Billion Dollar Man

by Ali Parker

  “Here we are,” I said, pulling into the parking lot of a beachside restaurant. When we climbed out of the car, the air was filled with the smell of the ocean, and a light breeze tugged at our clothes. It was a beautiful day, perfect to spend time away from our respective jobs and forget about what it meant to take care of everyone else.

  We walked in and got a table next to a large window so we could admire the view while we ate.

  “This place is amazing,” Mila said.

  “You’ve never been here before?”

  She shook her head. “When your parents own a restaurant, you tend to avoid restaurants in general. Besides, I’ve been a bit busy the last couple of years.”

  I nodded. “I can understand that. Do you enjoy what you do?”

  Mile nodded. “I love it. It’s not always easy, but it’s worth it. My parents weren’t very happy with me at first, but working at the restaurant for the rest of my life just isn’t for me.”

  “Jerrod mentioned that,” I said.

  Mila chuckled. “It sounds like you two discuss me a lot.”

  My cheeks grew hot. “Not like that. We were just catching up.”

  “Right,” Mila said, laughing. “Not that I would mind if you wanted to find out more about me, you know.”

  “Is that so?” I asked and folded my arms over my chest. “Why?”

  Mile shrugged. “Maybe I like it when you want to know more about me. Of course, I like it best when you ask me yourself.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m doing here,” I said.

  Mila laughed. “You’re a shameless flirt.”

  “First, you said I was impossible. And now I’m shameless? Do you have other adjectives you want to use?”

  “I can think of a few,” she said.

  “Like?”

  Mila blushed and shook her head, not telling me. I laughed.

  “God, you’re beautiful when you blush.”

  That only made her blush harder. “You’re not supposed to say that to me.”

  “Why not? It’s true.”

  “Yeah, and Jerrod will kick your ass.”

  “I’m not going to tell him I think his sister is hot. Are you going to rat me out?”

  She looked at me with those animated eyes and shook her head. “I think I like playing with fire.”

  I laughed at her fire joke. Her wit surprised me.

  We ordered lunch and ate together, getting to know each other more. I realized that even though I had known her almost my whole life, I knew very little about the person she had become. Where she had been a cute teenager before, she was exciting now. Smart and funny, ambitious, filled with empathy and hope, and it was beautiful. To see that side of her only made her more and more beautiful than she already was, and I loved it.

  After lunch, we walked back to my car.

  “The weather is amazing today,” I said, looking up. “It’s almost too good to just pass up.”

  “Let’s take a walk on the beach,” Mila suggested.

  “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

  She shook her head. “When I take a day off from work, I do it properly. We all need sufficient downtime when we deal with trauma.”

  “You’re very right,” I said. I looked toward the beach, and I had to admit, it was enticing.

  We walked toward the beach and took off our shoes. With our toes in the sand, we walked along the waterline, listening to the waves crash onto the shore, talking about small things and big things, joking and being serious together. The sky was littered with small puffs of clouds, and the sun beat down on my neck and arms, making me happy to be home.

  After we returned to the car, I drove back to Mila’s place to drop her off.

  “Thank you for the day out,” she said before she climbed out of the car. “I had a great time.”

  “So did I,” I said. She hesitated for a moment, and I pictured leaning in and kissing her. It would have been a perfect time. But I didn’t because she was Jerrod’s little sister.

  “I’ll see you around, Ben,” she said with a smile before she opened the car door.

  “For sure,” I said. She closed the door behind her, and I waited until she was in her building before I pulled off.

  The more I got to know Mila, the more I liked her. She was everything I would ever want in a woman. She was smart and funny, but she could be serious, and she understood where she fit in this life.

  She was beautiful. She was the full package. And she was very off-limits. I couldn’t go after her, and for some reason, that irritated me. I had never cared about it before, but Mila had never been like this before. She had always been Jerrod’s little sister. But there was nothing little about her anymore.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about her on the drive home, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I hadn’t come home to find myself a woman. Especially not if it was Mila, the one woman who could ruin a friendship that had lasted for years and years. There was something about her that awakened something inside of me, and I didn’t know what that was.

  Even though I had no idea what to make of what I was feeling, I was pretty damn sure of one thing. I had to see her again.

  Chapter 6

  Mila

  On Friday, I arrived at the hospital for my afternoon shift to find Mr. Norton awake. He looked a little drowsy after being in a coma, but he was smiling, and Mrs. Norton looked relieved and happy that her husband was back.

  “Well, this is a wonderful surprise,” I said when I walked in.

  “Honey, this is Nurse Mila. She was so good to me while you were … you know.”

  Mr. Norton looked at me. “Thank you, Nurse Mila.”

  I nodded. “I’m so glad to see you’re awake and feeling better. You had us worried when you came in.” I moved around the room, taking care of my duties. I checked his vitals, put the food tray close to the door, and made sure the pillows were comfortable.

  Mr. Norton offered a bashful smile. Mrs. Norton held his hand, and I was pretty sure she wasn’t going to let go of him for the foreseeable future.

  “We also received good news,” Mrs. Norton said, looking lovingly at her husband. “He’s not paralyzed.”

  “Oh, that is wonderful news,” I said. “Not a lot of people bounce back from a fractured spine.”

  “I guess I wasn’t done with everything I still wanted to do,” Mr. Norton said.

  “But we’ll miss out on any more rock climbing,” Mrs. Norton said. “Right?”

  “Right,” Mr. Norton confirmed, and Mrs. Norton looked visibly relieved. “I think that was more than enough adventure for me for now.”

  I smiled and finished my duties.

  “I’ll leave the two of you alone,” I said. “I’m sure you have a lot of catching up to do.”

  “About three weeks,” Mrs. Norton said.

  Mr. Norton shook his head. “I still can’t believe it’s been that long. It feels like yesterday.” He closed his eyes, and his face clearly showed that he remembered the fall. The skull fractures hadn’t removed his memories of the incident any more than his fractured spine had removed his ability to walk. There were upsides and downsides to everything. They had a difficult road of recovery ahead, and I was sure Dr. Rutherford would suggest therapy to handle the trauma, but with Mr. and Mrs. Norton able to lean on each other again and with so little long-term damage, I knew the happy couple would get through it.

  When I left the room, I felt great. When people made it through their ordeals and came out on the other side, it always put me in a good mood. Not only did we save someone’s life, but Mr. Norton would walk again and the Nortons could have the happy marriage they deserved.

  “He’s okay,” I said to Claire, who was still on duty since this morning. “Mr. Norton is going to walk.”

  Claire nodded, smiling. “I was there when they woke him up. He was so disorientated. Mrs. Norton was terrified he wouldn’t know who she was, but he asked for her immediately. Emotions ran so high.”

  �
��I can just imagine it,” I said.

  “The best part is they’re moving him to a general room tomorrow morning, as soon as they know he’s perfectly stable now that he’s out of his coma.”

  “Then the family can finally visit,” I said.

  Claire nodded. “I’m so happy for them.”

  We split up and took care of our rounds, checking on our other patients. Most of them were stable, but I was worried about the old lady who had come in two days ago. She was stable when I checked on her, but something about the way she looked made me worry something was going to go wrong. Her sons were around her bed all the time. I kept wondering if they’d had a chance to say goodbye.

  When I went to the staff toilets, I scolded myself for being so negative. I was always the positive one, the nurse who found the silver lining. All the staff knew me that way. She would fight pneumonia and go home to spend another year with her three sons that so obviously doted on her.

  No matter how much I told myself everything was going to be fine, the way it had been with Mr. Norton, I couldn’t shake the feeling of foreboding.

  I was filling in a report at the nurse’s station when the alarms went off. I dropped everything and ran to the old lady’s room.

  “We have a V-fib,” one of the other nurses shouted.

  Dr. Nash skidded into the room not a moment later.

  “What’s happening?” one of the sons asked. The three of them were frozen around the edges of the room.

  “She’s going into cardiac arrest,” I said.

  “No!” one of the brothers tried to get to her. “Resuscitate her!”

  Dr. Nash was already next to her bed, applying chest compressions.

  “What about the paddles?” one of the brothers asked.

  “It’s too risky for someone this old,” I said when Dr. Nash didn’t answer. I stood by the bed, ready to do what Dr. Nash needed me to do.

  After a while of trying, Dr. Nash stopped and looked at his wristwatch.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to the three men.

  “You haven’t done anything!” one of them shouted. “You haven’t even tried!”

  “Your mother was very sick,” Dr. Nash said. “She waited far too long before she got help. Her body couldn’t handle it anymore.”

  One brother broke down. The other stormed out of the room in anger, and the third looked torn who he should try to comfort first. Dr. Nash looked at me and nodded. I had to take care of the body. I walked around the bed and pulled the sheet over the old lady’s head, covering her face. Before I covered her up, I got one last glimpse at her face, and she merely looked peacefully asleep.

  A lump rose in my throat, but I swallowed it down. I hoped the men had had a chance to say goodbye.

  When I left the room, I walked to the nurse’s station and recorded the time of death and the cause. I logged the file, and I excused myself.

  In the restroom, I closed myself into a cubicle and finally let myself fall apart. Sobs racked my chest, and I doubled over, wrapping my arms around myself as if I could keep it together if I did it physically. I’d known this was going to happen. I didn’t know how, but I’d known.

  Those men would never be the same. I had been lucky enough never to lose a parent, but I knew from what I had seen that the loss of a loved one changed you forever. I had even seen it in Ben, although he’d barely known his dad. Those three men, once they handled their grief in their own way, wouldn’t ever look at life the same.

  Maybe they would become bitter. Maybe they would blame themselves. Or maybe, they would celebrate the long life of the woman they’d lost, remember her for the good times instead of dwelling on her death.

  It took me a while before I could finally pull myself back together. After the sobs died down, I still hiccupped with the force of my own sorrow. I knew this was a part of my career that I had signed up for this when I’d decided to become a nurse. I had worked as a nurse for almost four years now, but I still felt every death as if it had been a friend of mine.

  I didn’t think it would ever go away.

  When I walked to the basins, I splashed cold water on my face. My eyes were swollen from crying when I looked at myself in the mirror.

  I didn’t want it to go away, I decided. It was painful every time a patient died when I had known them, but I never wanted to switch off to what was happening around me. I never wanted the lives that came in through the hospital doors to become a means to an end. I wanted to remember them for what they were—souls we had lost.

  When I finally returned to the nurse’s station, Claire looked worried.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  I nodded. “I’ll be fine. It’s just been a rough day.”

  Claire hugged me. “It’s a part of the job. She wasn’t in pain when she died.”

  I knew that, but it was still good to hear. I nodded.

  “Thank you. I’ll be fine, really.”

  Claire didn’t look like she believed me, but I would bounce back. I always did. All I needed to do was to carry on with my duties, save the people who could still be saved, and eventually, the old lady would join all the other patients we’d lost, in a space in my mind where they would never be forgotten.

  When I finished my shift, the sun was rising in the east, the dawn of the new day. I loved watching the sunrise. I loved the way the world was revived with color after a night drenched in darkness. But today, I didn’t see any of the beauty I usually admired. I felt numb.

  I climbed into my car and hesitated before I drove to Skylar’s apartment. When I knocked on her door, she opened it while in her pajamas.

  “Oh, no,” she said when she saw my face. I didn’t even need to explain or apologize for bothering her so early in the morning.

  I walked into her apartment, and Skylar made me hot tea. When the tea had drawn, we sat together on the couch.

  “Tell me about it,” Skylar said. She understood the need to get it off my chest. She could imagine the pain I was going through even though she never went through it herself or understood how invested I was in these people’s lives.

  After I told her everything, she pulled me into a hug.

  “I know you’ll be fine,” she said. “I always say this, but you’re so strong.”

  My phone rang when we pulled apart. It was Jerrod.

  “We’re going out on the town tonight,” he said when I answered. “Do you want to join us? It will be like old times.”

  “Thanks, Jay,” I said. “But I just got off work now, and I’m exhausted. I’m going to pass. Next time, okay?”

  “It’s probably more responsible to go to bed early. You’ll feel better than we will in the morning.” He laughed. “I’ll see you soon, sis.”

  When he hung up, I sighed. “I should probably get going. You have a life too.”

  Skylar shook her head. “Nothing I wouldn’t put on hold for you.”

  “You’re a sweetheart,” I said and hugged Skylar one more time before getting up. I could have stayed for hours, and Skylar would have let me, taking off from her job. But I wasn’t going to do that to her.

  When I left, I didn’t want to go home and be alone, but I had to deal with this at some point.

  I thought about contacting Ben. Maybe a distraction would do me good. But I wasn’t good company right now, and he had his new job to worry about. I doubted he wanted to babysit his best friend’s little sister when he had bigger things to think about.

  So, instead of contacting him, I headed home. I jumped into the shower without washing my hair, and once I changed into pajamas, I crawled into bed. I pulled the covers over my head and curled into a ball. I lay there, waiting for the grief to subside as, inevitably, it would.

  Chapter 7

  Ben

  On Saturday, Jerrod and I went into town and found a bar that was hopping with patrons and loud music. I wanted something to draw me away from everyday life. And Jerrod didn’t want to get hammered at his parents’ place. We all needed a b
reak sometimes.

  “We’re going all-out, tonight,” Jerrod said. “You’re going to have to suffer at work tomorrow.”

  I shook my head. “I have two days off in a row. Usually, I have twenty-four hours on, twenty-four hours off. But this weekend I have all to myself.”

  “Even better,” Jerrod said, and we clinked our beer bottles against each other.

  “So, how’s it going at the station?” Jerrod asked. “I bet you could pick up any woman in this room. A man in uniform and all that.”

  I laughed. “I guess I could.” But I didn’t want just any woman. Only one had been on my mind lately, a woman I wasn’t allowed to have.

  “I love my job,” I continued, talking about work rather than having to avoid talking about Mila because Jerrod asked the right questions. “I enjoy the hard work. Putting out fires. Dealing with people.”

  “That’s a good thing,” Jerrod said. “I didn’t understand why you’d want to give up a life of luxury for this, but I think I get it.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “You have the money, so you can live any life you want and still be a firefighter.”

  He grinned at me, and I laughed.

  “The money is great, but I don’t care about that.”

  “Sure,” Jerrod said. “You’re too noble for me.”

  “Asshole,” I said, still laughing. Jerrod laughed too.

  “Now that you’re away from the corporate world and no one is watching anymore, don’t you want to find someone to date again?”

  I shook my head. “I wasn’t single because everyone was watching me. I had more than enough women, trust me.”

  Jerrod hooted. “That’s my boy,” he said. “Oh, that must have been a hell of a lifestyle.”

  I shrugged. “It was great at first. It’s not so much fun after a while when you realize you can’t talk to anyone.”