People were dealing without me just fine.
So I could deal without them.
“If you want to have thriving carnations, I suggest you line them by the hot tub instead,” the woman said.
I furrowed my brow as my ears perked up.
“They could do with a light misting. Those daffodils will get waterlogged and rot after a while.”
Then the front door opened and closed behind her beautiful body as she left.
I wheeled my chair around and watched her figure through the window. The deep sway of her hips and the way her curly hair blew around her shoulders. I wheeled over and pulled the curtain back, shielding my eyes from the harsh sun as she got into her car. Her thick legs carried her tall and confidently, and the toned dip in her waist called to my fingertips.
I watched her get in and drive away before I rolled over to the flowers she delivered.
I reached up and plucked the card from the vase. I smelled the flowers, taking in their delicious scent. I opened the card she kept delivering with the arrangement and took in the cursive handwriting. It was obviously hers. Controlled. Fluid. Feminine.
Like her.
Be honest. Be nice. Be a flower. Not a weed.
-Aaron Neville
I stuck the card in my breast pocket to save for a rainy day. Every arrangement had a different quote about flowers that somehow seemed to reflect our prior engagements. I backed away from the flowers and relegated myself to the fireplace room. I sat with the books stacked along the shelves and closed my eyes, basking in the silence of the room.
I assumed my mother and sister were still bickering.
Pathetic.
My mind drifted back to the woman. Apparently, she had a little more knowledge about flowers than I gave her credit for. The suggestion wasn’t a bad one, and it gave me something to think about.
What would those carnations look like lining the outside of the hot tub?
Maybe I’d give her a call when I was better. Upright. Walking. Able to do the things a man of my prominence should be able to do. I felt the card burning a hole in my pocket, waiting to get back into my room. I had a desk there with my laptop and an entire drawer dedicated to the cards she left me.
For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away.
“Hayden? Hayden!”
“Where did he go, Mom?”
“Hayden! Where are you, sweetheart?”
I cringed at the sound of their voices.
“He’s in here, Mom. Hayden, you can’t roll off like that. You scared the hell out of us,” Cara said.
“Too bad I didn’t scare the shit out of you,” I said. “Because you’re full of it.”
“Don’t talk to your sister like that,” my mother said.
“Then stop arguing all the time,” I said.
“We only want what’s best for you,” Cara said.
“When it doesn’t include my opinion, sure,” I said.
“If you had things your way, you wouldn’t even be doing this follow-up surgery,” my mother said.
“Because I don’t think it’s necessary.”
“Well it is. So hush,” she said.
“Nice to know my opinion holds weight still,” I said flatly.
“Now don’t take that attitude with me,” my mother said. “We’re the ones taking care of you.”
“Ah, and now I remember why I moved out so young,” I said.
“Shut up,” my sister said.
“You first.”
I turned myself around and wheeled into the adjacent room. I had just enough energy to reach back and slam the door behind me. It was a small room. Meant for nothing but entertaining and business. There was a small wet bar in the corner and a few leather couches. The smell of cigar smoke was still thick in here after all these years my father had been dead. The heavy wooden doors cut the room off from the library our house had and it was cozy. A place my father took many of his business associates to offer drinks, cigars, and opportune business connections.
A room that hadn’t been used since he passed and handed the company to me.
I closed my eyes and inhaled the smoke-scented air. It was a smell I’d come to identify with my father. His suits were tinted with the smell of tobacco and he would constantly chew mint gum so my mother could tolerate kissing him after one of those meetings.
Tobacco and mint.
The essence of my father.
I backed my wheelchair into a corner and stared blankly at the bar. I could see him leaning against it, clinking glasses with my mother as the two of them smiled. Happy and in love. Way before my father’s life was senselessly ripped away from us. A damn car accident on the other side of the fucking world. Burst into flames and charred his body beyond reason. We had to fly over there and have the rest of his remains cremated.
There wasn’t enough of him to ship back to have buried.
I was lucky, and I knew that. I was lucky to be alive, much less moving in a wheelchair. But it wasn’t the life I wanted. And I was angry that I couldn’t have the life I wanted. Not without more surgery and twelve other nurses and the bickering of my family and those fucking pity flowers.
My only solace were those beautiful eyes behind the bouquet.
Beautiful eyes that probably sang for another man in bed at night.
A man stronger than me.
A man who wasn’t stuck like me.
Fuck.
I hated my life.
Chapter Four
Grace
I continued to deliver flowers over the course of the next two weeks everyday. For two months, it was six times a week. And now, all of a sudden, it was everyday. The same arrangement with the same flowers in the same type of vase. I wasn’t sure why, but the prospect excited me. Writing that man more notes in the hopes that it was doing something positive for him made me smile. We were having to outsource our orchids from another florist across town, but it was worth it. I’d come in early, pick them up, and get to arranging them along with the lilies and the greenery.
Every day for two weeks.
But this time, things were a little different.
I drove out to the house, knocked on the door, and was greeted with a very tired mother. I’d come to get to know her a bit. Her story and how her son had gotten into the position he was in. She told me he enjoyed the flowers. That the backyard was a passion project between her late husband and her son for almost two years. The flowers in his room and around the house were her way of bringing the outdoors to him since he wasn’t interested in going outside of his own volition.
Which didn’t surprise me.
The man was obviously depressed.
However, when she opened the door she seemed more tired than usual.
“Where would you like them?” I asked.
“I don’t care,” his mother said. “Anywhere’s fine.”
I walked into the house with my brow furrowed. At the very least, his mother always had a smile to offer. A kind word or a thanks. But her shoulders were slumped and her feet were dragging and it seemed as if she couldn’t keep her eyes open.
“Mom? What the hell? Where are you?”
I watched who I assumed was the man’s sister come down the hallway stomping her feet. She looked a lot like him. And like her mother. They both seemed to take after her in all the major features.
I wondered what their father looked like.
“Why are you standing there?” she asked.
I realized she was talking to me and I hurried along.
“Don’t get angry with her. She’s just bringing flowers,” the mother said.
“I need help with Hayden. I can’t get him into his wheelchair,” the woman said.
I felt panic rush through my veins as I set the flowers down on the small table in the foyer.
“What do you mean you can’t get him into his wheelchair?” the mother asked.
“I mean I’m too tired. Too weak. We can’t keep doing this, Mom. The ce
nter hasn’t sent another nurse over and I can’t physically lift him.”
“Where is he?” I asked.
They both turned to me as I brushed my hands off on my shirt.
“Your son. The one in the wheelchair?”
I watched the mother nod as I drew in a deep breath.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“He’s uh… he’s in the dining room. We were doing physical therapy, and he fell,” the sister said.
I rushed down the hallway and through the kitchen and found exactly what was going on. The man was on the floor, trying to pull himself up by his hands on one of the chairs. He was grunting and slipping, trying to get his bad leg underneath him so he could stand.
I rushed to his side and put my arms around him, then centered myself on my feet and leaned back.
“On three,” I said.
“Get the fuck away from me.”
“One… two…”
I lifted them man up and in two strides I had him sitting down in his wheelchair. He was drenched in sweat and his eyes were closed and his hand was planted firmly on my chest. He shoved me away and I stumbled backwards, catching myself on the windowed double doors that led out to the backyard.
I put my hand on my chest where he had touched me and felt the searing heat of his skin against my body.
“Get out,” he said.
“I need to make sure you’re-”
“Get out!”
His voice was booming. It shook me to my core. His eyes were angry and his body slumped in defeat and it made me frustrated with his situation. What the hell was going on in this house? Why wasn’t this man being properly taken care of? I turned my head and saw his mother and his sister standing in the doorway, their eyes wide as they watched the scene unfold.
I pushed myself through them and headed for the door before I felt a hand on my wrist.
“I have more deliveries to make,” I said.
“Can we talk? Just for a second?” his mother asked.
I turned and looked at her. Took in her desperate stare and the way she was already huffing for air. She was exhausted. The bags underneath her eyes told me the story of how long they had been struggling to take care of that man. I nodded my head and she led me into a room. A room full of books and a fireplace.
Then she dragged me into another room that was tinged with the faint essence of smoke.
“Yes?” I asked.
I watched his sister come into the room before she shut the double doors behind her.
“We’ve been struggling to find another nurse to help us out with Hayden.”
“That your son’s name?” I asked.
“Yes,” the younger woman said. “I’m Cara, and this is our mother. Clarisse.”
“It’s nice to meet you both,” I said. “I’m Grace.”
“You picked him up so easily. How?” Clarisse asked.
“I go to the gym everyday. I consider myself to be pretty strong. When you know how to properly squat and deadlift weights, it becomes easier to pick up a man of that size,” I said.
“It’s exhausting,” Cara said. “Keeping up with the things he needs. The showering and the physical therapy. The cooking and the cleaning.”
“Hauling him up and down the stairs whenever he wants to be in a different part of the house,” Clarisse said.
“I can only imagine,” I said.
“The nurses the center is sending over aren’t cutting it. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. It’s hard to find a nurse that will take him on full-time. They’re usually rotating between two or three patients a day. My mom and I are having to pick up the slack, but we can’t do it all. It’s been two and a half months and it’s only making the three of us angrier at one another,” Cara said.
My heart ached for them, but I was also presented another opportunity. I had the credentials to be his nurse. I had the specialty of working with people with disabilities. And the money from being a private nurse would really do me some good. I had a feeling they were unloading onto me because they had no one else to talk to, but I had a solution that might benefit everyone involved.
And get me into the nursing game the way my parents wished I was.
“I’m sorry,” Clarisse said. “We just… you’ve witnessed so much and our son’s been less than hospitable in his actions towards you. We wanted the chance to fill you in on what was going on since you’re sort of around everyday anyway.”
“We know you have other things to do. We just thought we owed you an explanation as to our attitudes,” Cara said.
“We aren’t neglecting Hayden,” his mother said.
“I never thought you were,” I said. “But the truth is, you can’t keep up with his needs.”
“We know,” Cara said. “We’re… trying to find a solution for that.”
“I have a suggestion. If it isn’t out of place,” I said.
“We’ll take anything at this point,” Clarisse said.
“I’m a licensed nurse. And I’m trained to work with people with disabilities like Hayden’s. Recoveries and P.T. and things like that. I go to the gym regularly, so I can physically handle the demands of his caretaking, and all of my extracurricular activities were devoted to psychology classes, so I know a thing or two about taking care of the mental health of my patients.”
I watched their jaws go slack as I drew in a deep breath.
“I could help you guys out during his recovery if you need it. And I don’t come with the added weight of being employed by a center who rotates me through clients,” I said.
I watched the two of them look at each other as my mind began to swirl. I wasn’t sure if I had overstepped a line or anything, but this family all needed someone to lean on. Someone to give them a break. Given the house they lived in and the expensive bouquet of flowers they had on rotation, being their private nurse would pay my bills, give me plenty to put away after paying off my student debt, and give me the ability to travel some in the future. It would be a wonderful move into a career I didn’t think I’d be able to step into right out of graduate school, and part of me was hoping they would offer me the job.
A chance to take a different life path. Though I was going to miss the flower shop if they hired me.
“That’s very generous of you,” Cara said. “But I don’t know if bringing in someone outside of the center is a good idea.”
“You sound qualified, don’t get us wrong,” Clarisse said. “But the center vets these nurses carefully. Background checks. Drug tests. Licensing. It’s safer for us, given our status in the community, if we go through the center.”
I felt myself melting through the floor as I stood there. I was thoroughly embarrassed. Why the hell did I ever think they would take some dinky florist up on some idiotic job offer?
“I completely understand,” I said. “And I’ll be back tomorrow with the daily floral arrangement.”
I nodded my head and walked over to the massive double doors. I didn’t want to be in the house any longer. I felt my hands trembling with embarrassment. Like a kid who had been silently laughed at by all the adults in the room. I threw the doors open and went to take a step, but stopped when I saw the silver leg props of a wheelchair in front of me.
My gaze worked its way up Hayden’s body and found his eyes hooked onto me.
“No,” he said.
I furrowed my brow as his gaze moved over my shoulder.
“She’s not going anywhere.”
“What?” Clarisse asked. “What do you mean?”
“The two of you have been bickering like an old married couple over what to do about a new nurse. So I’m going to settle the argument. She’s hired,” he said.
“What?” I asked.
“You can’t hire her,” Cara said. “She’s… the florist.”
“Who picked me up off the floor without a second wind to give,” he said. “She stays, but I’m leaving.”
“What the hell does that even mean?” Clarisse asked.<
br />
“It means I’m hiring her and taking her back home. With me. I’m not staying here any longer.”
“You can’t go back home, Hayden. You have to stay here so we can take care of you,” Clarisse said.
“No, no, no. Let’s hear him out,” Cara said.
“You don’t live here?” I asked.
He looked up into my eyes as I cocked my head.
“This isn’t my home, no,” Hayden said.
“Then if you’re going to hire me, my first decision is that you get home. No wonder you’re not recovering here. You’re not in familiar territory,” I said.
“Hayden, you’re staying here and that’s the end of it,” Clarisse said.
“Mom, he’s right,” Cara said. “We’ve been overriding his decisions for the past two and a half months. If he wants to go home, who are we to stop him?”
“I’m not giving up on my son.”
“No one’s giving up on me,” Hayden said. “But I’m tired of being here. Of wearing the two of you down. I’m going home and I’m hiring—?”
“Grace,” I said.
“I’m going home and I’m hiring Grace as my private nurse. And that’s the last of this discussion I’ll entertain.”
I watched his mother and sister look at one another. Cara was softening quickly towards the idea, probably out of exhaustion and relief. But his mother looked like she was ready to put up a fight. I stepped out of the room and grasped onto Hayden’s wheelchair handles, prepared to wheel him out if they began arguing.
If he really was going to hire me, then his mental health was just as important as his physical health.
“Fine,” his mother said breathlessly. “That’s… fine. I guess. You should be where you’re comfortable. And if you aren’t comfortable here, then maybe you should be home.”
“I’ll go pack your things,” Cara said.
“I’ll go pull the car around,” his mother said.
I looked down at the top of Hayden’s head and watched as he nodded curtly at his family.
“When do you want me to start?” I asked.
Mr. Beast_An Enemies to Lovers Romance Page 3