed toward their first call—what sounded like an asthma attack with no inhaler around—she was more focused on figuring out her own life than saving someone else’s. She doubted the attack was lethal; they were usually just caused by panic attacks when an asthmatic discovered they’d left their inhaler at home. They’d give the girl some oxygen, carry her to the hospital for a shot of steroids, and she’d be fine.
Ariana had bigger problems. She didn’t know if it was worse that she’d mischaracterized bikers in general in the past and lumped them into a category, effectively treating them like a lower class, or that she now suddenly saw something good in one of them, which raised questions about why she would just up and change her opinion.
Either way, Vince Larson was a distraction, and he remained as such throughout her shift. In fact, she caught herself starting to apply burn ointment to a bleeding cut instead of antiseptic wash and placing an oxygen mask on a patient but not turning on the oxygen feed. If she didn’t get her head on straight, she’d end up causing someone to slip into a coma with too high a dose of painkillers.
She’d never presented this sort of danger to her patients, and she didn’t like her distraction was affecting her job. She was just grateful that she caught her own mistakes and that Sal didn’t see her fumbling like this. He would shit a brick and tell her she needed to take time off until she could guarantee that she wasn’t a danger to herself and others. She couldn’t afford time off. She had walked away from the never-ending supply of money a long time ago, and she had no intention of repairing that severed bridge.
Finally, she was off duty. The day had been stressful not because there were any huge emergencies, but because the calls had been nonstop, Ariana did something rare—she went into the women’s locker room for a shower.
Turning on the hot spray, she bent forward, bracing herself against the wall with both hands, and let the water slide over her head and down her back. It eased her muscles momentarily, until her wayward thoughts turned to Vince and what he looked like in the shower, his body glistening with water as it poured in rivulets over his toned muscles and down the creases between them.
She washed quickly, spending extra time and effort on her hair to the point of irritating her scalp. She didn’t mind—at least it kept her from having an orgasm right there in the public showers. Wrapped in a towel, she went to her locker and grabbed her street clothes, tugging them on and twisting her wet hair on top of her head with a clip. It could dry later. She had to get out of here.
She headed home, and when she got there, she held her phone in her hand, staring at Vince’s number. She shouldn’t call him. She should block his number and pretend none of this had ever happened. She still didn’t know how they were going to work this out. Hell, she couldn’t decide if she wanted to get to know him better or just use him for sex.
But she couldn’t fight the urge. She had the feeling it was going to take more than a few bouts of sex to get him out of her system to the point that she could function like a normal human being again. She dialed his number, hoping she could start on that road tonight. It was late, but he was in a motorcycle gang. They didn’t really run on normal business hours, right?
It rang five times, then went to voicemail. “Larson of Larson Enterprises. Can’t call you back if I don’t know who you are, so do what you gotta do.” She almost laughed, but the beep sounded, and she tried to think of what she was actually going to say.
Time was running out, and finally she blurted, “Hey, Vince, it’s Ariana. Give me a call when you can. It’s been a long day. Later.” She winced as she hung up, wishing she could have been a little less awkward and a little more creative. Vince would hear that and roll his eyes, wondering how someone so stupid could have made it so far in life. But the damage was done now, so she laid back to watch TV and wait to hear back from him.