Sweet Nothing

  "She's off today?" Quinn asked.

  I kept my gaze on Avery. "Yeah."

  "Did you know she would be here? Is that why you spent so much time cleaning out the back?"

  "Maybe." I wiped the ridiculous grin off my face, crossing my arms and leaning against the fender of the ambulance, trying not to look too eager.

  "I thought you could use some lunch," Avery said, stopping a few feet from me. She held out the bag from JayWok.

  I walked toward her, looping my arms around her waist, lifting her feet from the ground and planting a kiss on her lips. She let hers part, granting me deeper access. I groaned, reluctant to pull away. Needing her had become worse, not better, and I wondered if it was normal to feel so desperate for her, a deep-seated worry that we didn't have much time left.

  "Only if you join me," I replied.

  Her smile widened, and she gave a quick nod to Quinn before returning her attention to me. "Of course. Let me go say hi to Deb, and then we can find some shade. It's too nice to eat inside, and we've only got a few weeks of summer left. Might as well enjoy it."

  "Tell Deb I'd like to eat out too," Quinn interrupted. I recoiled watching him wink and then run his tongue over his lower lip. "She'll know what it means."

  Avery made a gagging sound as she walked away.

  I smacked him on the chest. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

  Quinn rubbed his chest, not looking the least bit apologetic. "What the fuck is wrong with you? You've lost your sense of humor. That girl has you wrapped around her little finger, man."

  I watched Avery disappear behind the emergency room's sliding glass doors. I couldn't argue with Quinn. Avery scared the hell out of me, but I couldn't stay away from her, even if a part of me knew it wouldn't end well.

  Before Avery, I'd made mistakes I was too ashamed to ever admit. I knew when I did, she wouldn't look at me the same way. Running my hand absentmindedly over my side, I pictured the large gray door that stood between my future and me only a few short years ago.

  "Brooke!" I yelled, running into the lobby of the clinic.

  Seeing Daniel pacing in front of a door, I knew exactly where she was.

  Daniel took one look at me and shoved his shoulder against my chest, using all his strength to keep me back from the doorway. He was my closest friend, but if he didn't get out of my way, I was going to slam my fist into his jaw.

  "You have to calm down, Josh," Daniel said. "You can't let her see you like this. She needs you to be strong for her."

  I gripped his shirt at the collar. "What happened? I told her I would be back tomorrow. Why? I left for one fucking day!" I stared at the door, knowing I was already too late. My body shook, and I pushed against Daniel.

  He put his hand against my chest and held me back. "Josh, stop. You're going to regret this."

  I looked down and then glowered at him.

  "You're my friend, Daniel, but if you don't take your hand off me, I'm going to break your fucking fingers."

  Daniel sighed. "I can't. You know I can't. If you bust in there now, she'll hate you for it."

  "You think I don't know what you did?" I said through my teeth. "What you're hoping you'll get out of this?"

  I stepped back. I could have easily overpowered him, but I was so gutted I couldn't find it in me to follow through on my threats. Maybe what was really holding me back was what it would mean if I stopped her.

  My face crumbled, and I rubbed the back of my neck. Maybe I was the selfish bastard Brooke had accused me of being.

  "She needs me to be there for her," I said.

  "If you had been, she wouldn't be here," Daniel spat out.

  In one movement, I shoved him against the wall. He tried to push me off him, but I didn't budge.

  A short, squat woman with chains hooked to her glasses touched me on the arm. "Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave if you can't calm down." Her slicked-back bun barely moved when she moved her head. Her matching blue scrubs had been ironed and starched, but the bags under her eyes told a long story of hard work and experience. She wasn't going to allow any nonsense, and even if she did, I couldn't make her day even harder. She was a nurse, just trying to do her job.

  "Keep it down or you'll be sent outside," she said, her eyes focusing on my grip on Daniel. She would keep order, but I could see she was sympathetic to the guilt in my eyes. "Don't make me call security."

  I released Daniel's shirt and shoved him one last time, walking several steps away, breathing hard.

  "I should have left earlier," I said, pacing. "I wouldn't have hit traffic."

  "It wouldn't have made a difference, Josh. She made her decision."

  I thought back over the morning commute back to college after break. An accident on I-95 set me back a few hours. It was stupid, turning off my phone when she was two hours away, scared and pregnant.

  "I didn't get her voicemail until this morning," I said.

  Daniel stopped trying to pretend to comfort me. He was only there for one thing. He wanted to be the shoulder she cried on after she ended the only thing standing between them.

  "We got in a fight," I said.

  "I know."

  "Of course you know," I snapped. "You just loved it, didn't you? Her crying to you about what a selfish jackass I am."

  He didn't respond.

  "I had to clear my head, Daniel. We don't even know each other, and we had a baby on the way."

  Daniel barely listened, watching the door for signs of Brooke.

  "I knew she was just scared. I knew she didn't mean it, but I'm scared, too," I said to no one. Daniel had turned his back to me. "I wasn't sure if I could handle this. I was terrified something bad was going to happen ... to her and the baby ... because of me. Because of my past. I'm a fucking tragedy magnet, you know that."

  "Ironic, isn't it?" Daniel said, all pretenses vanished. "You ran because you were scared of something bad happening to them. Now Brooke is behind that door, doing something she swore she couldn't do. You look away for a second, and someone dies. Just like Kayla."

  "Fuck you," I said, sinking down on my haunches. I hung my head in my hands as I thought about the disastrous visit with my parents. I'd gone home to take a break from Brooke and the mess I'd created. Instead, Mom and Dad yelled at me for an entire evening. They'd said they didn't blame me for what had happened to Kayla, but I could see it in my mother's glassy eyes and smell it on her whiskey-laced breath. I'd managed to ruin everything for everyone who got close to me. I was fucking cursed.

  "I just need to see her," I pleaded to the nurse.

  She looked down at me, sad. "I'm sorry, I can't allow that. Family only." Her painful words were cut off by the door opening behind her.

  I quickly pushed to my feet as Brooke came into view. Not so long ago, we had been strangers. The past two months had been a crash course of getting to know each other once she told me she was pregnant, and that the baby was mine.

  Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, her platinum hair mussed. Her russet irises fell on me, and she wrapped her arms around her waist.

  "It's done?" I asked, feeling the blood drain from my face.

  Brooke nodded, a fresh sob racking her body. I wanted to wrap my arms around her, but it felt too familiar for two people who'd spent one drunken night together.

  "I had to do it, Josh. I'm not ready to be a mom."

  I nodded, linking my fingers behind my neck and blowing out a long breath. There was a lot I wanted to say. I couldn't understand how she could be so impulsive, why she didn't wait for me to call her back so we could discuss it, but I wasn't angry. We had both been so scared, and now I wasn't sure how to feel. She'd made her choice, and neither of us could take it back.

  I watched, helpless, as Brooke fell into Daniel's arms. Daniel's. He'd made sure it was him she ran to for comfort, and I stood there alone, feeling like I'd stepped into an intimate moment between them that I had no business interrupting. Perhaps I didn't. Daniel had told me after I'd
slept with Brooke that he'd been in love with her since high school. When I told him the news about the baby, he had gone to her and promised to stick around, no matter what I decided.

  Brooke's cries from the night before rang in my ears. She had said she didn't know me, didn't trust me, and she was at home worrying about the future while I was busy trying to deal with my own feelings about it all. She was right, and I couldn't blame her for saying it out loud.

  Brooke's knees buckled, and Daniel held her, stroking her hair. He looked at me as if he felt I was intruding, too.

  "Should I go?" I asked Brooke.

  She turned to look at me, her cheek against Daniel's shoulder. "You're free, Josh," she said, sniffing. "We both are."

  The sliding doors opened across the lot as the air whooshed, and Deb slipped outside, smiling brightly at Quinn.

  I was gripping the JayWok bag so tightly in my fist, my knuckles hurt.

  "You all right, man?" Quinn asked as he stood at the rear bumper of the ambulance.

  "I'm good." I turned my attention back to Deb. "Where's Avery?"

  "She's talking to Dr. Rosenberg."

  My body moved toward the door of its own accord, but I stopped as the doors opened. Avery stepped out, laughing as she glanced back over her shoulder to Doc Rose, who followed closely behind. His palm was pressed against the small of her back as they walked, but she didn't seem to notice, or maybe she didn't mind.

  When the doctor saw me, he smiled, laughing to himself as if he'd won. My blood boiled in my veins, and it took serious restraint not to take that first step, because after that, I knew I wouldn't stop. They separated, him heading toward his car and Avery in my direction.

  "Hey," Avery whispered as she met me in the center of the lot. She pushed up on her toes to kiss me square on the lips.

  I hoped she had done it on purpose, to show us all who was the friend and who was more. Her gesture helped my anger dissipate, and I looped my arm behind her back, lifting her from the ground, deepening our kiss.

  Setting her back on the ground, I chuckled, watching her cheeks burn with embarrassment.

  "What was that about?" she asked.

  I shrugged, glancing over her shoulder at Doc Rose, who was yanking open his car door and slipping inside, clearly irritated. Fucker.

  "What's that?" I asked, glancing down at the book she was clutching in her hand.

  "Oh, it's just a book Rose was telling me about."

  "Really?" I took it from her hand, flipping it over to read the back. What kind of stupid shit is this? "Looks good. Mind if I read it?"

  "You read?" Her eyebrow cocked up as she eyed me suspiciously.

  "What kind of uncultured swine do you take me for?"

  "Does it have anything to do with the pissing contest you have going with the doc?"

  "Hungry?" I asked, changing the subject.

  She pulled her mouth to the side, likely deciding if she was going press me further. She nodded, her high ponytail bobbing behind her. "Starving."

  "You are insatiable."

  "Have I told you it turns me on when you use big words?" she asked.

  "You should see the other big things I use," I said, handing her the white sack.

  I groaned, stretching my back at the end of my long shift. I couldn't wait to see Avery, but I had a few errands to run. I glanced at the book that had been sticking out of my glove box for the past two weeks. It was about time I got it back to Doc Rose. That asshole had been doing everything he could to get closer to Avery. I could only ignore it for so long. When he had put his hands on her hips from behind, it had taken all I had not to kick his ass all over the emergency room.

  I had somehow kept my cool. I couldn't afford to lose my job and lose Avery in the process. If Doc Rose wanted to play dirty, I couldn't let him play alone.

  I turned up the radio, drumming my fingers against the steering wheel as I headed up I-95 North toward Alapocas.

  I didn't have much of a plan. My only goal was to remind the doc that he had just as much to lose as I did, whether he realized it or not. He had stopped pursuing her weeks ago and had begun to enjoy the arguments his flirtations would spawn. I'd dealt with his better-than type my whole life, but I'd be damned if I'd let him destroy what I had with Avery.

  I parked along the curb of Doc Rose's house, killing the engine as I looked over the brick shaker-style home that I'd seen so many times dotting the Pennsylvania countryside. I'd pictured Rose in one of those Victorian-style homes that overran the squares in Gettysburg, but I was surprised to see that his home was much more modest.

  I watched a light in the upstairs flick on, illuminating a silhouette before turning off. The entire downstairs seemed to be lit like they were having a party. Part of me hoped they were so I could out his slimy ass in front of all their uppity friends, too.

  "Your electric bill must be fucking outstanding," I grumbled to myself as I opened my car door and made my way up the extra-wide sidewalk leading to a small, sloped entranceway.

  I knocked, glancing around. As the sun sank below the buildings, the neighborhood was cloaked in darkness, making my visit feel even more ominous.

  The door opened to reveal a woman, smiling with curiosity in her eyes and wrapping her thin, Robin's-egg-blue sweater across her torso.

  "Can I help you?" she asked as the sound of something electronic caught my attention behind her. I glanced down at the young teenage girl, who rode up behind her in a red electric wheelchair. The woman shifted her body to block my view.

  "Are you lost?" she asked.

  I swallowed hard, regretting coming to Rose's home.

  "Is it the pizza?" Rose's deep voice called from behind his wife as he stepped forward, rifling through his wallet and pulling out cash. When he finally glanced up, the tiredness in his eyes was immediately replaced with alarm.

  The moment I saw the fear in his eyes, my regret melted away. This motherfucker was guilty.

  "Josh." He tried to hide the surprise in his voice by clearing his throat. He clasped his hand down on his wife's shoulder. "I got this, hon. Josh is a colleague." He pressed his lips to the top of her head as she slipped by him. The daughter followed her mom further into the house while Doc Rose closed the door behind him.

  He looked down at the book in my hand, nodding slightly.

  "I don't know what Avery has said to you, but I'm sure she has the wrong idea."

  I swallowed back the apology and the guilt I'd felt for showing up at his home. "What does she think is going on, Doc?" I asked, gripping the book tightly to keep from punching him in his smug face.

  "Avery is a nice girl. She's sweet and young, and she looks at me like I'm somebody special, not just the guy who plays nursemaid at home."

  "You want pity now? Is that it? Man the fuck up. Whether you see it or not, you have a life most have only dreamed of."

  He scoffed, shaking his head. I knew guys like him didn't expect to struggle, but no matter where we came from, life was cruel. I knew that firsthand. Bad things happened to good people, and sometimes, God liked to shine his magnifying glass down on the biggest ant just to watch it squirm.

  "Sometimes it's hard to see the silver lining," he said.

  "You have a wife, children, a home, and a six-figure salary. What more could you possibly want?" I tried to keep from raising my voice. His jaw tightened, and I widened my shoulders at the silent exchange between us. "Avery is off the table."

  He smirked. "Is that a threat, Josh?"

  "No. You won't be a very good doctor if you have two broken hands." I slapped the book against his chest. "That's a threat." I held his gaze for a moment longer before hurrying down his sidewalk and into my car. I needed to see Avery or I was going to lose my mind.

  Just as I stepped out onto the sidewalk, a golden leaf drifted from the maple tree that stood in front of my building, and rested on my sneaker. I pulled my scrub jacket tighter around me, looking for Josh's car. He'd just dropped me off from work, and then said he'd b
e right back, but he'd been gone for half an hour, and the sun was beginning to set.

  Glowing Jack-O-Lanterns flickered on our stoop, and plastic ghosts hung from the trees lining our street. Night clouds were beginning to build in the west, making the breeze feel colder. Halloween was approaching, one of my favorite seasons, but fall felt wrong this year. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but even with the chill in the air and the spooky decorations, I felt time slipping away from me.

  An older car slowed to a stop in front of me and honked. The lime green practically glowed against the thick black stripe down the side. The car looked angry, and strong, and bright enough that no one would accidentally run into me again.

  Josh killed the motor and then jumped out, grinning from ear to ear. "She runs!" he said. He patted the black hood with the palm of his hand before jogging to where I stood on the sidewalk. He squeezed me to his side, staring at the beast of a car like a proud parent.

  "It's great," I said.

  He turned to me, his eyebrows pulling together. The adorable double lines between them made me a little giddy. We were at that phase where every little thing he did was magical, and for the most part, he could do no wrong, but now he was looking at me like I'd just eaten his last favorite cookie.

  "Great? She's yours, Avery. I've been working my ass off to get her ready for you."

  "Mine?" I said in disbelief.

  "I do not appreciate your dubious tone," he said, still frowning.

  I reached up to smooth out the lines I loved. "You showed me an avocado-green beater. This is a shiny, um ... what is it?"

  "This, my adorably clueless lady, is a 1970 Dodge Challenger in Sublime Green. A nice step up from the baby-shit color of your last car that was left smeared on the highway, I may add. She just needs a name."

  "This is ... this is too much."

  He placed his hands on my cheeks and kissed my forehead. "Sweetheart, for the bargain price of three ninety-nine and free labor your rather dashing, brilliant mechanic boyfriend gifted to you, this shiny Dodge fucking Challenger is yours."

  I turned toward the Challenger in disbelief. "Stop. This isn't funny."

  "I told you that you'd have wheels by your birthday, didn't I?"

  "But ... my birthday isn't until next week," I said, still lost in utter shock and awe. I'd been a little down about the approach of my mid-twenties, but Josh standing in front of me, giving me the best gift I'd ever been given, trumped the pang of turning twenty-five.