“Oh, yep,” the nurse smiled. “Here she is!”
The same girl I’d seen on the elevator with the messenger bag stuffed full of kids’ stuff walked into the room with a gentle smile on her face. “Hey, Rachel.”
Rachel practically sprang up back into a sitting position. “Hey! You came back!”
“Yeah, I wanted to check up on you! Plus, you owe me a Ramona read.”
Rachel half-rolled her eyes, but it was clear she was mostly pretending and totally delighted to see Andi.
“Hey now, I had to read to you for half an hour yesterday. You’re not gonna let a silly thing like chemo kick you down, are you? I think you’re definitely strong enough for a few pages today.”
“Especially when she was playing her racing game so furiously a few minutes ago,” Theresa said, her eyes smiling. “Don’t let her fool you. I never do.”
Doctor O’Donnell was still talking about something. I wasn’t picking up half the words she said or understanding half of those I did.
Andi said, “Theresa, right?”
Theresa nodded.
“Do you want to step out and grab a cup of coffee?”
“Actually, yeah. I haven’t even showered in a couple days,” she said, stretching and looking sheepish. “But coffee would help.”
Andi waved her hand. “Go get a shower! I’m not leaving till Rachel reads me ten pages anyway, and I wanted to help her out with her hair.”
Rachel yawned, but I could have sworn it was a really good fake. “I’m pretty tired, mom. I’m probably just gonna sleep.”
I barely caught the slight wink Andi shot Rachel’s way.
Theresa stood up next to the bed and shot a glance down at the pillow. My eyes followed hers to see a fine covering of dark curls left behind on the pillow. “We cut it short a couple days ago when they told us about the chemo.” She lowered her voice. “But she won’t shave it.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” Andi said, holding up a roll of duct tape. “Okay if it’s gone when you get back?”
“I would be so grateful to you. I think she’ll feel braver if you’re here.”
“Yeah, me too,” Andi said, giving her a hug.
When Theresa was gone, Andi sat down on Rachel’s bed, handing her a book. “Okay, Rach. The hair-dropping-all-over-everything is bugging you, huh?”
The little girl nodded.
“You know that the medicine that kills the cancer is what’s making your hair fall out, right?”
Rachel nodded again. “So it’s a good thing.”
“Mmmhm,” Andi said. “In fact, the faster it’s all gone, the faster you’ll start to feel better. And the better it’ll grow back when you’re all done with the medicine.”
“Okay, but you’re not gonna shave it, are you?”
“Nope! Here — pick a color.” Andi had six or seven different rolls of brightly colored and patterned duct tape in her bag. Rachel chose one decorated with lightning bolts. Andi wrapped a piece — sticky side out — around four of her fingers, like a hand-shaped lint brush. “We’re gonna touch this gently to the top of your hair, and it’ll pick up any loose ones so they don’t fall all over your bed and clothes and make you itchy and sad. You’ll barely feel it. Okay?”
Rachel gulped and nodded.
“Read to me all about the trouble Ramona’s getting into today, okay?”
A long, loud throat-clearing jolted me out of the moment. “Miss Daly! We’re done here.” Doctor O’Donnell’s voice practically rang in my ears.
It was only when I tried to respond that I realized a lump had formed in my throat. But for the first time in weeks, it wasn’t a sad one — it was a happy one.
During one of the saddest moments of this girl’s life.
What the hell was wrong with me?
I stepped out into the hallway after the four of them, where Doctor O’Donnell was assigning each of the students some topics to research before next rounds. As she rattled off the different treatment possibilities and prognoses, my brain started to go numb again, and my body desperately wanted to turn back to Rachel’s room, wrap my own hand with duct tape, and help her deal with a ridiculously painful situation in a compassion-filled way. One that, I now realized, gave her control over the process of losing her hair. Andi — whatever her job — was totally awesome.
That same burning feeling started to thread through my muscles again, and I desperately wanted to get out of there. The med students walked off down the hallway, their mood obviously lightened just by getting out of Doctor O’Donnell’s presence. I hoped for all their sakes that they got to go on rounds with a more compassionate doctor the next time.
Doctor O’Donnell shot me a glance while filling out something on her charts. “So, Miss Daly. What observations do you have from today?”
“It was really tough,” I said cautiously, watching her eyes for clues about how to proceed. I didn’t want to get kicked out of this shadowing opportunity…I didn’t think. At the same time, I didn’t want to pretend that shadowing with Doctor O’Donnell was the best ever.
“Yes, it is tough. The treatment of childhood cancer fascinates me, but the cases are terribly difficult to see. I hope you understand now why I do my best to detach from the patient.”
I couldn’t keep the words in any longer. It was all too much for me, and I was desperate for one last chance to see that she didn’t mean to be this way or didn’t want me to emulate her — not really.
“I’m sorry, but I…don’t. She just seemed to feel so much better when Andi was talking to her.”
She gave me a hard look. “My children were small when I started in this field. When I talked to the patients, all I could see was my own children. And I never had too much time to spend during rounds anyway — I was always moving on to the next one. Research and treatment for the whole disease are more important than the individual patient. That’s my job. Andi is very sweet, but her job is to help these children deal with their illness, rather than cure them of it. I think, in the long run, they and their parents will appreciate the doctors who worked to cure them much more. Don’t you?”
I was absolutely speechless. When she put it like that, I couldn’t really argue at all. If someone had been able to cure my dad’s cancer, he’d still be here. No amount of book reading and hand-holding while he was sick could have helped that.
“Yes. I do.”
“I thought you would. Being Doctor Daly’s daughter.” She started gathering her things to go. Doctor O’Donnell’s eyes swept over me. “I appreciate that you can handle seeing them.”
Seeing them, but not their central line ports.
“Come join rounds again sometime. That is, if you felt okay with today.”
“Um…”
She stared at me.
“I mean, yes. Thank you.”
“I’ll be in touch the next time we can accommodate you. I need to be back in the office,” she said. “I think you can find your way out.” She marched away without even looking back.
It took me a couple seconds to get my feet moving again. I couldn’t explain whether I had loved today or hated it. Actually, I knew I had hated almost every aspect except the one thing that made me feel glued to this place.
All I knew was I desperately wanted to be back in Rachel’s room, listening to her read me a book and making jokes about video games. And that this — hanging out with IV poles and patient records and discussing her treatment plan like it was a case in a textbook — it just didn’t feel right.
Sometimes you just have to do what feels right.
The memory of Hawk’s gruff voice saying those words as he stared into the street flooded my mind. Then, slowly, the burning muscles in my arms and back cooled, and I felt like myself again.
Even though this was way more important than a stupid motorcycle, Hawk was right, damn him.
I ditched the records with a junior-looking nurse and got the hell out of there, leaving the sterile smells and rhythmic beats behin
d, walking outside, staring at the sky, and taking a deep breath.
Inside the hospital, I had barely realized the sun was starting to go down. But at this time of year, it dipped below the artificial skyscraper horizon just before dinner. Accordingly, my stomach rumbled. The dark and the cold and his words still echoing in my head meant I could only really think of one thing: Hawk and how, for some reason, he was the only one in the whole world I wanted to see right now. Even though I didn’t understand it.
Rowland House sat across from Children’s Hospital, its arches and stone looking unexpectedly welcoming with the light glowing through its windows.
I had no reason to go there — no reason to even want to be there. The kids I so desperately had wanted to hug were holed up in the hospital. But for some reason, for the second time that week, my feet carried me somewhere I had never really planned on going.
Somewhere, my heart, instead of my head, told me was right.
I pressed the button at the intercom on the front door, and Sherri answered the door again. Her eyes swept down over my nice pants and heels, and she smiled and asked, “Got some more paperwork for me? I wasn’t expecting anything tonight.”
“Oh, no,” I said, trying to catch a glimpse of any families who might be hanging around. “I just…felt like I wanted to help maybe. Is there anything I can do around here? Just anything to volunteer?”
Sherri smiled and gave a friendly laugh. “Actually, we have a new family who’s just arrived, and the younger siblings are running a bit wild.”
An ear-piercing scream ripped through the air, followed by giggles and a weary older voice calling, “You can’t jump off the couch here.”
“I have two little brothers,” I smiled. “I can definitely help for a little bit.”
Sherri stepped aside to let me in. “If you gave their mom a chance to shower and rest before dinner, it would change her life. At least for today,” she said.
Two minutes later, I was cuddled up with two little girls on the couch talking about our favorite fairy tale princesses and watching a movie about Rapunzel — my second favorite, after Mulan. We sang all the songs together, and the older girl even let me braid her long, brunette hair. By the time their mom came out of the back of the house, the littlest one had calmed down significantly, and I had found a book for the older one to read.
A look of relief fell over their mom’s face when she saw them. “Thank you so much. You are a godsend.”
A smile spread over my face. “It was fun.”
It was true. I’d had so much fun, in fact, that I looked around for something else to do. From the far corner of the huge living room, I heard the clatter of dishes. “Sounds like they could use some help in the kitchen,” I said.
I knew I had a pile of Orgo homework waiting for me at home, not to mention Stats and somehow starting to think about tackling that damn business project. But doing all those things would mean that I would have to eventually call Hawk, which meant I would have to figure out how to act and talk and be around Hawk.
I was way too confused for that right now. If I could do just one more genuinely-Joey thing that felt good and right and healing and exactly in my element, then I could go home and figure out what to do about Hawk. And the rest of my life.
I followed the sound of the clattering dishes to the kitchen. When I pushed through the door, I found myself face-to-face with those gorgeous, glittering, bright blue eyes.
I tried to keep my feet underneath me and my stomach from flipping in five different directions at once. My lips started tingling again as the memory of our kiss flooded through me.
Hawk looked just as surprised as I felt. “Jo — oh, Jesus. What do I even call you?” He ran his hand back through his hair, making pieces of it stand on end while others flopped back down. “I mean, apparently I’m destined to see you all over town every day this semester, so…” Unfortunately, he didn’t exactly look happy about that fact.
Well. That stopped my stomach flipping. “Yeah, apparently. Could you maybe sound a little more thrilled about it, though?”
He blew out a breath. “Sorry. I’m sorry. This is actually one of the better things that has happened to me all day.”
And there went my stomach again. “Must have been a shit day,” I joked.
“Not really,” he said, letting his eyes keep contact with mine. Which made my cheeks go red- hot.
My eyes darted over to eight long foil pans on the counter. “Bringing dinner again?”
“Yeah, pretty much every other night,” he said, moving toward them. “Give me a hand?”
“Only if I can snag a bite. I’m starving.” I moved to the counter and stood beside him, painfully aware of how close my body was to his. Just another couple of inches and our sides would be touching.
What really shocked me was how badly I suddenly wanted them to be touching. Not just our sides. All of us. Especially those lips.
Oh, hell. Of course, my stomach chose exactly that moment to let out a growl of epic proportions.
“For such a small girl, your stomach can make some gigantic noises,” Hawk said, still gazing at me intently, except this time with an infectious smile on his face.
I smiled back. “Well, feed me! What do you have?”
“Um,” he said, looking down sheepishly. Frickin’ adorable — the thought crossed my mind before I could acknowledge it’.
I leaned across him, lifting the foil lid off the top pan. I looked down at row after row after row of potato skins.
A giggle bubbled up from my belly. Soon, I was looking up at him and laughing, and when his expression mirrored mine, I laughed that much harder. He reached into the pan I held open, grabbed a potato skin, and held it up near my mouth.
I leaned in for a bite and closed my eyes as I chewed. Damn, that was good. When I finally swallowed, I looked back up at Hawk. Our hands remained on the pan, inches from each other. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. So he spoke instead, never breaking eye contact with me.
“Good?” That same sexy, gruff voice, spoken so low it was like he was sharing a secret.
With the way he was looking at me, maybe he was.
It was all I could do to nod slightly before I turned toward him, pushed up on my tiptoes, and pressed my palm to his face and my lips to his.
His hand gripped my waist, and holy hell, that was what I had so desperately wanted to feel ever since this morning. Even though it had only been eight hours ago, it felt like it had been an eternity. His hard stomach pressed against me, his lips soft and warm, his breath filling my mouth and his tongue expertly stroking mine. My heart ran a marathon around my chest, and I felt like telling it to keep going until it had to stop, but I wasn’t quitting this any time soon.
Until Sherri’s voice gasped, “Oh! Excuse me!”
We leapt apart only to see her high-tailing it out of the kitchen.
Hawk looked down, flashing a half-guilty, half-delighted smile at the floor. I leaned against the counter, still torturously close to him, and realized my breathing was still quick.
And his was, too. I wanted to live in this moment, where all I cared about was a boy and all he cared about was me and nothing else in the entire world mattered.
Finally, he said, “We should probably get this food out there, huh?”
What I said next surprised me more than anything else that day, even though I meant every word. “Yeah, and then get out of here?”
His eyebrows lifted, and he tilted his head. “Yeah?”
“I mean…I’m hungry, and I had potato skins last night.”
A look that was between sad and stressed crossed his face for the briefest second.
“They were so good, though!” I rushed to explain. “Really. So maybe…” Shit. Shit shit. Suddenly, my tongue was tied. I was looking at this guy I hated ten hours ago and now found irresistible and gorgeous, and I had just propositioned him with maybe-sex-but-actually-just-kidding-dinner-instead.
“We could
go grab something to eat. Yeah.” Hawk cocked his head toward the opposite counter. “You get the plates, and I’ll take these out.”
Even though those trays had to be heavy, Hawk carried four of them at a time out to the buffet tables. I suddenly had an all new appreciation for the fact that he seemed to only wear t-shirts when I watched his forearms flexing against their weight. They continued to mesmerize me as he laid out trays of wings, potato skins, cole slaw, and roasted vegetables.
I moved to help him and let my hip bump against his. Not entirely by accident. “Roasted root vegetables are bar food?”
“Nah, I prepped these at my place. Can’t serve these people entirely greasy shit.”
“So you have the same industrial-sized pans at your place as the bar?”
“Um,” he cleared his throat. “I live right above the bar.”
I stopped what I was doing and stepped back to look at him. “You live there? I thought you just worked there.”
He smirked. “Yeah, that much was clear from your little rant after class. When you called me a ‘stupid cook’?” The apartment is — was — my dad’s. Hence, working downstairs.”
My cheeks blazed red, and I stared at my shoes. “Shit.” It wasn’t often I wanted to bite my tongue. It almost never let any words out of my mouth that I thought I might regret — which, of course, meant they stayed buried deep inside me. Most of the time, it was better that way — as in cases like this.
I usually was not a total presumptuous bitch, though, inside or outside. Or was I? Shame swept over me. “I’m sorry.”
He grunted and kept busy uncovering the trays. “I didn’t argue with you. And you were having a shit day.”
“Yeah, I was,” I said, “but that’s no excuse. I really am sorry.”
He shrugged and finished up setting out the trays, but I swore I saw a slight smile on his face before he cleared his throat and looked up at me, clapping his palms together and rubbing them back and forth.
Holy hell, those hands. His fingers looked long and strong, and all I could think about was how they had felt around my waist not ten minutes earlier.
My mind raced as I transferred stack after stack of paper plates and napkins to the long tables in the dining room, where families were starting to trickle in and set up spots for themselves. I ran through the facts:
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