Текст книги "Off Duty"
Автор книги: Sawyer Bennett
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 5 страниц)
Chapter 10
Holly
I flip off the mini-recorder and set the last medical chart beside me on my couch. When I finished my shift this afternoon, I tiredly realized I had been so busy that I had not finished dictating all of my notes for the cases I had handled in the emergency room, which meant a shit pot full of work for me this evening.
But it’s okay. It’s something that goes along with the territory of being a doctor. Your work is seemingly never done, and it’s not all adrenaline-filled cases. Some of it is just plain old, boring paperwork that I’ve come to accept is the trade-off for being able to have a career that I adore.
What would make this evening nicer, even with having to work, is if there was a certain hot firefighter who could sit on the couch with me. Maybe he would be watching sports while I quietly worked, and when I was finished, he would pounce on me. This is a nice dream, and one that I hope will be true one day.
I miss Tim badly. He’s only been gone for two weeks. I foolishly thought for a few days that the ache would subside, but it hasn’t. If anything, it’s grown worse as we bravely find ways to stay connected so that our bond continues to grow stronger. We talk on the phone every day. It depends on when he’s working and when I’m working, but we make it work. We’ve been able to Skype a few times, and I even spent the majority of one of those sessions talking to Sam about how badly he wants a dog but his mom and dad won’t let him.
“Mom and Dad are mean and won’t let me have a dog,” he’d whined to me. I could see Tim sitting behind him, and he rolled his eyes.
“Awww… they’re not being mean, Sam,” I told him empathetically. “It’s just a really hard time now with your dad living in an apartment.”
“But I could walk him every day,” he says desperately.
“But you’re not there every day,” I point out to him. “However, I bet there will come a day when you will be able to get a dog. You just have to be patient about it, buddy.”
It was a fine line to walk—commiserating with him without undermining his parents—but I think I managed well, and his big grin into the camera before he said goodbye to me told me that he really did like me. When he told me he couldn’t wait to see me again, well… that was just the best ever.
And I really enjoyed my Skype sessions with Tim on the nights that Sam stayed with his mom. We had inadvertently ventured into interesting territory.
“I miss you so much,” I whined to him one night. “My poor vibrator is on its last leg.”
Tim groaned, and his eyes were tortured. “Damn baby… you’re killing me here just imagining that.”
“Hmmm,” I mused. “I bet we can do better than just ‘imagining’ that.”
I then proceeded to show him how much I missed him. He, in turn, reciprocated, so I was well aware of how much he missed me.
I contacted a headhunter that specializes in medical placements in New York but so far, there’s been nothing available in a hospital setting. Tim has told me to take my time with my search, but it’s discouraging and I’m lonely, and I really don’t want to wait. I’ve even considered not only private practice, but also perhaps contract work or a teaching post. Anything, really, that will get me back to New York and Tim.
I’ve let the hospital administration at Tulane know of my plans because I don’t want them to be caught shorthanded. I’ve even encouraged them to start looking for a replacement, knowing that I might short change myself on a job here until I can find something in New York. But deep down…there’s a tiny part of me that kind of hopes they do find someone quickly so that I’m forced out. That would mean an immediate move to New York, which is doable for me. I’ve got a healthy savings account, and I could live cheaply there while I continue to look for something. It’s not the ideal situation, but at this point, I’m letting my heart start to direct my moves, which I know isn’t the soundest way to let a major life change take place.
There is one other possibility though.
It’s something I’ve toyed with, but keep rejecting time and time again. However, every day that passes with no job prospects, the idea starts to look more appealing. It would mean reaching past my walls that I erected long ago. It would mean opening myself up to my father.
I could ask for his help in finding me something. He has many prominent contacts in the medical community throughout the city. He has pull and leverage. I could swallow the acid that churns in my stomach over asking for his help, and just bite the bullet to do it.
In fact, I reason to myself, I could even justify it by the mere fact that he owes me. He owes me for all the wretched things he did to Tim and me so long ago, and it would almost be poetic justice if I used him to help me get back to Tim.
Yeah… justice would be served.
Without another moment’s hesitation, I pick up my phone and dial my parents’ number. My mom answers on the second ring. “Hello.”
“Hi Mom,” I say casually, which is sort of hard to pull off. I almost never call them, mainly because my mom still calls me at least once a week, and it lets me feed into the carefully constructed cool relationship I’ve nurtured over the years. This extended naturally to my mother, who not only supported my father when he threw Tim out of our house, but who fought against me tooth and nail right alongside my father when I wanted to leave Columbia. She picked which corner she wanted to do battle in, and it wasn’t mine.
I do believe this may be something she’s regretted to some extent over the years, as she’s watched us all drift further and further apart, but I don’t think she knows how to fix the problem. Hell, I don’t know that it can be fixed, but still… she calls me routinely and I will have to say it’s because of her efforts that I haven’t completely cut ties.
“Holly,” she exclaims happily. “What a pleasant surprise. How are you?”
“I’m good,” I tell her. “Tired… had a forty-eight hour shift and still doing some work. But good.”
“Life of a doctor,” she quips. “It’s the price you pay for being given all that talent and ability.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” I say with a smile on my face.
And then… awkward silence, because I’ve actually forgotten how to make small talk with my mother. At this point, I suppose I could ask her how she’s doing. I could even extend a feeler out to ask how Dad is doing, not that I really care all that much. But honestly… it feels deceptive, so I just decide to go for it.
“Listen… I’ve decided to move back to New York, and I want to know if there’s any pull Dad might have with one of the hospitals that could get me in the door. I don’t care which borough.”
“Oh my God,” my mother breathes into the phone, pure joy in her voice. “That’s wonderful. I’m so happy you’re coming back home. Wait a minute… let me put your father on the phone, and he can—”
“No,” I say quickly. “No, I don’t want to talk to him. If you could just pass it along to him and ask if he can check around.”
“But Holly,” she says admonishingly, “he’s your father. He’ll be thrilled, and this could be a step toward repairing your relationship with him.”
“I don’t want to repair my relationship with him,” I say sternly. “He ruined it by what he did.”
“Honey… that was so long ago,” she chides.
“And yet, it still affects me,” I tell her. “What he did was wrong on so many levels, and never once has he ever apologized. And you know why, Mom? Because he’s not sorry. Because he’s a mean-spirited bully and bigot, and that is not the man I used to look up to.”
My mom actually gasps into the phone, but I work up a full head of steam. “He ruined it, Mom. This is on him, not me. He’s not the type of man I want in my life, and when I get married and have kids one day, he’s not the type of man I want my children looking up to.”
“Holly,” my mom growls into the phone. “That’s enough.”
I take a deep breath and let it out, my anger spent quickly. I pull myself together… attempt to be mature. In a gentler voice, I say, “I’m sorry. Not for the things I said, but that it upsets you. I didn’t mean to do that. But that’s the way I feel, and it won’t change.”
My mom is silent for a moment, and then she says softly, “You might find… if you just gave him a chance… that your father has done some changing. Maybe he has regrets over what happened.”
I scoff. “I’ve not seen that.”
“Because you never give him a chance. You won’t talk to him.”
Guilt courses through me, for the first time since I cut ties. I have always been so adamantly proud of the stance I’ve taken, but is it possible… just possible… that I’ve erected such a barrier around me that I’ve left no room for an opening by which my father could talk to me about this?
The thought makes me a little sick to my stomach. Sick over the thought of actually discussing such an unpleasant subject with him, and sick over the fact that maybe I’ve denied him an opportunity to be forgiven.
Shaking my head, I buck up my resolve and say, “Look… Mom. Just forget that I called. Don’t ask Dad to step in and ask around for me. I’ll figure something out on my own. I need to go.”
“Holly… no, wait. He’d be glad to do it. Forget the other things I’ve said. Let him do this for you—”
“I’m sorry,” I cut in on her. “I really need to go. I’ll talk to you soon.”
I can hear the fading voice of my mom calling my name again as I pull the phone away from my ear and disconnect the call.
For some reason, tears well up in my eyes. Maybe it’s because I’m now thinking about a future with Tim, and with that comes thoughts of a family, and what family really means.
All of my bitter feelings over the years have been rooted in anger toward my father, over what he did to Tim and me. But now, for the first time, I’m feeling melancholy over the fact that I not only lost Tim, but I really also lost my family as well.
Chapter 11
Tim
Fuck, I’m exhausted. We just got back from a 2nd Alarm Assignment in a high-rise necessitating five engine companies, two ladder companies, two battalion chiefs, a rescue battalion chief, a safety battalion chief, and tactical support units.
In other words, it was a major fucking mess.
The good news is that we got the fire contained pretty quickly, although it took the better part of half a day to get all the hot spots fully extinguished. The bad news is that I am so tired as I enter the last day of my three-day shift that I can’t even muster up the strength to call Holly to check in.
Instead, I pull out my phone and send her a quick text. Just got back from major fire. Going to get shower and some shut eye. Will call later.
I set my phone on my rack while I sit down to take my boots off. She usually responds back pretty quickly when she’s not working, and I know she’s off today. We had briefly talked yesterday afternoon when she got a small break at work. The conversation hadn’t gone the way I wanted it to, mainly because I was sitting in the break room of the station house surrounded by four other guys that were watching a baseball game on TV. What I really wanted to do was tell her how much I missed her.
Her smile.
Her laugh.
Her green eyes.
Fucking that gorgeous body.
But that’s so not appropriate in a room full of firemen.
Instead, I let her update me on her job hunt, which had proven to be futile so far. This had been the subject of many of our conversations, and Holly was getting more dejected by the lack of prospects with every phone call we had together. I tried to buck up her spirits, but that was hard because I was fucking dejected right along with her.
But when we talked yesterday, while she still had no good news, she didn’t seem quite as bummed. Instead, she seemed a little chipper, teasing me about wanting to give me some dirty phone sex talk but she knew couldn’t since I was at the firehouse. I grinned into the phone, my eyes cutting around the room at the other guys seemingly interested in the TV, but also knowing they kept one ear on my conversation. I had been quite vocal upon my return from vacation about the amazing woman in my life, and they were always razzing me about her.
Sadly, our call yesterday was cut short by the station speakers crackling to life and alerting us to another fire in progress. I was only able to give her a quick, “I miss you. Talk later,” and then I was running toward the front bay to get suited up.
Holly doesn’t text me back, which has me frowning slightly. The pure exhaustion I was feeling a minute ago is replaced now by an even more desperate need to hear her voice. I flip to my favorites and tap on her name, deciding that I did have time for a quick conversation.
The phone rings four times before going to her voice mail.
Well, fuck.
I set the phone down on the small, square wooden table beside my rack and lay back on the mattress. Shower forgotten, I put my hands behind my head and stare at the ceiling, listening to the soft snores of a few of the guys who already crashed.
I think longingly about the day that Holly will be here, and we can finally start our life together.
“Hey Davis,” I hear from the doorway to our sleeping quarters.
Lifting my head up, I see Butch Heywood, one of my teammates, standing there. “What’s up?”
“You got a visitor out front,” he says and starts to turn away.
“Who is it?” I ask, without any real actual interest, but suspecting it might be this woman, Tashia, I had gone out with on and off over the past year. It wasn’t serious, and we would go weeks without seeing each other, but she would sometimes drop by if she was in the area to check up on me. I haven’t seen her in probably over a month, and of course, there’s no real commitment there, so it’s not like I ever thought to call her and tell her that we couldn’t see each other anymore.
“No clue,” he says as he turns back briefly. “Flynn caught me on my way back to the head and told me to tell you.”
“Thanks, man,” I say and sit up, swinging my legs over the edge of my rack. I stick my feet back in my boots and swiftly lace them.
As I walk toward the front bay, I start mentally constructing what I need to tell Tashia. She won’t be upset or put out, but I still want to be nice and gentle about it.
I push through the swinging door that leads into the bay where we hold the three engines that belong to our company. A quick sweep of the area and I don’t see anyone, but I hear muffled voices coming from the far side of the bay behind one of the trucks.
Walking that way, I hear Flynn’s voice become clearer. “Tim’s a stud. Oh, the things I could tell you about him,” he says with a laugh, and I groan internally.
I do not need him building me up any further to Tashia, especially when I’m getting ready to cut things off. And why the fuck would he do that? He knows how I feel about Holly. Other than Denise, Flynn is the only one that knows what truly went down between us and the entirety of our history. I filled him in on it when I got back from vacation over beer and wings one night after we got off shift.
Rounding the front of the engine, I say before I even see Flynn and Tashia, “Now, quit filling her head with those lies.”
I see Flynn first, his back to me, blocking my line of sight to Tashia. His head turns toward me, and he gives me an evil grin. I glare at him.
Flynn steps to the side, and I turn my face toward Tashia.
Except, it’s not Tashia.
It’s Holly, and my heart almost bursts out of my chest from the sudden explosion of joy with in me.
“Hey baby,” she says softly with a smile.
Two long steps are all I need before my hands are on her face and I’ve got her mouth crushed to mine. I kissed her ravenously… starved for her touch and her taste.
“Geez… get a room,” Flynn says, but then I hear his footsteps receding away from us.
Holly’s hands come up to my wrists, giving them a slight squeeze before she pulls her lips away from mine. I don’t let her withdraw too much though, pinning her with my eyes.
“What are you doing here?”
“Surprise,” she says with a grin.
Too fucking much.
I pull her back to me and kiss her again, this time turning her and backing her right into the side of the engine. Holly purrs into my mouth, and lust shoots through me.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I pull away from her quickly, because I cannot be going there with my mind or my cock. I’m on duty, a fact that makes me hate my job right this very minute.
Giving her a soft kiss on her nose, I release her face and take her hands. “Baby… what in the hell are you doing here? And why the hell didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
Her grin gets bigger. “It would sort of defeat the purpose of a surprise, right?”
Deep, hot kissing is out but hugging isn’t. My arms shoot around her waist, and I pull her into me hard. Putting my face in her neck, I breathe out, “God, I love you.”
Holly’s body jerks in surprise but immediately melts into me further. Her arms grip me tighter… her voice is thick with emotion. “I love you, too.”
It’s the first time we’ve said those exact words since we were eighteen years old, and I realize the power of them is magnified immensely just by sheer virtue of everything we’ve been through to get us to this point in our lives.
I don’t feel a need, though, to make a big deal out of those words. They simply are the truth. Something we’ve both known in our hearts.
Instead, I pull back from her and ask her one more time. “What are you doing here? And how long can you stay?”
“How about forever?” she asks, her eyes shining bright.
“What?” I ask carefully, my breath caught in my chest. Afraid to hope.
“I just had a job interview at St. Joseph’s on Long Island that went amazingly well. So amazing, in fact, that they offered it to me. I start in three weeks.”
My knees almost buckle from the complete euphoria coursing through me. “Please tell me you’re not kidding.”
“I’m not kidding,” she says as she leans back into me.
“But how? How did this happen so fast? We just talked yesterday, and you didn’t say a word.”
She’s quiet… her hands rubbing my lower back. I can sense hesitation in her, so I prompt her, “Holly?”
“My father helped me,” she says quietly.
I pull back from her, taking her by her elbows and leaning back to look at her. “What?”
“He pulled some strings. Got me the interview. I just found out about it two days ago. I didn’t tell you yesterday because I wanted to surprise you with a visit, regardless of how the interview went.”
“Your father helped you,” I murmur in wonder. Clearing my throat, I ask, “He just helped you out of the blue?”
“No,” she says with a wince. “I called my mom and asked her if he would, and apparently, he did. I haven’t talked to him, but she called me with the details and told me they wanted to meet with me right away. I hopped a plane here this morning and just finished the interview about an hour ago. They offered me the job on the spot.”
Shaking my head, my lips curve upward. “This is just unbelievable.”
“I know,” she says with an excited grin. “Three weeks and we can be together again.”
“We’ll need to move out to Long Island. It will be easier on you to be closer to the hospital. I can commute into Brooklyn.”
“You want to move in together?” she whispers, her eyes wide.
“Yeah, don’t you?”
“Well… yeah, but—”
“Sam thinks it’s a good idea, and so do I,” I tell her quickly.
“Sam thinks it’s a good idea?” she asks with a grin.
“Yup, and I’m expecting he’s going to demand we get a house with a fenced-in yard so he can have a dog.”
Holly laughs, wraps her arms around me, and pulls me back down for a kiss. When she releases my lips, she says, “I think we should get the kid a dog for sure.”
I kiss her again… swiftly, because I hear the swinging door bang open and the voices of a few of the guys coming through.
Sobering a bit, I ask her hesitantly, “Are you going to talk to your dad?”
“Yeah,” she says with no hesitation. “It needs to be done. I need to thank him at least, and I don’t know… maybe talk to him.”
“Want to go over there tomorrow when I get off duty?”
She shakes her head. “No, I only have one more day here and I don’t want to spend it with anyone other than you. But I do have an idea of how I want this to go down.”
I look at her in question, but she doesn’t give me anything else. Instead, she steps back into my arms and hugs me with a sigh of contentment.
My life just got very fucking good.
