Friends Without Benefits

I was unnerved.

Regardless, Angelica’s morning treatment was seamless until she motioned for me to come closer with her little index finger. I bent so that she could whisper something to me.

She said, “Are you my best friend?”

I leaned back, looked into her twinkling green eyes, and I choked on my feelings. First Nico, now Angelica. It’s like they’d planned it, this emotional attack on the fortress around my heart. Even though I couldn’t answer Nico, not yet, I instantly knew how to respond to Angelica.

“Yes. I’m your best friend. We’re best friends.” I smiled at her, and my chin wobbled.

This family was going to be the death of me. I decided I needed to knit her more sweaters, maybe some matching hats, as well as some dolls. I also resolved to buy her a doll house . . . and a real pony. Basically, all my future plans included spoiling her rotten.

Her smile was brilliant, and it wrinkled her nose. The fortress was officially leveled, burned to the ground, incinerated by a four year old.

She was also holding up like a champ. A sudden sadness seized my heart. Angelica’s fearlessness and lack of concern about needles and infusions and poking and prodding was unacceptable. No four-year-old should be comfortable in an infusion chair.

After the treatment was over Rose offered me coffee and apple fritters. I declined. My shift officially started at eight, but I wanted to get to the hospital early to finish up charting and have some time with my thoughts, seriously consider the possibility of Nico’s pseudo marriage proposal.

I hadn’t dismissed it. I found myself earnestly thinking about it, and I was coming up short on reasons to say no.

I found Nico reading the paper in the dining room and wordlessly kissed him goodbye. He smiled at me when I left. His eyes were cloudy, but warm with unassuming affection. For a fleeting moment I almost said: Yes, you sweet, sexy man. Yes, I will marry you.

But then nay-saying sense and fear gripped my throat. I couldn’t speak. So, instead, I tried to return his smile with a bright one of my own.

My drive to work was unremarkable. I fretted in the backseat. Dan, my guard, didn’t have any problem finding a door free of paparazzi. It appeared that the attention was finally starting to wane. We made a plan to meet outside the doctors’ lounge in the ER. He dropped me off and left to find parking. I walked to my locker, encumbered by only my thoughts.

Marry Nico.

Elizabeth Finney and Nico Manganiello, married.

The entire concept felt surreal. In fact, everything that had occurred over the last half-day felt impossible. I still couldn’t even pronounce his last name correctly.

We’d just found each other, and I felt like he was slipping away. I wondered if this was the thing that would take him away from me. Like the thing that took him away from girl B. He said he had always loved me, but he loved her too.

I knew I was being melodramatic and self-defeating, irritating myself with doomish, obsessive thoughts, but I couldn’t help it. I had an ingrained bitterness, a defense against happiness and the eventual hurt that followed.

Maybe my hesitation would cause him to realize that my earlier protestations had been correct, that he’d been in love with an idea of me and not the current, broken, pathetic version—the real me.

I avoided this vein of thought—again avoiding—and cursed at myself for being a feckless, thankless, hopeless, exasperating twit. Mid-curse I opened my locker to grab my lab coat, but then I stopped, gasped, and backed up into the bench running the length of the room. I nearly fell over it in my attempt to escape the contents of my locker.

My lab coat hung from its hanger, as I left it, except someone had taken a knife and sliced it until it shredded. Additionally, my knitting project bag—where I stored the baby hat that was in progress—had also been destroyed. I averted my eyes from the tattered white coat and yarn and glanced around the room.

I wasn’t alone. I didn’t immediately see anyone else, but I knew I wasn’t alone.

A chill raced up my spine, and I bolted from the locker room and ran for the ER doctors’ lounge. I didn’t pause to see if anyone followed or look over my shoulder. My only thoughts were of escape.

Dan was already there, waiting for me. His face creased into a stiff frown of concern when he met my gaze and he sprinted, intercepted me and grabbed my arms.

“What happened? What’s wrong?” He wasn’t looking at me, but instead up and down the length of the hallway.

“My coat. My lab coat. Someone . . .” I pressed my back against the wall and struggled for breath.

“Dr. Finney? Are you okay?”

I nodded. I glanced at Dan’s brown eyes then hovered on the swirling tattoos that peaked out from under the neck of his business shirt. He had a scar running from his jaw to the center of his cheek. He wasn’t terribly tall, but he was thick, muscular, imposing in that I can and will kick your ass kind of way. He was a scary looking guy. His presence and scariness made me feel better.

“I’m okay.” I finally ceased gulping air and took a long steadying breath. “My lab coat. Someone cut up my lab coat. I was in the locker room and opened my locker. It’s hanging up, completely shredded.”

Dan absorbed this information then ushered me into the doctors’ longue. “Stay here. Call the police. I’ll go check it out.”

I nodded, happy to find the lounge busy and occupied. I grabbed a cup of coffee with shaking hands, sat in a couch at the far end of the room and dialed the number for Detective Long. I kept my voice low as I left her a voicemail to tell her about the coat.

As I was finishing my coffee Dan peaked into the room and motioned for me to come into the hall. He was holding a lab coat, my name embroidered on the pocket. It was completely fine, untouched, normal.

I blinked at it, stared, incredulous. “But . . . but I—but it was cut up.” I gazed at Dan imploringly. “I swear. I was just there and it was in tatters, like someone had taken a knife and—”

“Shh, I believe you. Your craft bag, the knitting stuff and yarn, was still there, all torn up.” He pulled me a little ways down the hall, but withheld the coat. “Did you call the police? Detective Long?”

“Yes. I left a message.”

“Good. I think whoever did it must have been in the locker room with you. They waited until you saw the shredded coat then replaced it with this one. They were long gone when I arrived.”

I chewed on the inside of me cheek, studied my big guard. Abruptly I blurted, “Nico wants me to get a restraining order.”

Dan nodded. “I agree. In fact, I’ll let our legal department know and they’ll start working on it. Maybe we can get it pushed through today.”

“Quinn has a legal department?”

Dan eyed me warily. “Yeah.”

“What for?”

“Legal stuff.”

I frowned at him, confused by his vague response. My hands were shaking so I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Hey . . . maybe you should go home?” He placed a hesitant hand on my back.

“No. I’m fine, really. Just a little on edge.”

His concerned brown eyes moved over me in plain surveillance, and I tried to give him my best impression of a brave face.

“Okay. Fine. I’ll be here the whole time. Hell, I’ll even follow you into the bathroom.” His words were tinged with a faint Bostonian accent. “But if you need to go home—”

“No. It’s okay.” I balled my still-shaking hands into fists. “I’ll be okay.”

Dan grimaced, cursed under his breath. “I’m just glad we re-briefed the hospital security team earlier this week. They’ve decided to resend the email out to all staff with her picture, so hopefully someone will see her and call it in.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Hopefully.”

~*~

I was okay. Well, I was mostly okay.

Admittedly, I was jumpy at first. But as patient after patient filtered through the ER and my attention was yanked from my own concerns to those of helping families deal with sick children or spouses work through a difficult diagnosis, my nerves evened out. Mostly, I felt exhausted.

Detective Long arrived just after noon. I felt foolish, telling the story a second time. She brushed for prints around my locker, questioned me, collected my statement for the restraining order, and took the eerily perfect lab coat and disturbingly shredded knitting bag with her when she left.

By the time both Nico and Rose brought Angelica to her afternoon appointment, I did my best to suppress the up-down of my emotions. I didn’t hug Nico, but I did hold his hand a bit too tight when he extended it to shake mine; I did stare into his eyes a bit too long.

He frowned, his brow creased with concern, I could read worry in his eyes. We weren’t alone, surrounded as we were by our security guards, the clinical research unit staff, and his family. I tried to give him a heartening smile. This only served to increase the hardness of his features.

After I hooked Angelica up to the infusion line and stepped back to find her a blanket he caught me, pulled me slightly to the side in the small space. “Hey. What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

I nodded, swallowed, fiddled with the stethoscope around my neck. “Yes. I’m fine.” Except my voice was shrill, strained even to my own ears. I winced then tried again. “Really.”