Chapter Thirty
Summer was just getting started and Boyd was back in the emergency room. This time he was sitting across from his son. Arms resting on his knees and hands to his temples, Boyd took a deep breath. He had to have known the teenage years were going to be more challenging than playing with Legos, hadn’t he? Looking up at Mason’s bloody nose, he tried to remember what it was like to be thirteen. Lately it seemed so long ago. When had he become the frustrated dad on the other end of the aisle? Boyd scrambled for something to say. Mason hung his head, ice pack on the top of his nose.
“I think you’re supposed to hold your head back,” Boyd said.
Mason grunted. “Google said forward. Keeps me from choking on the blood,” he mumbled through the muffle of cloth and what Boyd knew had turned into nasty swelling.
“When did you have time to Google this?”
“While I was sitting outside the coach’s truck.”
“Oh.” Boyd sat up. “Well, I guess that was a good use of your time. Damage assessment.”
“Huh?” Mason peeked around the ice pack.
“Nothing. You gonna tell me what happened?”
“Coach said it all.”
“You jumped some kid on the second day of summer league, pulled him off the field, and dragged him into the grass. You yelled something about an apology and then you punched him. While the coaches broke you apart, the kid, Jeff, Jake?”
“Joel, Joel Mitchell.”
“Right, Joel got in one last shot and busted your nose.”
Mason’s nod was barely noticeable and he said nothing.
“That’s it?”
“Yup.”
“Help me out here, Mase.”
As his son lowered the ice pack and Boyd got a clear view of the damage, a baby squirming in his mother’s arms began to wail. The mom stood and attempted the “shh, shh” dancing bounce Boyd vaguely remembered. He longed for that simplicity now.
Christ, were they ever going to see a doctor? This place was never busy. Figured today there’d be a wait.
“Why’d you tackle him?”
Mason shrugged.
“Cut it out. Why did you want him to apologize?” As soon as the question came out of his mouth, Boyd figured it out. She, all of this had to do with Chloe Stropp—Mason’s crush supreme and only daughter of his baseball coach.
“What did he say about Chloe?”
“Dad!” Mason pulled the ice off and checked the waiting room.
“She’s not here. What’d the idiot say?”
Silence. Boyd huffed and stood to walk around. He was getting nowhere.
“I was catcher and he pitched. He always pitches.” The ice came back down and Boyd sat. “He’s good. I mean good good.”
“Okay.”
“She sometimes comes to practice with her dad, more now that it’s summer.”
Yeah, that explained the growing disinterest with baseball. Mason had used every excuse—his height, his lack of playtime. None of that mattered as much as not being a star player in front of the coach’s daughter.
“I dropped the ball and he said she, well he used her name and said she was never going to give me—” Mason gestured for Boyd to sit next to him.
He did and leaned in so his son could whisper what Jake or Jacob had said. When he was finished, Boyd sat back. “This kid is your age?”
Mason nodded.
“I guess I need to catch up more than I thought. I had no idea kids in your grade even knew those words.”
Mason scoffed and Boyd put his arm around his son.
“I would have kicked the crap out of him too.”
“Not exactly what I did.”
“He was in worse shape. Did he apologize to… she?”
Mason pulled the ice off again, his eyes watered, and Boyd’s heart broke. It never occurred to him when he was researching the best baby food and struggling to get his toddler to go in the potty that one day he’d have to watch his son go through all the crap he’d barely escaped. It was hard to watch such a large piece of his heart trying to navigate the world.
“I’m sorry. I’m not even in love with her anymore. We’re friends, but still,” Mason said.
Boyd shook his head. “Don’t be sorry. You don’t need to apologize for being decent, Mase.”
“But I broke the rule.”
Boyd tilted his head in confusion.
“Be kind.” A tear slipped down his son’s bruising cheek, and Boyd gently wiped it away.
“Listen to me, Mase. You are kind. Sometimes we need to back up our kindness, enforce it a little.” He gestured for Mason to put the ice back on his nose.
“Is that a new rule?”
“No, old rule. It’s in Man Book Two.”
“Oh, hell, there’s more?” Fun returned to Mason’s voice.
“Yes, sir. I’ve got volumes of man advice.”
“Great.”
Boyd squeezed his son’s shoulder as the nurse called them back.
Ella was in the break room when Boyd and Mason arrived. Trudy gave her the chart and when she saw Mason’s name, her heart jumped. She scanned the triage sheet. Possible broken nose. Without even thinking, as she often did with these two guys, she pushed through to Exam 1. She came up short when she saw Mason sitting on the bed, blood on the compress he was holding, and what tears remained still rimming his eyes. Dear God, when had she started loving him too? Something inside her nearly broke open. This connecting business was going to kill her one of these days. Ella quickly glanced at Boyd and decided she only had room in her head for one McNaughton right now.
She moved closer and gently pulled back his dirty hand and the compress. She didn’t touch, only checked to see if she could make out anything through the already aggressive swelling. It was likely a hairline, but his nose wasn’t displaced and she let out what felt like her first breath since seeing his name on the paperwork.
“What happened?” she asked, setting the chart down and washing her hands. She’d asked that question thousands of times in her career, and somehow those two words only brought back the moment she’d met his father. How was that possible with all her patients?
“Joel punched me in the nose.”
Ella whipped around, again not thinking. “The kid from baseball? The pitcher?”
Mason nodded.
Ella tried to order her brain. She was a doctor, here to assess a patient. Mason already had a mother and a father. It had been made crystal clear that there was no room for her in their lives.
“Okay, well I bet there’s a story in there for your parents.”
“What does that mean? You don’t want to hear my stories anymore?”
“I didn’t say that. I meant that times like this call for family.”
“Family is what you make it. Right, Dad?”
Boyd nodded, and Ella assumed this topic had come up before. Not where she was concerned, of course, but it seemed like Boyd and Mason had dealt with the exceptional circumstances of their family before. Ella saw Boyd out of the corner of her eye. He flinched a bit in the awkward silence.
“How long ago did this happen?”
“About two hours ago,” Boyd said.
Ella turned to her computer.
“Is Joel taller than you or shorter?”
“Why does that matter?” Mason asked.
Ella fought a smile. “Did he punch up, bending your nose, or down and kind of clumsy.”
“Down, he’s taller,” he said.
“Good. Down is better. Less impact. I’m going to need to look at your nose now, Mase… Mason.”
“Don’t call me that. You already called me Mase. You can’t go back. What the hell is going on, Dad?”
“Language,” Boyd said.
“Heck, why the heck does everything feel backward? Did you mess this up?” Mason asked and then hissed as Ella carefully took the pack off his nose and noticed his eye was already turning black and blue.
“Did he hit you across your cheek, or straight at your nose?”
“I don’t remember. I was on him and then Coach pulled me off and he got in a last shot. I think he was in front of me. I don’t know. Is it broken? Are you and Dad fighting?”
“Well, it’s not dislocated. It’s still in line, which is good news for you because putting things back in place is usually the most painful part.”
Ella saw a tear escape his eye and her heart squeezed. She couldn’t answer his questions about Boyd and wondered which frustration was making him cry. Being a teenager was difficult on all fronts, Ella thought. She set down her instruments and carefully wrapped her arms around him. She didn’t think about it; it felt like the only thing she wanted to do. His chest pulsed and she rubbed his back.
“You’re going to be fine. We all are, Mase. Please don’t worry about anything right now. I’m going to get you some ibuprofen now and then you’ll go home with your dad, elevate your head on the couch, watch movies, and eat ice cream.”
His tears slowly morphed into a laugh as he sat back and she let him go.
“Ice cream? Are you allowed to give that to patients?”
“Absolutely.” Ella turned back to her computer and quickly wiped her own eyes. “Ice cream is definitely in order, and I’m thinking I need to prescribe a Netflix marathon or since this particular case involves an obnoxious kid who has a fake tattoo, Harry Potter. All of them.”
Her eyes met Boyd’s and held. She wanted to tell him too that everything was going to be all right. That even though his son was growing up, she would be there to help him move forward. That they had both changed her life and she hoped she’d changed theirs. That she loved them both more than she ever thought possible. She wanted to say all of that and so much more, but she typed a few more notes into the computer and sent in Bri to finish up. She wasn’t the right woman for them, no matter how right it felt, no matter how much she wanted it. If Boyd couldn’t let her in, she wasn’t going to beg. After handing everything over, Ella went to the on-call room, dropped to the chair, and cried.
Ella was already dreading the weekend and it was only Wednesday. She had Saturday and Sunday off and nothing on her agenda save rewashing her bedspread and going to the grocery store for food she didn’t want. She couldn’t shake the sadness, but there was no way she was getting out of dinner with the girls, so she didn’t bother trying. Besides, Vienna and Thad were moving in together and she had orders for three wedding cakes in four weeks. Her friend was over the moon personally and professionally. The least Ella could do was put her weeping heart away for one night.
By the time the second or third round of laughter filled her living room, she was better. She meant what she’d said to Mason. They would all be fine. She didn’t know how long that would take, but spending time with friends was a start.
“Do you think you could make Twinkies?” Aspen asked as Ella came back from the kitchen with a bottle of champagne. What started as dinner had turned into a celebration for Vienna and Thad. Ella filled the crystal flutes her aunt on her mother’s side gave her years ago. It was nice to use things that had been tucked away in a cabinet for most of her life. Ella allowed herself a half glass even though she worked the next day. Living on the wild side, as Bri’s expression said across the room.
“Can I make Twinkies,” Vienna scoffed. “I make yellow sponge cake and cream filling. You’ll forget you’ve ever tasted a Twinkie. Twinkie, what? That’ll be you.”
They all laughed and clinked glasses. Ella had not had champagne since her parents’ anniversary party. This was joy, she thought as she set the bottle on her coffee table.
“I would like to make a toast.” Vienna unfolded herself from the couch and her eyes took in the space. “To my friends. My sisters in crime.”
“And yoga,” Ella said.
Vienna nodded. “And bendy time. Thank you for having my back and eating your weight in sugar and flour to keep me from eating cat food. I love you.” She raised her glass and they all joined her.
“When do you move in?” Sistine asked, grabbing a chocolate chip cookie off the tray on the coffee table.
“I don’t, he does. I have the better house, so he gave notice and we’ll be living together next month.”
“All in,” Ella said without even realizing it.
Vienna nodded. “Well, he can still move out. I can still throw him out, not that I’m thinking about it.”
“You won’t,” Ella said.
“Personal experience, ladies. Even after the ring and the fancy dress, it’s never all in, not all the time,” Bri said.
“What does that mean?” Aspen asked, pouring more champagne.
“Sometimes it’s seventy-thirty, other times it’s fifty-fifty, but life isn’t one hundred percent of anything all the time. No one is perfect. Now my marriage got to be like ninety me and ten him for about a year. That’s when things start to crumble. But neither of you are in that situation.”
They all sat staring at Bri, silent.
“You mean I’m not in that situation. Wait, are we talking about me still?” Vienna asked.
Bri looked at Ella.
“Don’t start,” Ella began to raise her hand in a gesture her friends rarely tolerated these days.
“Oh, put that thing down. Bri has something to say. The bubbles are flowing, sister, let it out,” Vienna said.
Bri shrugged. “Boyd is a great guy. His life is complicated, but he loves you, and so what if things are a little lopsided right now? They’ll ebb and flow. That’s real life, Ella.”
They were all still quiet. Ella couldn’t recall a better woman-the-hell-up speech. Bri was right, probably because she’d been through a lot. Ella, on the other hand, was only recently dealing in real life.
She stood up and brushed the cookie crumbs off the front of her sweatpants.
“Oh no, let’s not let this ruin the night. Bri, back out of Ella’s ice den, will ya?” Sistine said.
Ella’s eyes met Bri’s, and for not the first time, she saw the pain of loss, the disappointment of a failed fairy tale. She leaned forward and kissed her friend on the cheek.
“You better be right.”
Bri’s teary eyes turned to sarcasm. “I keep trying to tell you, I’m always right.”
Ella nodded. “Probably true.” She took in her cluttered living room. She was so glad she had her friends over, but in that moment, she needed to be somewhere. “I need an Uber.”
“Yeah, you do,” Aspen said, high-fiving Vienna.
“I think we have better Lyft coverage this time of night, but I’ll try both.” Sistine was already typing on her phone.
They all laughed, and Ella was filled with an urgency to fix things that had nothing to do with the physical body for the first time in her life. Her heart leaped in her chest and she liked the way that felt.