by Nina Crespo
Rina snapped a picture in her mind, cataloging the waves in his hair, the green of his eyes, the slight bump on his nose, the light and dark shades of blond in the shadow of hair on his lower cheeks and the angles of his jawline. And his firm lips that delivered the best smiles and kisses in the whole world.
As she took in his face, sadness pricked at her heart, but she forced a smile. “Yes, I’m just a little tired, but in a good way.” She closed the short distance and pressed her mouth to his, committing to memory the feel of his lips on hers.
“Me, too.” He slid the armrest up from between them.
As the plane reached cruising altitude, she used his shoulder as a pillow and closed her eyes. Contentment spiraled her down into a collage of fleeting thoughts, but one floated above them all. How badly she wished for more weekends, more moments like this with him.
* * *
Scott shook his head, turning down the flight attendant’s offer of something to drink. He didn’t want to wake Rina.
He inhaled the sweet smell of lavender and almond oil wafting from her, as her soft exhales brushed over his throat. He wanted to hold on to every minute with her. Just like he had that morning.
Awakening first, he’d realized they’d overslept, but instead of waking her right away, he’d spooned her against him for a few minutes longer, not caring about flights or where they had to be. The only thing that had mattered to him was the rightness of the moment. And how right it had felt to be with Rina at the wedding as they’d witnessed the beginning of his father’s and Theresa’s life together. Because of his own stubbornness he would have missed all of it if Rina hadn’t convinced him to show up.
Scott rested his cheek on the top of Rina’s head. He’d heard what Wendy had said about making it a week next time. She wouldn’t have said that unless she liked Rina, and the way Rina had hugged his sister at the airport probably meant she liked Wendy, too. Maybe they could go back to Florida. They wouldn’t have to spend the entire time with his family. He could find an Airbnb. One with private access to the beach so she could enjoy being by the ocean. Or instead of Florida, maybe she’d want to spend time with him exploring one of the beaches he liked in California. The meaning of that sank in and Scott held her hand a little tighter.
“Ladies and gentlemen...” The flight attendant’s message broke into his thoughts.
Rina lifted her head from his shoulder and slipped her hand from his. She glanced over at him. The soft sleepy look on her face reminded him of her waking up with him that morning.
As she stretched her arms out in front of her in the confined space, she smiled and nudged him. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to knock out for the whole flight. Did you miss me?”
“Maybe a little.”
Later on, as they sat in the terminal waiting for their connecting flight from Detroit to Baltimore, bad news faded their smiles. Mechanical issues with the plane delayed their flight out, a thunderstorm kept them grounded for hours, and rebooking was a nightmare. When they did finally get the last night flight to Baltimore, they weren’t able to sit together. Making it to Bolan at nine thirty that night hadn’t been the plan. Had all gone smoothly, they would have arrived earlier that evening, having plenty of time for dinner and relaxing on the couch together.
In the open doorway of Rina’s apartment, Scott reluctantly kissed Rina goodbye. As she slipped her arms from around his neck, he held on to her waist. “I could stay here and still make my 5:00 a.m. call time.”
“You could, but you’ll appreciate being able to sleep in a little longer instead of having to get up earlier and drive back to Tillbridge.”
If he left now, he could get six hours or more of sleep. That and a hit of caffeine would keep him alert enough for the stunts he had to perform. And after their busy weekend, she needed a good night’s sleep, too. “I’ll come by as soon as I’m done.”
“Okay.”
Their last lingering kiss was even harder for him to walk away from. Each passing mile back to Tillbridge heightened how much he missed her, and for the first time in his career, he wasn’t looking forward to being on set, but he couldn’t wait to make the return drive back to see her.
As he thought of Rina and their relationship, a type of anxiety he’d never experienced in all his years as a stuntman mixed with a sense of determination and deep feelings he wasn’t ready to define yet. His heart swelled and beat a little harder.
By the time he reached the guesthouse and climbed into bed, he knew exactly what he needed to do.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Humming to herself, Rina stuck the order tickets under the corresponding grouping of plates in the service window. The kitchen was short staffed, Ben was deep in the cooking trenches so she was garnishing plates and putting together the food orders for the servers to take out to customers.
Darby appeared in front of her. “A customer knocked over their bowl of tomato soup. We need another one.”
“No problem.” Reaching back, she turned to the steam table, ladled some soup into a bowl and put it in the window. “There you go. Need anything else?”
“Just a little of whatever you had that’s keeping you so calm in the chaos.” Darby winked at her and hurried off with the soup.
Staying calm in the chaos was easy knowing what she had to look forward to that night, and as for what she’d had that morning, she wasn’t sharing.
Discovering the video message on her phone from Scott had been better than a long hot shower and her Positive Energy tea times twelve.
It had still been dark outside when he’d made the video. He’d been walking somewhere, probably to the set as he’d talked to the camera.
Good morning, beautiful. I hope you got some rest. I really missed waking up with you. Tonight... I want to talk to you about something.
Scott had paused and glanced away for a moment, but when he’d looked back, there was a look on his face, intense but sweet. It was the same type of expression Scott usually gave her right before he was about to deliver a tender kiss.
I know. Keeping you in suspense is kind of cruel. He’d laughed. But I need to ask you this face-to-face. Miss you. Gotta go. See you soon.
In the video, he’d pressed his fingers to his lips and sent her a kiss. Sitting on the bed in her sleep shirt watching it, she’d grabbed the kiss and sent one back. Then she’d flopped back on the bed, giggling and kicking her feet in the air like a teen who’d gotten a video from the guy she had a crush on. Is that what Scott was now? Her crush...or maybe more?
As she set up more orders in the window, she mulled over the question and what he might want to talk about until anxiety swirled in the pool of happiness inside of her.
“Meatloaf’s up,” Ben called out.
As she turned and picked up the Monday special from the prep table behind her, déjà vu swept in. Scott had ordered the same entrée the night he’d come in to apologize for running her over. Or as he put it, almost running her over. A smile curved up her mouth as she garnished the plate with a sprig of parsley. She never could have guessed that smashed pies and a broken sink would turn out to be the best things that happened to her that day.
As she set the entrée on the pass-through counter, Darby walked up beside her.
The concerned expression on her face made Rina pause. Did she need more soup? No. Darby looked way too serious for that. A disgruntled customer maybe? Or god forbid, was there another leak in the bathrooms? That would really be some cosmic weirdness considering she’d just been thinking about Scott. “Darby, what’s wrong?”
“Zurie’s here to see you.”
Was that all? Zurie could be a little intense sometimes. Maybe that’s what Darby was reacting to? Rina glanced at her Fitbit. It was close to 2:00 p.m., and the end of the lunch rush. “Tell her I’ll be with her in about ten minutes.”
“She said she needs to talk to you right away.
She’s in your office.”
Rina spotted Zurie through the window talking on her phone. “Can you watch this a minute?”
“Sure.” Darby took her place at the window.
As Rina got closer, she could see Zurie pacing in front of her desk. As she shook her head over whatever the person on the line told her, she unbuttoned the blazer to her blue business suit.
It wasn’t like Zurie to stop by at the busiest time of the day for Brewed Haven and Tillbridge.
Rina walked into her office.
“Okay,” Zurie said into the phone. “Thank you, Gloria. If you hear anything else, call me. We’re on our way now.”
We’re? Where were they going? Just as she was about to ask that question, Zurie looked at her. The concern mixed with sorrow in her face weakened Rina’s knees. She’d been speaking with Gloria. The stable... Cold despair struck Rina and she grasped the back of the chair in front of her desk. “Tristan... What happened to him?”
“Nothing’s happened to Tristan.” As Zurie walked over to Rina empathy was in her eyes. “It’s Scott.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Rina hurried through the glass doors of the hospital into the wide corridor. Her stomach clenched around a ball of fear that had formed the minute Zurie had told her the horrible news.
The details still weren’t clear. Some sort of accident happened on set.
At the intersecting hallway, she automatically went right, heading for the visitor elevators.
The layout of the hospital was still clear in her mind from when Uncle Jacob had been a patient there a little over two years ago after his stroke. She’d also gone through one of her surgeries there after her accident.
The sterile smell of disinfectant. The halls and spaces clean and functional to the point of feeling vacant no matter how many people were around. That was familiar, too, along with the small voice screaming inside of her, telling her not to walk inside but escape.
As she stepped off the elevator on the fourth floor, Rina slowed her pace, searching for a familiar face in the waiting room to the right or standing in the hallway or near the nurses’ station up ahead. She saw no one. Anxiety started to build.
“Rina?”
Owen’s voice came from behind her and she ran to him. “How is he? Is he still unconscious?”
Owen grasped her shoulders and aligned his dark brown gaze with hers. “He’s awake and they’re taking care of him.”
“What happened?”
Owen led her to a secluded corner in the waiting room. As they sat in the black vinyl seats, he ran his hands back over his head. “How much do you know already?”
“Nothing really.” Admitting that caused bands of distress to tighten around her throat. “My sister told me there was some sort of accident on set at Tillbridge.”
He took her hand. “It didn’t happen there. The shooting schedule was changed. Instead of working at Tillbridge doubling for Nash, Scott was doing background work with the second unit. They were in a wooded area outside of Bolan.” Owen looked around as if making sure no one else was nearby. “I wasn’t there, but from what I’ve heard, there was an issue with an explosion scene. Scott got caught in the tail end of a blast.”
Her hand trembled and Owen tightened his grasp. “When can I see him?”
“I’m not sure. Last I heard, he was undergoing a CT scan. They’re supposed to bring him to a room when they’re done with him.” Owen gave her hand a squeeze. “I need to step out and make a few calls. Will you be okay here alone?”
“I’m fine. My sister is parking the car. She’s on her way up.” Hopefully with her purse. She’d left it on the floor in front of the passenger seat. It had her phone in it. On the way up, she’d thought about reaching out to Wendy, but she’d held off. “Scott’s family—have they been called yet?”
“When he woke up, that’s one of the first things he said not to do. He wants to be the one who calls them. The other thing he said was to make sure someone contacted you.” Owen patted her hand. “Scott’s tough. He’ll make it. Stay here. I’ll come get you if I hear something.” He got up and walked back toward the elevators.
He’d been thinking of her when he woke up after an explosion? As Rina closed her eyes only the explosion part of the situation and him being hurt played through her mind. She opened her eyes, erasing the frightening images.
Across the waiting room, people focused on their phones, some sat solemnly side by side. One woman knitted something with bright pink yarn. A man and woman at the far end were talking quietly and smiling during their conversation.
Happiness and pain, hope and helplessness, first cries and last breaths—hospitals were a tangle of contradictions, and she’d always landed on the side with the hardest outcome. Please just this once, can it turn out differently and Scott be okay?
Over an hour later, Owen passed by the waiting room but he didn’t stop.
Maybe he was going to the desk to check on when Scott would be in his room. As long moments passed, her legs ached from suppressing the urge to go after him.
Finally he came back. “He’s in his room now. I need to go downstairs. An intern from the set is waiting with a bag of Scott’s things. Go ahead and I’ll catch up.”
Rina walked down the main corridor reading the signs pointing down intersecting hallways to the right and left. She found the corresponding placard on the right indicating the hallway where the room number Owen had given her was located.
She found the private room and walked past the threshold.
He lay motionless on the bed. IV poles with bags were stationed on the side. Several monitors beeped.
How bad was he? Rina walked farther in, her heart tripping in a bruising rhythm against her ribcage as despair took hold.
“Can I help you?” An older dark-haired woman sitting in a chair near the bed stared up at her.
Rina glanced back at the man on the bed. “I’m sorry.” Backing out of the room on shaky legs, she glanced at the placard on the wall. She’d transposed the numbers.
Fear, relief, uncertainty propelled her back the way she’d come. She wrestled with a whiplash of anxiety that had peaked, dropped to basement level, and was now skyrocketing again. By the time she’d reached the main corridor pent-up sobs were consuming most of the air in her lungs.
“Rina?” Zurie hurried over to her from down the hall. “What happened? Did you see Scott?”
“No. I don’t know. It wasn’t him.” Rina couldn’t stop repeating the last three words like a mantra.
Slinging the strap to her black purse and the one to Rina’s beige bag over her shoulder, Zurie grabbed hold of Rina and ushered her down the corridor, past the waiting room, and down a side hallway.
As soon as Rina leaned back against the cool wall, a jumble of emotions coursed through her, causing a rush of prickling heat, gasping breaths and a burst of tears.
“It’s okay.” Zurie rubbed Rina’s arms. “I got you. Breathe. You have to breathe. Just like that. It’s okay. Now, tell me what happened.”
As quickly as they came, the tears started to subside, and Rina swiped them from her cheeks. What happened? She wasn’t even sure. “I walked into a patient’s room, and there was this really injured man. I thought it was Scott, but it wasn’t. Oh Zurie, I could have lost him today just like I did Xavier.”
“But you didn’t.” Zurie glanced at someone in the adjoining hallway. She turned Rina toward the nearby restroom with a single toilet, mirror and sink. Once they were both inside the small space, she locked the door. “Rina, listen to me. If you can’t get Xavier or that injured man you just saw out of your mind, we have to leave.”
“Leave? But I haven’t seen Scott.”
Zurie grasped Rina’s hands. “Scott is here. He’s alive. He’s hurting and he needs you, but not falling apart like this.”
Zurie was
right. Scott was waiting for her and instead of being there for him, she was crying her eyes out. “I’m being ridiculous. I don’t know why my emotions are all over the place.”
“Because you’re human.” Zurie dug through her purse, pulled out some tissues, and handed them to her. “And maybe because you really care about him.”
Rina dabbed her eyes. “I do.”
Compassion came into Zurie’s face. “Your imagination has probably been in overdrive since you found out Scott was hurt. When you saw that poor man in the hospital bed and thought it was Scott, your worst fears were confirmed. After you realized it wasn’t him, your emotions were pulled an entirely different direction. After going through all of that, you were due for an outburst.”
Rina blew her nose into a fresh tissue. “Thanks. I needed to hear that.”
“You’re welcome.” As if on impulse, Zurie gave Rina a one-armed hug.
Rina leaned against her, reminded of the much younger Zurie. The one who’d chased monsters from under her bed when she’d been scared, bandaged her scraped knees after she’d fallen and soothed away her disappointments with compassion.
Zurie ended the hug first. “So what do you want to do now?”
Rina turned and looked at herself in the mirror. She wanted to see Scott, but she had some fixing up to do first. “Got any eye drops?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Scott sat up in the hospital bed with his right leg propped on a pillow, feeling as if his head was overstuffed with cotton. The entire right side of his body, from the bandage on his temple to the angry cuts on his cheek and arm to his bruised ribs and his strained knee pulsed with a pain that was blunted by the pills they’d given him for relief. He swallowed, fighting the lack of moisture in his mouth.