Chapter Fourteen
Boyd thought about calling her, even entertained the idea of texting or using his own flesh and blood to casually bump into her again. It had been four days since he kissed her, almost five maybe. Every next move he came up with sounded stupid, so he did nothing. He’d kissed her and then they’d shared a little harmless eye contact for the rest of the night. That was it. Maybe she wasn’t even expecting a call. She could be busy. It’s not like they’d had some long discussion or slept together. Hell, that’d probably kill him.
He hadn’t led her on. It was a moment of weakness and now things were back on track. Weren’t they? He had a science fair to go to and she had… lives to save or books to read with his mother. He had no idea what she did in her free time. See, they barely knew each other. Everything is fine, that was his motto according to Patrick. Because of said motto, Boyd hadn’t called. Which might or might not make him a jerk who kissed the hell out of a woman on the side of a building and then because he didn’t know what to do with all the want, ignored her instead.
Shit!
He somehow found Mason among the maze of propped-up foam boards and lunch tables in the cafeteria of Petaluma Junior High School. His project was number forty-three, Boyd remembered because he wrote it on the back in Sharpie at the stoplight before the school entrance less than ten hours ago. They’d fitted a wooden car with a solar battery and measured how much energy and the charge time it took for three different obstacles. Mason had wanted to do the beer-making process, but his science teacher said that was inappropriate.
Boyd learned after years of dealing with educators not to argue, but as the chill of the cafeteria air conditioning hit him, he noticed the kid two tables down from Mason did his science fair project on how to butcher a lamb. Boyd shook his head and questioned not for the first time about the general perception of appropriate.
“How’s it going?” he asked, approaching Mason’s table.
“Good. One of the wheels broke off when we were moving them around this afternoon, but I fixed it.”
“How?” Boyd glanced at his model.
“Big Red.” Mason patted his pocket.
He grinned. “Good thinking. Resourceful. I like it.”
“Have you walked around yet?”
“I saw the lamb on my way over,” he said quietly.
“Right? What the hell? I mean what the heck, and I can’t do barley and water?”
Boyd shrugged. “Maybe once you get to high school.”
“We have to do this in high school too?”
Before Boyd could answer, Cameron, Mason’s second or third best friend—Boyd could never keep the order straight—joined them.
“Hey, Mr. McNaughton.”
“Cameron. How’s it going?”
“Well, my little sister ate a chunk out of my clay volcano, so there’s that.”
Mason laughed and exchanged some type of telepathic dialogue with his friend. “Dad, I’ll be right back.”
“Okay. I’ll… walk around.”
Boyd moved past brightly colored foam core and poster board, a parakeet, two lizards, and half a dozen models of the solar system. He nodded greetings to a few of the parents he recognized and when he found himself approaching the judges’ table, he froze and tried to change direction. It was too late.
“Boyd,” Angela Morse called out.
He closed his eyes for a second as if he could teleport like a Star Trek character. When that didn’t work, he faced the two women who were now famous at the brewery. After countless stories, Patrick and Cade called them the mother hens.
“Angela, Stacey. Things look terrific. Great turnout this year, eh?”
“Thank you for saying so. Come here, you.” Angela pulled him in for a tight hug complete with several pats on the back and the wafting smell of gardenias. Boyd pulled back, uncomfortable as always. “How are things with you?” she asked, and Boyd noticed she had a little bit of pink lipstick on her teeth, not that he was going to mention it.
“Oh, you know. Laundry.” Lame answer, but he was still recovering from the hug.
“So cute that you do laundry. I can’t get Steve to put his socks in the hamper let alone wash them,” Stacey said, followed by grown-up giggling.
“What kind of fabric softener do you use? Or do you use those little beads? You do smell delicious,” Angela added with a strange shrug, as if she were hugging him all over again.
Boyd could never tell if this was flirting or a weird form of nurturing. Whatever the case, it had been going on since Mason started kindergarten and got creepier from there. He didn’t answer the laundry question, simply hoped the awkwardness would vanish.
“Mason tells me you’re working yourself ragged getting the beer house—is it? Getting that up,” Stacey added.
He took a deep breath, making a mental note to have the oversharing conversation with Mason again. “Tap house, it’s a tap house and we are finally done. Thanks for asking. So, is the judging done, or do you have more work to do?”
“The judges are finishing up and then we’ll tabulate. You know, Greg has a new administrative assistant and she is darling. Recently moved here from Idaho, or Ohio. I get those two mixed up. Anyway, I’d love to have you over for dinner so you two could meet,” Angela said.
Greg was her husband and the CEO of a staffing company. This was easily his third administrative assistant in the last three years. The guy was either impossible to work for or kept hiring attractive assistants and his wife wanted them gone. Boyd was sure he had been asked to “drop by and meet” at least two others.
“We could do barbecue at my house,” Stacey added, not helping.
Boyd was used to this routine. He’d been set up, cooked for, and coddled more times than he could count over the years, and he had to admit he’d mastered the art of excuses. Technically it was lying, he’d once had to explain to Mason years ago, “but it’s either a little lie or hurt feelings. I’m going with the little lie,” Boyd had said.
“Oh, barbecue sounds great. But I can’t do anything until after graduation. Mason and I are working on a project with… Habitat for Humanity.”
“Again?”
Crap, had he used that one already? He was slipping.
“Same one, it’s a… continuation of the same project. They are an admirable organization, don’t you think?”
Both women nodded. If they were suspicious, they were not letting on. Two of the jacketed guys with JUDGE on their lapels approached, and Boyd took that as his chance at a quick getaway.
“Thank you for the invite, ladies. Please thank Greg and we’ll get together soon.”
“But, it’s only one night, don’t you think—”
Boyd blended into the sea of other parents and kept his head down. He hoped random moms were less involved in his love life once Mason went to high school.
Almost back to Mason’s table, Boyd nodded in recognition to one of the single moms, Mary or Marti, he could never remember, but he knew he liked her. Mason had gone over to her house a couple of times for her son’s birthday. Boyd wondered if the dads treated her the same way as the moms treat Boyd. Were they constantly offering to fix her sink or carry her plants in from Home Depot? Such a bizarre world they traveled in, he thought. It was like they were in a land of starfish and they, him and Mary or Marti, were missing some legs. Like they weren’t quite a full star and everyone else in the village was trying to repair them. Boyd could never tell if the gestures were out of kindness or fear that they too might someday lose one of their legs.
“You okay?” Bri asked as Ella handed the lady in Exam 2 with a broken pinkie toe off to her for discharge.
“Yeah, I’m great. I don’t think Mrs. Beetle will need more than ibuprofen, but I put a script in there for six hundred milligrams so I don’t have to worry about her taking too much over the counter. Please tape her up good and reiterate that she needs to be off her feet at least until the end of the weekend.”
“Got it.” Bri gave her that familiar look that said she recognized something was not right.
Ella gave Bri the chart and walked toward the nurses’ station. She needed to hide behind her professional routine right now. She did not need a friend, nor did she need to feel anything at that moment. Everything in her head was upside down, and personal or not, that’s what Ella loved about work. Calm in the storm, she told herself.
She sat in the break room eating a new ginger sesame chicken noodle pot she’d read about in some torture-yourself-until-you’re-perfect-like-us magazine. She’d decided last night that she’d been eating too much barbecue or monkey bread, something. She needed to recalibrate and get back to a meal plan before she saw her family or they would certainly comment on her less-than-radiant hair or softer belly. Maybe she was adopted, Ella thought, opening her Kindle to chapter seven of Needful Things by Stephen King. No one in the book club had read anything by King, although Boyd’s mom had mentioned being stunned to learn he wrote Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. That was how she hooked them to read one of his books for their club.
“It’s not just gore, I promise you,” she’d told them and then picked one of her favorites. She hoped they were going to see what she saw, but if not, she was still happy for the familiar distraction. Her phone was tucked deep into her purse and secured in her locker where it belonged. She was tired of looking at it and annoyed at herself that she cared.
It was one kiss. What grown person fawned over one kiss and sat around distracted, waiting for a call or a text? Someone who forgot she enjoyed Mondays, that’s who. She read the same paragraph three times before tossing her Kindle onto the table in a huff of frustration.
“Is it keeping track of all the characters? Is that why you’re throwing your Kindle? I know, right? Yesterday, I had to get Post-its and start writing them down. I’m already creeped out by this little store, I don’t mind telling you. If this thing gives me nightmares or cuts down on the bliss of late-night internet shopping, I’m blaming it on you,” Bri rambled as she sat and opened her store-bought sandwich.
She glanced over at Ella’s mason jar of half-eaten lunch.
“Do I even want to know what that is?”
Ella took another bite. “It’s good.”
“I highly doubt that.”
She laughed. If she were ever on a deserted island, Bri would need to be there if only for comic relief.
“So”—she bit into her sandwich—“let’s talk about another developing story.”
Don’t go there.
“When last we saw our kick-ass doctor and hot bearded guy, they were playing tonsil hockey under a romantic starry sky. I’m guessing, since I’ve heard nothing else, that the customary call, text, naughty picture exchange, has not taken place?”
“I’m not discussing this.”
“Oh no, you don’t get to go back. You told me about the kiss, which shocked the yoga pants right off me, by the way. But you did it anyway, you opened the personal door and now I’ve got my foot in.”
“So, I’m closing it now. Watch your foot. It was a moment of weakness.”
“No fair.” She tossed the crust of her sandwich in her mouth.
They sat in silence.
“It was a kiss. I’m over it. I told you before, I don’t date.”
Bri nodded and sipped her Mountain Dew.
“I’m not some wide-eyed virgin. Life is messy, oh, and The Notebook was a preposterous movie.”
Bri took another sip. “Yeah, that rain scene with the swans. Who the hell was that guy kidding? Almost as preposterous as the up-against-the-wall, hot-as-hell sex that followed. I mean, I had to shut it off after that nonsense.”
Ella shook her head. “I don’t know why we are friends.”
“Yes you do. It’s because I don’t let you crawl into your weirdo Monday-loving ridiculousness.”
“Could you stop with the Mondays. I love them. I will always love them.”
“No, you won’t. Not after a little roll around the barley with beer man you won’t.”
Ella laughed despite herself and of course, her mind filled with Boyd’s face and the memory she’d tried to delete.
“Vienna would be telling you the same thing, but she’s presently rolling around the firehouse or playing with the fire hose.” Bri cracked herself up and started on the second half of her sandwich.
It was like a lunchtime comedy show right there in their little hospital.
“So, since I’m the only one currently searching for my fire hose, it falls on me to tell you that it’s all right to be fluttery-eyed over your moonlight kiss. It’s good that you’re frustrated the stupid male hasn’t followed up.”
Ella crinkled her brow.
“Yeah, I know you’re going to put on that, ‘I’m far too educated and happy being single to care’ routine, but you do. You do care, and I think it’s great.”
“Do you?”
She finished her Mountain Dew. “Yup. It’s promising. Human.” Bri tossed her lunch garbage into the trash, stood, and wiped the crumbs off her scrubs. “Now, would you like a hug?”
“What do you think?”
She sighed and washed her hands. “Fine, ice queen. Deny all you want, but there’s a little pool of water around that heart, I can see it.”
“That is not a good diagnosis, Nurse B.”
“It absolutely is. You’re melting. Good for you.”
She blew Ella a kiss and went back to work. They wouldn’t discuss it for the rest of the day. She knew Bri had said her piece and somehow, acknowledging the “developing story” made things lighter. Ella supposed it was good to feel something, even if it was frustration or confusion. There were upsides to being human, but the timing wasn’t so great. If she was the ice queen, she was about to visit the ice castle. Her parents’ anniversary party was tomorrow, on a Saturday—take that, weekend lovers. Further proof that nothing good ever happened on a weekend. Well, there was that kiss.
Ella rinsed her jar and put it back in her lunch sack. Kiss or no kiss, Mondays stayed.