Rock Bottom

by Emily Goodwin

  If he’s not ready to move on. Fine. If he never wants to date someone ever again. Fine. But don’t fucking tell me to give you a chance to prove yourself and then nothing happens.

  Though maybe it did? Ugh. I’m running on too little sleep to think about this right now.

  “And educational,” I add. “There have been a lot of advancements in surgery just over the last year.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. How were the beaches?”

  I tell Jane everything I can without giving away any details about Dean, and it helps the first slow part of the night shift go by just a hair faster than a crawl. There are no scheduled surgeries overnight, and when we get a lull like this, it means one of two things: we’re going to have a relatively easy shift or shit is going to hit the fan at any second.

  Of course tonight, the latter happens and we have two emergency surgeries come in at the same time. Dr. Weiss is already here, and the on-call surgeon is paged to come in ASAP.

  I start prepping one of the patients for surgery, doing my best to smile and be calm, helping to ease the sixteen-year-old girl’s nerves. Her appendix needs to be taken out now. She’d been feeling stomach pain for over a day and ignored it, not wanting to miss a party one of the popular kids invited her to.

  “Being popular in high school is overrated,” I tell her, wiping her skin with an alcohol swab. “I know it doesn’t seem like good advice coming from an old lady like me, but trust me, you’ll move on to bigger and better things.”

  “Were you popular?” the girl asks, teeth chattering.

  “Not at all. I was the epitome of nerd.”

  “You don’t look like it. You’re pretty.”

  “I was a late bloomer.” I feel for a vein to insert her IV needle into. “And I’m still just as nerdy and weird as I was then.” She looks away as I start the IV. “I always felt bad for the popular kids,” I say, only telling half the truth. I was in her shoes once and would have done anything to go to a party and be accepted by the it-crowd. “It would be exhausting being that fake.”

  “I never thought about it like that.” She closes her eyes, wincing when the needle pops through her skin. “But it would.”

  The girl’s mom comes back into the room and bombards me with questions. We move in a whirlwind from there to get the girl into the OR. The surgery takes longer than average, but it’s successful in the end, and I’m by her side when she wakes up in the PACU. I do my assessment, talk to the mother again, and then go out to let Dr. Weiss know his patient is awake.

  “Hey, Rory,” Dr. Jones says when I go back to the nurses’ station. He’s sitting at the desk looking over files. “How was Miami?”

  I open my mouth only to snap it shut and consider my words. “Do you want me to answer as the nurse who works with you, or the chick who spent the last few days with your friend?”

  Dr. Jones looks up from the chart, smiling. “Both,” he admits. “While we’re here, be the nurse,” he adds quickly as Jane comes back to the desk, setting a notebook down.

  “Here are her vitals,” she tells Dr. Jones, who looks them over and then writes out a few orders.

  “Oh, Rory,” Jane starts, grabbing a red piece of paper from the desk. “Did you see this? It’s a fundraiser we do every year. You can buy roses and send them to people. It’s fun, and today is the last day to put in an order!”

  “Ugh, I hate those,” I say without thinking.

  “You do?” Jane almost looks offended.

  “I guess I don’t anymore, but I used to. I never got any roses when our school did those.”

  “Aww, that’s so sad. I’m sending you a rose for sure.” She gives me a wink. “You’re not supposed to know who it’s from, though.”

  “Thank you. I’ll send you one too.” I take the red paper and write down the names of everyone I usually work with. It’s for charity, and I don’t want anyone to feel left out.

  Putting the paper back, I go around the desk and sit at the computer next to Dr. Jones to get ahead on my charting.

  “How’s Quinn feeling?” I ask once Jane has gone back to the PACU to do rounds. “Dean told me she’s having a rough time.”

  “The nausea is worse this time around than any of her other pregnancies.”

  “Poor Quinn. Oh, and congrats.”

  “Thank you,” Dr. Jones says with a smile. “Two babies instead of one was a shock, but we’re really excited. This was going to be our last, so we’re going out with a bang.”

  It’s weird sitting here talking to Dr. Jones like this. I feel like I have inside information on his family and I shouldn’t be privy to it. I wonder what Dean has told him about me, if he’s even said anything at all.

  “I’m going home. Hopefully I won’t see you until the next shift.”

  “Yeah,” I laugh. “Tell Quinn I said hi.”

  “Will do.”

  I finish my charting, check on my patient, and sit back down, resting my head in my hands.

  “Want to take your lunch now?” Jane asks, startling me.

  “Yeah.” I rub my eyes, thankful I didn’t put mascara on before I came in. “Please tell me there’s coffee in the break room.”

  “There always is at night.”

  “Good. Want to start an IV for me?” I hold out my arm.

  “Ohhh, you have nice veins.” Jane grabs my arm and runs her finger over my arm. We joke about the weird things we notice as nurses, and then I go in and heat up my Ramen noodles, downing a cup of coffee in the process.

  I’m dead on my feet by the time I leave the hospital, so exhausted I’m a little worried about driving home. I make it unscathed and move in a fog, feeding Figaro, stripping out of my clothes, and then collapsing in bed.

  I sleep soundly until 1 PM and wake up groggy. I roll back over and stay in bed for another half an hour. Then I get up, shower, and do a speed clean of my apartment, including changing my sheets.

  Taking a break, I scroll through Pinterest, looking for something to make for dinner. I go back and forth between doing something easy or pulling out all the stops. I don’t mind cooking, I mostly hate cleaning up after I cook.

  I almost settle for tacos, but then change my mind. Picking my phone back up, I call Dad.

  “Hey, sweetheart!” he answers.

  “Hey, Dad. What’s the recipe for that chicken you made the night Mom was going to break up with you but then decided not to because the food was so good?”

  Dad laughs. “That’s the story your mother told you?”

  “Many times.”

  “I’ll text it to you.”

  “Thank you,” I say, letting out a breath of relief. “What do I make with it?”

  “Pasta is always good. And it pairs well with red and white wines.”

  “I have soybean spaghetti. Will that work?”

  “Soybean spaghetti?” Dad echoes. “Why in the world do you have soybean spaghetti?”

  “I’m trying to be healthy. It has more protein than regular noodles.”

  “You kids and your health trends. Are you making this for a man?”

  “Dad? Can’t I make good food for myself to enjoy. I’m going to share with Figaro.”

  “Sharing with the cat, I’ll believe. But making Don’t Leave Me chicken makes me wonder.”

  “Hah. So it was the chicken that made Mom stay with you!”

  “Yes,” Dad says dryly. “That’s the only reason your mother married me, had four children with me, and is still married to me forty-five years later.”

  “Well, you never know.” I look at my tiny kitchen and bite the inside of my cheek. I am cooking for a man, and but I don’t know if this chicken is going to be enough to keep him from leaving in the morning. “It’s pretty easy to make, right?”

  “If you can follow a basic recipe, yes.”

  “That’s debatable.”

  “You assist with surgery. That’s a scary thought.”

  “Helping cut people open is way more fun.”

  “You cut th
em open, Sam puts them to sleep, Mason hunts criminals, and today Jacob told me he had his arm elbow-deep in a horse’s ass.”

  “When you say it like that, we sound really cool.”

  Dad laughs. “You know how proud your mother and I are of you.”

  “You did a pretty good job raising me.”

  “It was mostly your mother,” he laughs. “Enjoy the chicken tonight.”

  “I will. Thanks Dad. Love you.”

  “Love you too, honey.”

  I end the call and wait a few minutes for Dad to send me the recipe. I make a grocery list, twist my damp hair into a bun, and pull on a hat. Eastwood didn’t get the snow that was predicted, but after spending my days in eighty-degree weather and full sun, I’m freezing. I speed through grocery shopping, wanting to get back home with plenty of time to do my hair and makeup before needing to start dinner.

  Sticking the two bottles of red Moscato that I grabbed at the store in the fridge, I go into the bathroom and spend way too much time doing my hair and makeup. But I look good at least.

  I left my phone on the kitchen counter and missed a text from Dean.

  Dean: My last clients had to reschedule their meeting. I’ll be wrapping things up at the office soon. Are you up? I can bring you coffee.

  Me: I’m up and I’ve had enough coffee to kill a whale already. Be here in forty-five minutes? I’ll have dinner ready :-)

  Dean: Half an hour? I miss you.

  I can’t help the stupid smile that comes over my face.

  Me: I suppose I can let it slide. I’ll start cooking now.

  I set the phone back down and run around like crazy, vacuuming and hiding my pile of dirty laundry in the closet. I light my favorite peony-scented candle and put lemongrass oil in the diffuser in my bedroom.

  “I am not trying too hard,” I tell Figaro. He’s sitting on the table, tail swishing back and forth. “Keep up that sass and you are not getting the fat trimmings from the chicken.” I pull out all the ingredients I need and read over Dad’s text with the recipe. “Besides, I’m still not sure where things are headed,” I go on. “I like him, and I’m really hoping he spends the night, but…” I let out a sigh. “I just don’t know.”

  Figaro jumps up on the counter when I start trimming the chicken. I push him off with my elbow and he comes right back. I give up, quickly wash the raw chicken germs off my hands, and lock him in the bathroom until I’m done. He comes running, leaping onto the counter as soon as I let him out.

  “If Dean sees you all over the counter, he’s not going to want to eat anything I make him, you know.” I pick up the black-and-white cat and set him down by his food bowl, showing him the little pieces of chicken I saved.

  I turn on music and pour myself a small glass of Moscato as I cook. The chicken is almost done when Dean knocks on the door.

  “He’s here!” I whisper to Figaro, who’s sleeping on the couch and doesn’t so much as bat an eye. I give the counter a frantic wipe down, smooth out my hair, and take a deep breath.

  Then I open the door, smiling as soon as I see Dean.

  “Hello, good sir,” I say, suddenly donning a British accent.

  “Good morrow, my lady.” He dramatically bows and I laugh. “Dinner smells good.”

  “Thanks.” I take his coat from him and hang it up in the little closet at the front of the apartment. Figaro will lie on it if I put it over the back of the chair in my living room. “It’s one of my favorites, but I haven’t made it myself in, well, ever.”

  “Should we order a pizza as backup?” he teases.

  “Way to have faith,” I shoot back. Dean follows me to the kitchen, and I go right to the fridge to get out the wine. “How was work?” I ask as I get out two glasses. “Do you want some? I didn’t think about getting anything else. I don’t really know what else to get.”

  “Sure, and work was fine. I had a lot of office work to do today, catching up on what I missed. It was nice to have my last meeting moved today. I meant it when I said I miss you.” I hand him a glass of wine and he takes a drink, making a face. “This is really sweet.”

  “It’s how I like my wine. I don’t like the taste of alcohol, like at all,” I tell him. “Which might have to do with my excessive partying I did in college.”

  “You were a party-girl?”

  “Hardly. I don’t hold my liquor well, and I still can’t stomach even the smell of tequila after one fateful night that involved jello shots, Taco Bell, and an hour hanging over the toilet there, crying and swearing I’m never drinking again.”

  Dean laughs. “I’ve had a few of those experiences too.”

  “I’m way too old to wake up hungover now.” I take a small sip of the sweet wine and check on the chicken. The cheese is nice and bubbly and needs just another minute to brown up a bit.

  “I remember being able to stay up all night, have beer with breakfast, and hit the gym at noon and feel fantastic,” Dean laughs.

  “I never did that, but I used to pull a lot of late nights staying up reading until three or four AM. Now I need a full eight hours of sleep or I’m in a fog all day.”

  “There’s nothing like getting old. Once you cross thirty, it’s all downhill.”

  “I’m only twenty-eight,” I say, batting my lashes. “A spring chicken compared to you, old man.”

  He laughs. “I’m only thirty-four.”

  “Yep. Basically dead. Have you checked out nursing homes yet?”

  “My grandma is at East Meadows and she says the nurses there are very gentle when they wipe her butt. And I mean she actually said those exact words. She has no filter at all anymore.”

  “She sounds fun.”

  “That’s one way to put it. She’s gotten mean in her old age too, but now her memory isn’t what it used to be.” He frowns. “Though she always hits on Archer at family gatherings. It’s disturbing but hilarious at the same time.”

  “That would be awkward, but I’d be laughing in the background for sure. I only have one grandparent left, and mine has become quite unfiltered too. I hope I have her spunk when I’m in my eighties.”

  The oven timer goes off, and I take the chicken out. It’s done now, and I let it cool in the pan for a few minutes before cutting into it and dishing it up. Dad always insisted that’s one of the most important things to keep the flavoring at its best.

  I dish up the food and we sit at the table. My heart lurches in my chest when I look at Dean. He’s so handsome, and it’s so easy to sit here and talk to him. We talk and laugh throughout dinner, and we take dessert into the living room, along with the bottle of wine.

  Sitting close together on the couch, we search through Netflix, finding something to watch, though I don’t think either of us are too interested in anything on TV.

  “Can I find a live cam of a beach somewhere?”

  “And pretend we’re back in Miami?”

  “Yes. I miss the sun.”

  “Me too.” Dean puts his arm around me, pulling me to him. I lie back, stretching my legs out. “Though I did see the high on Monday is fifty-three. Followed by snow on Tuesday.”

  “Winter lasts a year in the Midwest.”

  “It feels like it.” I rest my head back against his chest. “What about this? Have you seen it?” I ask, highlighting a popular scary show.

  “I haven’t, but Quinn and Scarlet are obsessed with it.”

  “I’ve only made it through one episode.”

  “Too scared?” Dean teases.

  “Hah. No, I had a list of other shows to watch, and I’m weird and rewatch the same things over and over.”

  “You know what you like. There’s nothing weird about that.” He slips his arm under mine, fingers resting right at the hem of my shirt. I dressed up without being obvious, wearing my favorite jeans and tight black top.

  We watch a few minutes of the show, snuggled up together. Then Dean sits up a bit and pulls me to him. I move onto his lap, arms locking around his neck. His eyes meet mine, and my
emotions burn inside my chest.

  It hits me that this is my last chance to pull away, to break his gaze and move out of his arms…which feel so fucking good around me. Dean gathers my hair in his hand, moving it over my shoulder.

  If he kisses me, I’m done for. There’s no way I can resist what’s to come—which will be me, multiple times. But more importantly, I don’t want to resist him.

  And tonight…tonight I’m not going to.

  Chapter 30

  Rory

  “Morning,” Dean mumbles, voice thick with sleep. Weak sunlight comes in through the window, illuminating the room in a muted gray glow. He’s had his arm around me all night, and waking up in his embrace is everything. He moves closer, spooning his body against mine. “I’m liking the heated blanket more than I thought I would.”

  “Told you it’s nice,” I say, eyes still shut. We’re both naked and my bed has never felt more comfortable than it does with Dean next to me. He has to get up and go to work, but right now I’m not ready to let him go.

  “It is.” His lips brush against the back of my neck as he talks. “And so is this.” He gives me a squeeze. “I want to wake up next to you tomorrow. And the morning after that…and every next morning in the foreseeable future.”

  My eyes fly open and I spin in Dean’s arms. I put my leg over his and he plants his lips to my forehead. “Dean Dawson, are you implying what I think you’re implying?”

  “That we should have sex every single night and wake up naked next to each other? Then yes, yes I am.”

  I laugh. “I do like the sound of that. But waking up…with me…”

  “Yes,” he says, answering the question that I haven’t yet asked. “I don’t want anyone else.” He puts his lips to mine, kissing me gently, and then lifts his head back enough to look in my eyes. “I think I’m falling for you, Rory. And it scares the shit out of me, but I want you and only you.”

  My heart flutters in my chest and my lips part, but words fail me. I lift my head off the pillow and kiss him. “I want you too,” I whisper.

  “Good. Because it would be really fucking awkward if you didn’t.”