by Ava Conway
As the last ripples of my orgasm faded, Flynn propped himself on his elbows and brushed a stray hair from my temple.
“Mia,” he whispered.
“Yeah?” I asked, refusing to open my eyes.
“We need to get dressed.”
I cracked open my eyelids. “Now?”
“Now.” He kissed my forehead and sighed. “We’re in your office, for Christsakes.”
Reality came crashing down like a bucket of ice water. Fuck. What had I done?
“Playtime’s over.” Flynn slid out of me, took care of the condom, and began to dress.
I propped myself on my elbows and stared at him as my mind tried to process what had just happened. “Playtime’s over? Is that the best you could come up with?”
He shrugged as he buttoned his pants. “What do you want me to say? We both got lost in the moment.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I straightened into a sitting position on the desk. “ ‘That was fantastic, Mia’? ‘Earth-shattering’? Hell, I’d settle for ‘I really enjoyed it.’ ”
Flynn glanced at me. “I really enjoyed it,” he deadpanned and went back to his buttons as if nothing had happened.
“That can’t be all. Jesus, Flynn. I know you felt what I felt. Don’t try to deny it.”
“You’re not thinking, Mia,” he said as he closed the distance between us. “Of course I liked it. Hell, I loved it. I’d do it again now, if I could.” Pain washed over his features, then was gone. “We can’t keep doing this, though. It’s too dangerous.”
I stared at him as he handed me my shirt. “So what now, we just go back to being patient and intern?”
He shrugged. “I see no other way around it.”
I knew he was right, but it still hurt. I let out a long breath and pulled my shirt over my shoulders. “I don’t know if I can do that.”
Flynn rested his hands on the desk at either side of my hips. “You have to.”
“There has to be some other way.” I cupped his face with my hands. “You’re the first good thing that has happened to me in a long time. I don’t want to give it up.”
He hesitated, then slowly raised his hands until they covered my own. “I don’t want to give it up, either.”
“So where does that leave us?”
He stared at me for a long moment before responding. “You have to let me go, Mia. I’ll only ruin you.” He planted a chaste kiss on my lips and turned toward the door. “I have to go.”
“You keep saying that, but I don’t think it’s true.”
He hesitated over the door handle, then turned to face me. “It is true. I’ll ruin your career.”
He was right, but for some reason, that didn’t seem as important as it once did. “Life is messy,” I said, quoting his own words. “Sometimes you have to put yourself out there to truly live.”
“Mia, you don’t know what you’re saying.”
I let out a long breath. “Maybe not. I don’t know.” What a mess. Flynn was right; we needed to think about this, but thinking was so hard when all I wanted to do was crawl back into his arms once more.
I was all confused. For so long, all of my efforts had been going toward my degree and this internship. Now that I had it, I felt . . . unfulfilled. There was something missing from my life plan, something important. Flynn filled that.
“Okay, we’ll think about this,” I said. “Think, but not give up. There has to be some sort of solution.”
“Yeah.” He closed the distance between us and brushed his lips against mine. “We’ll think of something. As long as no one finds out about this, everything will be okay.”
He started to pull away, but I grabbed his sleeves and pulled him back. “I hope so.” I meant to give him a quick kiss, but the feel of his lips against mine made me want more. The kiss deepened, and our tongues dueled. When he finally pulled away, we were both panting.
“Yeah.” He brushed his thumb against my cheek. “We’ll figure something out.”
He pulled out of my embrace and I let him go. As the door closed behind him, the heavy veil of reality closed over me, causing me to panic.
What had I done? Not only did I put my own future in jeopardy, but I put Flynn’s in jeopardy as well. As I cleaned up the floor and desk, the walls started to close in around me with the weight of what had just happened.
I glanced up at the clock and noticed that it was still a few hours until quitting time. I needed to get out of there, though. I grabbed my things and straightened my clothes, making sure that my mask of professionalism was firmly in place. Once I settled my nerves the best I could, I opened my office door and stepped into the hall.
The hallway was busy, but that wasn’t what caused my feet to freeze to the floor. Across the hall I found Johnson watching me. There was something in his eyes. He looked a bit too confident, a little too smug.
Clearing my throat, I nodded to him.
“Isn’t it a little early to be heading home?” he asked.
“Yes. Well. I have an appointment.”
He nodded and flashed me a knowing grin. “McKenna has that effect on people.”
I tightened my grip on my briefcase. “Excuse me?”
“I saw him go into your office.”
I lifted my chin. “We had an appointment.”
“I’m sure you did.” He pushed himself off the wall and closed the distance between us. “Tell me Ms. Horton, do you have many appointments with Flynn? Alone? In your office?”
Oh, God, did he know? I wanted to say something, but he was advancing so quickly, I couldn’t think of a proper retort. Before I realized what was happening, my back was against the wall and Johnson’s face was inches away from my own.
“Is Flynn the only one you have appointments with, or do you have appointments with other patients, too?” He brushed his fingers over my bare arm. “How about staff members? Do you have appointments with them?” He leaned in close until his lips were inches away from my ear. “Would I need to make an appointment, Mia?”
“N-no.” My heart beat double time as he backed away. “We didn’t have an appointment. I don’t make appointments with patients. Dr. Polanski does.”
“But you just said that Flynn had an appointment.”
Shit. “I was mistaken. He just stopped by to say ‘Hi.’ ”
He nodded as a slow smile spread over his lips. “He just wanted to say ‘Hi.’ ”
“Yes.” I straightened off the wall and gripped my briefcase with both hands. “Good night, Johnson.” As my heels clicked over the polished floors, Johnson’s voice rose behind me.
“Good night, Ms. Horton. Just remember, if you need anything, I’m only a few doorways away. Feel free to stop by—you don’t need an appointment.”
My steps quickened as I went over the time Flynn and I had spent in my office. How loud were we? Did Johnson hear us?
No, he couldn’t have known about Flynn and me. Johnson was a bully who liked to torment others. It wouldn’t surprise me if he had been the one who had sneaked into my office and stolen my stuffed bunny just for fun. That was the type of guy he was.
If someone like Johnson knew what Flynn and I had just done in my office, he wouldn’t hesitate to go directly to Dr. Polanski with it. He’d want to use the information to leverage certain perks on the job.
Unless it wasn’t job perks he was looking for.
I hurried to my car and slid into the driver’s seat. Closing the door felt like sealing myself off from the rest of the world, and I was grateful for the reprieve.
Letting out a long breath, my thoughts drifted back to the common area and how Johnson had asked me to go out with him. Tears stung my eyes as I turned on the ignition and pulled out of the parking lot.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. I banged the wheel of the car as I drove the short distance to my apartment. Why did I have sex with Flynn in my office? He was a patient. What I did was against hospital rules. If anyone had heard us, I could get in serious trouble.
; Somehow I managed to hold the tears back as I pulled into my parking space at home and headed up to my sanctuary. As I climbed the stairs, I thought of Johnson’s greasy hands touching my arm in the hall outside my office. I felt the bile rise in my throat and swallowed it back.
Somehow I managed to make it into my apartment and lock the door. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I went to my bedroom, threw myself on the bed and cried into my pillow.
For the second time that day, I really missed Freckles.
SIXTEEN
Two Weeks Later
AS I walked into the small diner, the first thing I noticed was how bright and cheerful everything seemed. Vibrant posters and prints dotted the mint green walls and square, wooden pillars. The booths were covered in a retro tan-and-red-checkered pattern, and the mismatched memorabilia seemed to be of the same vintage as the Elvis Presley music playing in the background. Friends, couples and families crowded into the booths and tables, all chatting and smiling as if they didn’t have a care in the world.
And I supposed they didn’t. They had no idea of the drama going on at Newton Heights Psychiatric Hospital. Those couples didn’t have to sneak around, or bury their feelings in public. They could just sit there, out in the open, and be normal. It was so hard not to be jealous.
I scanned the room, taking in all the cheerful faces, and felt oddly out of place. It was almost as if I didn’t belong in this world. I was just an observer, a voyeur. It struck me that the more time I spent with Flynn and the rest of the patients at Newton Heights, the less I felt at home in the real world.
“Mia!” Lucy rose from a nearby booth, a large smile on her face. I shook off my odd sense of detachment and went to hug my friend.
“So good to see you,” I said as she enveloped me in a bear hug.
“You, too.” Lucy’s warm embrace felt good, really good. Initially after her accident, she had pushed me away. I tried not to take it personally—she was going through her own struggles and pushing her other friends away as well—but I had always felt that she and I had shared a special bond since we were roommates and had to deal with Bethany’s special brand of craziness. Lucy’s rejection had hurt, but as she healed, our relationship healed as well. Now it was as if our relationship had never faltered, and I really looked forward to our monthly breakfast dates at the diner close to the halfway house where she lived.
A waitress came and took my order—coffee and a frosted pastry—while Lucy sipped from an oversized mug.
“All of that sugar is going to kill you,” she joked.
I shrugged and pulled out three white packets from the sugar dispenser. “At least I’ll die happy.” The waitress came back with my coffee. I dumped the sugar into the mug and added extra cream. “So how have things been going?”
“Pretty good. Jayden is out buying furniture again. He says he wants everything to be perfect for when I get out.” She scrunched her nose.
“So he still wants you to move in with him?” Jayden had left his own halfway house two months ago. He had gotten a steady job working at an animal shelter and was renting a condo on the outskirts of the city.
“Yeah.” Lucy scrunched her nose. “He talks about it almost as much as he talks about getting a dog. Not that I hate dogs, but . . .”
“They remind you of your parents.”
“Yes.” She ran her finger absently around the rim of her mug.
“What?” I asked as I leaned my elbows on the table.
“Things just feel so normal. It’s almost as if I’m waiting for something bad to happen and screw everything up.”
“Nothing will get screwed up. Jayden loves you. You’re perfect for each other.”
“Yeah.” Her worry dissolved into a smile. “He’s so thoughtful and sweet. Without him, I never would have adjusted so quickly to living outside the hospital.”
“That’s great.” I pushed aside the pang of jealousy that stabbed my chest. Lucy had been through a lot and deserved this. I was happy for her. She was a true success story and an inspiration. It was my life’s dream to help others achieve the success she was able to gain on her own.
People like Flynn.
Lucy took another sip from her mug. “There’s just one little problem . . .”
“What?” I asked when she didn’t continue.
She sighed. “Jayden’s tastes in furniture are just a little different from mine.”
“Too masculine, huh?”
“Yes.” The tension left Lucy’s shoulders as she giggled. “Sometimes it’s a little much.”
“You can always add pink or something when you move in.”
“Ew, not pink.” Lucy sipped from her mug. “But you’re right. The place is nice, but it could definitely use a woman’s touch.” She leaned in and flashed me a knowing smile. “He doesn’t know I’ve been taking notes.” She tapped her temple. “I know just how I want to redecorate.”
I laughed as the waitress brought our breakfast. It was so good to see Lucy happy. I stared at my pastry as Lucy pushed her yogurt and granola around in her bowl.
“But enough about me,” Lucy said. “How are things going with you?”
“Fine.”
“Everything okay with the internship?”
“Sure.”
“Your family?”
“Doing great.”
Lucy put down her spoon. “Mia, come on. Something’s bothering you.”
“Nothing’s bothering me. Why do you ask?”
Lucy smiled. “I’m your friend. Besides”—she pointed to my plate—“you’re not eating your pastry.”
I looked down at my plate and saw the little bits of pastry, all lined up in rows. “Oh.” I popped a piece in my mouth. “Yeah, I guess you could say that there’s a lot going on in my life right now.”
I told her about Dr. Polanski and my assignment, and about how I suspected that a relationship was blossoming between Nesto and Iris. I told her about Elias and Carter, and my uneasiness around Johnson and his buddy Everett.
“I never liked them,” Lucy said. “I don’t know how they got their jobs at Newton Heights. They’re probably the least compassionate people I know.”
I agreed.
“How about Flynn? Spend any time with him?”
I hesitated, wondering how much to tell her. Things were complicated and I wasn’t sure what her reaction would be.
Lucy put down her spoon and wiped her mouth with her napkin. “Come on, Mia. This is me you’re talking to. What’s going on?”
I took a deep breath and pushed my pastry aside. “Okay, but you have to promise not to tell anyone.”
Lucy made an X on her chest with her finger. “Cross my heart.”
In halting speech, I told her about my relationship with Flynn. While I didn’t go into details about what happened in my office, or how we had been sneaking up onto the roof of the outpatient building every chance we got to further explore our physical connection, I did tell her of my growing feelings for him, and how I feared those feelings might ruin my internship. I had to stay away from him, but I couldn’t seem to stop searching him out whenever possible.
“Perhaps your subconscious is trying to tell you something.”
“What?”
Lucy picked up her spoon and pushed her yogurt around in her bowl. “In therapy, I learned that our subconscious often knows what we want, and will influence our conscious actions without us realizing it.”
“So you think that subconsciously I want to take things to the next level with Flynn?” I took a sip of coffee as I mulled the words over in my head. While what we did was fun, we were both careful not to talk about the future. We were living in the moment, but I knew better than anyone that moments never lasted forever. Eventually my internship would end, and we’d have to start thinking about what would happen when I went back to school.
“Let me ask you this—do you really want this internship?”
“You know I do.” I ran my fingers over the handle of my cup as I talke
d. “I’ve been working toward this internship for months. Studying mental health is my calling.”
“Mental health, yes, but long-term-patient care?” Lucy dropped her spoon and leaned back in her seat. “It can be rather . . . intense. Most of the staff don’t have families or relationships because they work long hours and are on call all the time. A few of them, like Johnson and Everett, have developed a warped view of reality.”
“You don’t think I can handle it?”
“I didn’t say that. It’s just . . .” Lucy tilted her head to the side and studied my face. “I know how a place like that can suck the life out of you. When you first walked in here”—she shrugged—“there are other ways to help patients. That’s all I’m saying.”
“You think that I subconsciously searched out a relationship with Flynn because I don’t really want to work at Newton Heights?”
“Well . . .”
“You think I’m using him?” I frowned. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Maybe.” She leaned her elbows on the table. “How far are you into your project?”
“I’m still reading the files.”
“So you aren’t even up to speed on the backgrounds of these patients? Lucy, it’s been like a month.”
“Five weeks.”
“Exactly my point. What have you been doing?”
Watching Flynn. I let out a long breath. “Point taken. I’ll think about it.”
Lucy smiled. “That’s all I ask.”
We moved on to the latest celebrity gossip, and the drama going on behind the scenes of our favorite reality television show. By the time we rose to say good-bye, I felt a lot better.
“Next month?” Lucy asked as she gave me a hug.
“Same place,” I said. “I’ll give you a call and check about dates.”
“Just text me when you’re available. I have a feeling your schedule is more busy than mine.” We said our good-byes, and as I got into my car and made my way to Newton Heights, Lucy’s words rumbled through my head. There are other ways to help patients.
Of course there were other ways to help patients. I learned a lot about different jobs in my courses. It was just that I had chosen this route because I saw how much it had helped Lucy. I felt that if I could help people recover like she did, I could really make a difference in people’s lives. I could have purpose.