Intimate Strangers (The Lisa Millar Series Book 1)

by Lasairiona McMaster

  Take that! she thought triumphantly. Then panic struck. Girlfriend. I said girlfriend. Shit. He’s married and not supposed to have a girlfriend. Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Never mind that. You called her an insufferable mare! I mean, you’re not wrong or anything, but jeez, talk about crossing a line!

  “Is there a problem here?”

  Spinning to face the new addition to the conversation, Lisa snapped at him, too. In for a penny, in for a pound, eh?

  “Actually, yes, there is. This incredibly rude nurse won’t give me any information.”

  “Are you his immediate family?”

  “No, bu-”

  “Well then, I’m afraid we can’t give out information about a patient to a person who is not direct family.

  That did it.

  “DOES ANYBODY IN THIS DAMN HOSPITAL LET YOU FINISH YOUR SENTENCES?”

  They all watched her, mouths agape.

  “He is lying on an operating table with his skull cracked open. His parents are on their way from Canada, his sister is a crying-mess if someone hasn’t already sedated her. His team probably have to finish their game on the ice, and I’m keeping it together by a thread. One thread, which is unravelling pretty quickly due to you guys being a royal pain in my ass. And I need to keep my shit together.”

  She paused for a quick breath, but hurried ahead before anyone else cut her off. By this point, she didn’t care who knew that she was his girlfriend. She wanted answers.

  “I am not asking for missile codes to the White House, or trade secrets. I’m not asking you to describe, in painful detail the procedure they’re doing on him right now. I’m asking if his heart is still pumping blood around his body and how long it will be before the people who love him can sit next to him, hold his hand, and give him an ear-bending for scaring the crap out of us. If none of you can answer any of those questions, then please find someone who can!”

  Her face was hot and wet with tears. She didn’t remember them starting, but now they wouldn’t stop. She felt an arm around her shoulders. Jeremy was standing in front of her, still in his hockey gear – minus the skates. He wrapped his arms around her and let her cry.

  “It’s ok,” he soothed, “let it out.”

  And then it all hit her; the events of the night caught up with her and she was completely overcome with emotion.

  That didn’t take long, she thought as she let herself shed tears into Jeremy’s jersey. What the hell? Is this the same guy you were pissed at for breathing the same air as you only a couple weeks ago? She almost laughed at the thought of her and Jeremy potentially becoming friends. Who’d have thought? Wait until AJ hears this! she thought cracking a smile. She realized Jeremy was talking to the nursing staff, so she stepped back and wiped her face with her hands.

  “Can you just tell us that he’s still alive, please?” his voice was filled with emotion.

  “And you are?”

  “His best friend.”

  “We can’t give either of you any information,” the new guy to the party, who was apparently a doctor, repeated.

  “Maybe not,” a new voice entered the conversation. Ana.

  “But you can give me the information.”

  “And you are?” he repeated.

  “Ana Williams. The aforementioned sister. Is that family enough for you people? I’m also giving explicit permission for either of these two. If they have any questions needing answered, you have my family’s permission to answer them. They are also allowed to see him as though they were immediate family,” she paused, “because they are. Ok?”

  The doctor nodded.

  Lisa’s eyes welled up again. She fought back tears as Britt burst through the door. She’d been crying and was out of breath. “Where?” she began between heavy breaths, “is he?” she doubled over to catch her breath.

  “Doctor?” prodded Ana.

  “He’s still in surgery. He should be out within the next couple of hours. He’ll be in recovery for a while. You can all see him there,” he finished.

  “Thank you,” Ana snapped rudely and turned on her heel to return to the family room. She was clearly in no mood to “people”. Kinda glad I was the one who told his parents.

  Chelsea was in the family room waiting for them. “How you holding up, Irish?”

  “Not great,” Lisa replied, giving her friend a sad smile. “Just had a minor meltdown to Jeremy of all people, after a major blow-up at a doctor and a bunch of nurses. At this rate, I’ll be in psych by sunrise!”

  Chelsea walked over to her friend and hugged her. The tears came again. “I know he’ll be fine,” sobbed Lisa, “I do. I feel he’ll be fine. But, what if I’m wrong?” Chelsea’s shoulder was fast damp with Lisa’s tears. “What if he doesn’t wake up, Chels?” Her voice was filled with anguish and fear.

  Chapter 24

  Lisa and Chelsea stood hugging long after the others came in to join them in the family room. It felt like Lisa was waiting forever. Her tears had stopped. She knew AJ wouldn’t want her crying, but she also knew he’d understand it. His parents would be there soon and despite what AJ had told her the night before, she felt as though she had to be strong, positive and confident, for AJ’s sake and for his family and his friends. She couldn’t lose hope. She wouldn’t lose hope. They had been waiting for six hours. The doctor had told them it wouldn’t take more than five.

  I’d rather they do it right the first time, than mess up and need to go in again, she reassured herself for the hundred thousandth time. AJ’s parents wouldn’t be there for a few more hours, and she had resolved to take care of Ana at least until then. She was taking it pretty badly, which Lisa understood, but it also kind of confused her. This wasn’t the first time he’d succumbed to injury. Lisa always assumed that it would get easier with time, watching AJ getting hurt on the ice. If she had a dollar for every time someone had said, “It’s nothing,” or “He’ll be fine, it’s just a scratch,” she’d be rich by now, and she’d only known him seven months.

  I guess they all just assumed it would always be “nothing” or a “scratch,” but this time was a bit more than a scratch. She felt anger boiling in her stomach again – it was the one emotion she was struggling to control. It was also the strongest. She wanted to hurt the asshole who did this to the man she loved. She wanted to make him hurt like AJ was hurting. Like she was hurting. Like every other person in the room around her was hurting.

  She was grinding her teeth. She walked to the window and stood sideways, still able to keep an eye on the room, but also buying herself the option of hiding her face and crying if she needed to. She stood in silence. Ana stretched out her legs and bent towards her ankles.

  She obviously feels as stiff and tense as I do.

  “We should have asked them to fix his shoulder while they were in there,” Lisa joked.

  “No kidding,” giggled Ana. It was good to see her smile.

  The door opened. It was Jared and Lindsay, friends of AJ’s and Jeremy’s. Despite not being able to do anything but sit together, Lisa understood the draw of coming to wait in the family room of the hospital. They said hi to her and sat next to Britt, who was pale, quiet and not at all the bubbly girl she’d met previously. Lisa wasn’t quite sure how to behave. Everyone in the room knew the truth about Britt and AJ, they all knew Lisa was his girlfriend, but Britt had known him much, much longer and loved him too, in her own way. Lisa felt conflicted. Do I take a back seat and let Britt, the best friend/wife “lead”? Or do I assert myself as his girlfriend? He told me last night to assert myself, but I’m really not sure he said that with something like this in mind.

  Her instinct was to lead, but she was open to following Britt’s lead if she needed to.

  Mike and a few of the other guys from the team had trickled in over the last few hours. At, first she was a little grumpy and wanted to kick “non-essential” people out with a promise that she’d update them all when he got out of surgery, until she realized that there was a deep comfort i
n all of these people who loved AJ sitting together, even when they all sat in worried silence. It was a powerful feeling. Each addition to the group brought with it a fresh breath of strength for everyone to draw from. Some of the boys still had their jerseys on, and a few, including Jeremy, hadn’t taken the time to shower. They’d just come straight to the hospital, bringing with them their distinct “hockey boy funk,” which was currently percolating in the small waiting room.

  Ana sat up, looked at Lisa and stood. The two of them walked towards the surgeon who had arrived a couple steps behind Jared and Lindsay.

  “Is he-” Ana started, her lip quivered, and Lisa could see tears brimming in her eyes. “Will he be ok?” she asked shakily. Lisa grabbed her hand and squeezed it gently.

  “Would you like to step outside to discuss his condition?” he asked her, frustratingly respecting the confines of patient confidentiality.

  “No, thank you. You can speak freely here. Please?”

  “As you wish. He’s not out of the woods just yet, but the surgery went as expected. He may not wake up for a few days.”

  “You mean,” she paused, confused, “he’s in a coma?”

  The surgeon nodded slowly.

  “How can he be in a coma, yet you say it’s looking good that he’ll wake up soon?” there was a distinct edge of hysteria to Ana’s voice.

  “We have high hopes he’ll wake up,” he told her gently.

  “But there’s a chance he won’t?” it was Lisa’s turn to ask a question.

  He nodded.

  “Ok,” Lisa said, more to Ana than anyone else. She squeezed her hand again, “Let’s think positive. He’s out of a successful surgery and the doctors think he’s going to wake up. It’s AJ, Ana. You know how much of a fighter he is.” She winced at her own poor choice of words. “You know what I mean. He won’t give up on himself, on life, and he needs us to not give up on him, either. You should totally give him shit for making you worry like this, ok?”

  “Ok,” Ana replied, unsure.

  “He’s in recovery. You can see him if you’d like,” the doctor told Ana.

  “Ok,” she answered again, and they followed the surgeon towards the recovery room.

  “You go in first,” Lisa told her. “I’ll wait here. Take as long as you need to. Talk to him. I’m sure he’ll hear you,” she encouraged.

  Nodding, Ana pushed through the swinging doors, reemerging fifteen minutes later tear-streaked and pale. The two hugged.

  “That was quick. You can stay with him for as long as you want to, Ana. No one is rushing you,” Lisa urged.

  Ana shook her head.

  “Sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m going back to the others. I can’t see him like that. It’s just too hard. The bandages, the wires and tubes – I just can’t,” she wailed, hugging Lisa. As Ana made her way back to the family room, Lisa heard her sobs as she walked.

  Waiting for Ana to walk out of sight, her breathing quickened. Her heart was sort of caught between her chest and her throat. Her palms were sticky as she walked forward and pushed open the door to his room.

  Chapter 25

  This is it, Lisa told herself. Stay strong. But, as she walked through those double doors, she felt anything but strong. Swallowing hard, she approached the bed. AJ was so still and looked so small, hooked up to a bunch of machines.

  “You’re so pale, AJ,” she whispered aloud. She stood next to his bed and stroked his hair back from his forehead so she could kiss him. “You need a haircut, too. You’re getting a little shaggy,” she joked. She stood gazing at him, taking him in for a few minutes, before she dragged a chair close to the bed and sat, holding his hand.

  Sitting in silence she watched him, letting the minutes tick by. She prayed silently. She wasn’t overly religious, but having been raised an Irish Catholic, she believed there was a higher being pulling the strings. At this moment, she didn't like how the string was being pulled, and she gave a silent plea that it would stop.

  The nuns from school would be proud. She rolled her eyes at herself.

  Taking his hand up to her mouth, she kissed his knuckles. As tears fell, she spoke to him. Her voice wobbled and cracked, but she remembered reading somewhere that coma patients can respond to familiar voices, and she knew he was listening to her.

  I’m pretty sure that was Grey’s Anatomy again, Lis.

  “You played so good tonight, Pim. I was proud of you. Even Jeremy was proud of you,” she paused, pulled the blankets up a little on his chest.

  “AJ-” she began, her voice wavering, “You have to wake up for me, you hear? You have to. Please?” She was pleading with him, in tears, “You promised me you would be ok. You promised! You don’t break promises, Pim, you can’t!” she gasped between sobs.

  “I know you’re a fighter. I know you’re going to wake up, I do. I have faith in you babe. But I’m so scared you’re going to leave me. You can’t die on me, AJ, you just can’t, ok? Because I say so. Now that I’ve finally met you, I don’t want to let you go. I want to be with you, in every sense of the word. I want to wake up in the morning and have you run your hands through my hair. I want to make breakfast in the kitchen and rub pancake batter on your nose. I want to play chess with you, ‘cause even though I suck at chess, I like it, and I like scrabble too. Let’s play scrabble and make up words that don’t exist, but get points for them anyway because it’s sickeningly cute. I want to sing with you, and play Twister with you. I want to rub your shoulders after a game. I want to sit up all night talking to you about silly things, or where we’re going to spend our retirement when the kids are all grown up, or what color we’re going to decorate the living room. Then I want to decorate the living room and have a random paint fight where we’ll end up covered in paint that won’t come off and screwing on the floor!

  I want to watch you play hockey, and scream at the ref when you’re put in the box for being a butt-head, but I’ll stand up for you anyway, because you’re mine, and because he’s a ref. I want to be waiting outside the locker room and walk past the puck bunnies, who’ll be glaring at me because you’re with me.

  I want to watch the sun rise and set with you.

  I want to lie at opposite ends of the sofa and watch random films, and throw pillows at you for checking out the girls. I want to meet your parents, in circumstances that don’t involve you lying in a coma. I want to meet your extended family – I want to be your official, proper, exclusive girlfriend. And then I want to be more than that. And I want to argue about what color flowers we will have, or what kind of cake. And then what kids names we will pick, and no, Gretzky isn’t an acceptable name for our children.

  In the grand scheme of things, I’ve known you practically no time at all. A year? And I’m crazy about you, AJ. When I’m in Ireland, I wake up wondering how you’re sleeping. When I’m eating, I wonder if you’d like it, or what you’ll be eating when it’s your meal time. When I’m watching hockey and I don’t understand something, I want you to patronize me – with an S, not a zed, nor a zee, and repeat yourself six times over until I understand it. I want to know you better than you know yourself, know when you’re sick and what you’re thinking before you do. I want to look into your eyes and see your soul, AJ. I want to see the world with you and then go back over it and find stuff we missed. I want to talk about politics, and music, and films, and pretend to sulk at you for completely stupid reasons. I want to call you pet names and embarrass you in front of your friends, and surprise you on your birthday, and have you all to myself sometimes – without your friends barging in and finding us lying on the floor. But, most of all? Right now, I just want to be in your arms.

  So, you have to wake up, AJ. You just have to! Please?”

  She was exhausted from baring her soul, her voice was hoarse and heavy. The tears had stopped, her chest ached and, sensing she and AJ weren’t alone in the room, she glanced at the door. Jeremy was standing propped against the doorframe, arms crossed and his face was filled with
worry and concern.

  “How long have you been standing there?” she asked him, suddenly embarrassed.

  “Long enough,” he smiled.

  “How long?” she repeated, “I didn’t hear the door open.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I heard most of it, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I didn’t want to interrupt you.” He looked terribly guilty. “It sounded like you needed to get it off your chest”.

  “It’s ok,” she told him, blushing. “It’s not like you didn’t know it already,” she said dismissively. “Apparently I have an I’M IN LOVE tattoo somewhere that everyone can see. Stupid thing. I wish I could find it and cover it up. I don’t like being quite so transparent!

  He laughed again, moved to the opposite side of the bed and pulled up a chair so he was facing her. “Well, I had my suspicions.” He kicked off his shoes and put his feet up on the bed beside AJ, leaning back in his chair. “But I don’t think I really needed to know that kind of detail!” He grinned at her.

  “If you tell anyone-”she warned.

  “Your secret’s safe with me,” he assured her, “Well, me and Pim of course.”

  “You think he knows how I feel?” she asked casually, staring at AJ on the bed.

  “Well, yeah, it’s pretty obvious Lisa. He knows.”

  “I hope so,” she sighed.

  “He does,” he repeated firmly. “Trust me, he knows. He feels the same, you know that, right?”