by Piper Rayne
An instant bond forms between the two of us. We’ve both experienced huge losses, but at least I have my mom.
When I go home that night, I don’t tell my mom about the sad boy in class, but I think about him when I go to bed. For the first time since my mom cried over my dad’s casket, I wished I could take away someone else’s pain.
Six
Kingston
Lou is laid out on his bed when I walk upstairs to the bunks at the fire station.
“You look like you just got dumped.” I drop my bag next to my bed and sit down.
“I kind of did.” He sits up and rests his arms on his thighs. “You know a Stella Harrison?”
I lean down and open up my bag just to not have to look at him. It’s the one asshole thing I’ve done since we’ve been friends—not telling him that the girl he met is the girl I’ve been infatuated with forever. But I didn’t tell him because I’m fine with it. Maybe fine isn’t the right word, but I’m hoping that seeing the two of them together will help me move on. Because God knows it’s time for me to move on.
“Sure do,” I say.
“I went out with her on Saturday.” He stares at me, waiting to judge my reaction.
“How did it go?”
“Jesus, King, how could you not tell me?”
My shoulders slump. He knows. “I don’t know. My head running into a steel pipe and knocking me the fuck out?”
He stands and paces, running his hand through his hair. Lou can be on the more dramatic side when he wants. “After. Why didn’t you tell me after?”
“There are a lot of Stellas, how did I know it was one and the same?”
“Bullshit.” He stops and stares at me as though he wants a real answer. I’m not going to give him one. “There aren’t that many Stellas in Alaska. Few enough that you should’ve asked more questions about her.”
“I had more important things on my mind—like healing my head.”
It was a blessing that I didn’t have to work for a week because that meant I could dodge Lou.
“Be straight. I was going to take her to Rome’s place, and then she starts saying how we can’t see one another… how you two have a past and it’s not a good idea.”
I bite my lip to hold back the lottery-winning smile that wants to break across my face. “We do have a past, but it’s been, like, eight years since she left for New York. It’s fine. I’d tell you if it wasn’t.”
“Would you?” He sits on his bed, which is coincidentally right next to mine.
“Yeah. Since when am I a hold-anything-in kind of guy?”
He probably shouldn’t answer that. I held this in when I shouldn’t have let him go in blind with Stella.
“I’m serious. I really liked her. She’s great, you know?”
I laugh instead of agreeing. She’s one in a fucking million, as cliché as that sounds. But she doesn’t feel the same about me and I’m man enough to admit defeat.
“But before I go full steam ahead, I need to know where your head is,” he says.
Come on, channel drama class from high school, when Mr. Clayton told me to get into character. That I couldn’t be Kingston acting like Crutchie from Newsies—I had to be Crutchie. I argued that I didn’t know what it was like to have a disabled leg, which led to me getting looked at above the rim of his glasses. The classic look he’d give you right before he kicked you out of class and got you suspended from a game of whatever sport you played. Since I was pitching against Greywall that weekend, I did the best damn acting job I could and kept my mouth shut. Which is what I plan to do right now.
I stand and clamp my hand on his shoulder. “Stella is in my rearview mirror, man.”
“You sure?”
“Jesus, Lunchbox.”
He quirks an eyebrow at me. I never use his nickname because I sense he doesn’t much like it. “Okay, subject closed.”
“Good. I’m going down to eat something. You in?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
Finally Lou stops harping on the Stella subject and we head down to the kitchen to find Greasy cooking. Might as well take my Tums now.
“What’s up?” I fist-bump Greasy and grab a bottle of water before sitting at the table.
“Did you see this?” Lou pulls a piece of paper off of the corkboard that’s supposed to be for important news but is usually filled with business cards for the firefighters’ side businesses. Most of us have a second gig, except for me.
Greasy looks over his shoulder. “Yeah, we did that when we were younger. Of course it wasn’t that nice of a place. We had to take a shit in an outhouse. I froze my ass off that year, but we had good times.”
Lou slides the piece of paper across the table to me. It’s an ad for a rental for first responders to use all winter long. You go up on your days off.
Greasy wipes his hands on his apron and hovers over my shoulder. “I might have to leave the missus and sign myself up. That’s right by Alyeska.” He nudges my shoulder. “They’re doing that death skiing with the helicopter up there.”
Lou chuckles.
“You mean heli-skiing, and it’s not death,” I say, shaking my head.
“It’s not safe either,” Lou says, mostly because he’s too chickenshit to fly up a mountain on a helicopter and ski down. If he only knew I plan to speed ride this winter—skiing with a parachute. Lou picks up the paper again. “I think we should do it. Guy days. We’ll have a blast.”
It’s tempting. Especially now that Stella’s back. Get out of Lake Starlight and Anchorage on my days off. Plus Greasy’s right. Being by the mountain will let me do all the crazy shit I want. “Yeah, I’m—”
Tank walks in. “You guys saw the flyer? There are a few openings, but the nurses are taking them like they’re One Direction reunion tickets, so you better grab your spot if you want in.” Tank pulls a Gatorade out of the fridge and straddles the chair.
“I thought it was a firefighter thing?” Lou inspects the piece of paper as if there’s some fine print somewhere.
“It says first responder.” Tank points at the bold block letters on the top of the page. “It’s actually one of the doctor’s houses, I guess. He’s renting it out for the entire winter because his wife is pregnant, and they can’t go that far away. I’m not sure of the whole story, but it’s a quick way to find out who’s single in our small circle.” He waggles his eyebrows.
“Which nurses?” I ask.
Tank’s gaze falls on me. “Samantha is one.”
I roll my eyes. Of course, I do want to pick her brain about the Alaska Adventure Race she was talking about when we went out.
“Who else?” Lou presses.
It doesn’t take a genius to realize Lou wants to know if Stella is going in on it. Although she loves to ski, I’m not sure if she would want to be away from her mom.
Tank shrugs. “Don’t know. It doesn’t really matter since you have no idea, with the schedules, who you’ll be up there with.”
“I’m not signing up for some shit where I end up sleeping on the floor with, like, fifty people.” I sip my water.
Greasy laughs, stirring what I think is chili with a layer of grease on top. Hence his name.
“Nah, spots are limited. It’s not a free-for-all. Although I’m not sure I see the downfall if it was,” Tank says.
I shake my head at the big guy. He should be the one called Romeo.
“Come on, Romeo, let’s do it.” Lou looks at me.
I’m not sure. I mean, what if he brings Stella up there? I said I was cool, and I’m hopeful that seeing them together will hopefully turn off that section of my brain that still sees her in my future, but any sort of swimsuit on her as she dips into the hot tub will make that almost impossible. Not to mention, listening to sex noises coming from their room? Hell no.
“Yeah, I got a lot of shit to do this year,” I say, standing. “I’ll be checking the truck to make sure we’re good when we get a call.”
I leave them in the kitchen beca
use Lou will try everything in his power to persuade me. He’s persistent, but if I give in, my winter will suck. Instead of pausing to feel how much I care about this turn of events, I restock the rig.
“We’re about two minutes out,” Lou says over the radio to the hospital.
I’m in back of the ambulance with a woman who fell. I’m hoping she didn’t break her hip, as I fear she may have.
“It doesn’t even hurt. I think I can go. Just drop me off,” she says, smiling sweetly as though she’s about to give me a butterscotch.
“Ma’am, you really should get it checked out. I’ve given you a small dose of pain medicine, so that’s probably making you feel better than you should.” I wink and pull out my clipboard, propping it on my knee to start my report. The last place I want to be is the hospital.
“All right, fine. But just because you’re cute.”
I glance up and give her a smile, shake my head and look back at my keyboard.
“I have a great-niece you might like.”
I glance at her and chuckle. Lou laughs harder up front. It’s not an unfamiliar occurrence for one of us to get hit on or have someone know someone who would be perfect for us.
“She’s a teacher and so kind and sweet. Easy on the eyes, like you,” she says.
“Oh, I’m seeing someone,” I lie, which is also a common occurrence. It’s a polite way to brush people off.
She exaggerates looking at my left hand. “I don’t see a ring.”
“Not yet, but…” I can’t lie that well. I’m not going to tell the woman I’m engaged or some shit like that. “We haven’t gotten there yet.”
“Then I say you should give my great-niece a chance.”
I laugh and shake my head.
“We’re here,” Lou says.
The older lady pats my hand. “Think about it.”
We roll her out of the ambulance. Samantha is the nurse who meets us at the sliding doors. I relay all the information to her and she nods, helping us roll her into a room. Lou and I are picking up the patient and putting her on the hospital bed when Stella walks in, sanitizing her hands and running them along one another before looking up.
She introduces herself to the patient. Our eyes catch as the woman tells her what happened, but Stella doesn’t miss a beat, taking the patient’s hand and telling the woman they’ll get it all squared away. She’s as sweet and caring of a doctor as I always knew she’d be.
Clearing my throat, I take the stretcher and wheel it out of the room. Samantha comes out a minute later, and I’m all too aware that Lou hasn’t followed.
“Hey, I was thinking maybe we could have a drink at Tipsy’s tomorrow?” Samantha bites her lip.
I have to decide right now whether I’m going to pursue this. Just as I’m about to refuse and say I have plans, Lou and Stella walk out of the room, Stella laughing at something Lou said. Her smile fades as our eyes catch when they walk by.
“Sure,” I say. “I’ll be there at seven.”
Samantha’s face lights up and she bounces on the heels of her shoes, walking toward the nurses’ station. “Great. I’ll see you then,” she says loudly, as though she’s trying to make everyone around aware we have a date.
Stella is at the computer, not paying much attention to Lou, who’s now involved in a conversation with Allie.
“Samantha?” Stella calls her over. “We need to order an MRI, and can you get a geriatric orthopedic doc on the phone? I have a bad feeling she broke her hip.”
Samantha smiles and turns away from me.
I smile back then bury my head in my paperwork before handing it to Allie.
She signs it and hands it back to me with a smile. “What’s up, Romeo? Are you really going out with Samantha?”
“It’s just a drink,” I say.
“Uh-huh, I’ve heard that before.”
Stella glances at me and smiles.
“Did you know that these two know one another?” Lou thumbs at both Stella and me.
Allie tilts her head, taking a bite of a sandwich that looks as if it came from the cafeteria. She steadies her gaze on Stella more than me.
Stella smiles and looks up. “We went to high school together.”
“Really?” Allie turns her attention to me. “Huh.”
Although she’s said nothing much, it feels as though she’s said everything.
“Let’s go, Lou,” I say and walk over to the stretcher. “Bye.”
I wave to Allie and Stella, who looks amazed by my politeness, and push the stretcher from the emergency room. I turn the corner and ignore the fact that Lou isn’t following me. After all, I agreed that it wouldn’t bother me if they date. I might as well deal with it.
Seven
Stella
I’m getting changed out of my scrubs when Allie comes into the locker room. “Spill.”
“What?”
“You went to high school with Romeo?”
I pretend it’s not a big deal. Which it’s not. I went to high school with a lot of people, right? “I did.”
“The fact that you didn’t tell me after I so kindly told you about his nickname says you’re hiding something. What gives?” She sits on the bench, crosses her legs, and stares at me.
“Privacy? I’m changing.”
She waves me off. “Please, I’m sure you’re used to this environment. And if that’s the best you can do to try to deter me away, then you need some new tactics.”
“It’s nothing.” I sit next to her to put on my shoes. “We grew up in a small town together. I didn’t know Romeo was Kingston Bailey.”
“Lake Starlight?” she asks, and I raise my eyebrows. “What? Anchorage isn’t huge. He told me once where he was from. Did you know there’s this thing called Lake Starlight Buzz Wheel?”
“Uh-huh,” I say, tying my shoe.
“It’s awesome. I religiously check that thing all the time now.”
Great. Not that I didn’t find myself checking it in New York sometimes on the nights when I missed home. My mom always filled me in on the town gossip, but she kept out anything having to do with Kingston. Every time I clicked on that page, I feared I’d read about his upcoming wedding.
“Yeah well, don’t believe everything you read on that thing.”
“I went to Lake Starlight once. You guys have the cutest downtown. Tell me.” She elbows me. “Did you and Kingston walk hand in hand through that gazebo area when you were just youngsters and fall in love?”
“You’re delusional.” I stand and grab my watch out of my locker, securing it around my wrist.
“Am I though?” She waves her phone.
“What have you read?”
She holds her phone in front of her and clears her throat as though she’s about to give a speech. “‘Rumors are flying that two of our own have reconnected up in Anchorage. Kingston Bailey suffered a concussion last week during a fire, and the entire Bailey clan rushed up to the hospital to make sure he was okay. Which he thankfully was, but…’”—she peeks at me and I groan—“‘the surprise was on everyone when Stella Harrison pulled back the curtain to announce that she was his doctor.’” Allie’s eyes widen as if she’s recapping a soap opera episode. “‘Now I think we all figured they role-played doctor and patient when they were younger, but it’s been eight years since Stella Harrison was a permanent fixture in Alaska. Anyone else worried that history will repeat itself? I think I speak for us all when I say that I can’t bear to see either of them broken apart all over again.’”
Allie clicks off her phone and drops it in her lap, staring at me silently, waiting.
I sit back on the bench and put my head in my hands. “I can’t believe you follow that thing and I can’t believe they’re talking about us. How did anyone find out?”
“From what I’ve read over the years, whoever writes this should work for the FBI. They know so much shit.”
I peek up at her through my fingers. “Feel like going for a drink?”
She
hops up and rushes to her locker. “I never thought you’d ask.”
Five minutes later, her purse is crossways around her body and we’re walking out of the employee locker room toward my car. I need a friend right now, and Allie’s the first one here to truly try to befriend me. I love Cami from my time working with her at County, but we never clicked enough to become close friends. I feel that spark of female kinship with Allie. Like we fit. I’m willing to trust that she’ll keep my secrets. Because I do not want Anchorage Memorial Hospital to turn into Lake Starlight High School 2.0 and have the gossip drive me out.
“Can I have a quesadilla with guacamole and sour cream, as well as…” Allie’s eyes scour the menu. “Oh, truffle fries.” She glances at me over the top of the menu as if I should be jumping up and down. She really is cute. “And an order of truffle fries. And I need a water as well as the beer please.”
The waitress nods and heads to enter in our order.
“Okay, I’ve patiently waited for us to get here and sit down. Then I waited for the waitress to come over and take our order. I will not wait for the meal to arrive before you start to spill. I need at least a morsel of information.”
I lay the cloth napkin in my lap and glance out the window at the snow that’s floating down. You know how horrible it is to have snow always remind you of someone you lost? It sucks.
My mind travels back in time through my history with Kingston. “Owen, Kingston, and I were friends when we were kids from the time I moved to Alaska. In a town the size of Lake Starlight, you have no choice but to be friends with everyone. But then high school started, and all the hormones kicked in. Kingston would always flirt with me. Putting his arm around my shoulders in the hallway or leaning his shoulder on the locker next to mine. Owen kind of kept his distance, which surprised me. Owen was always the in-your-face, over-the-top personality and Kingston was the shy guy.