Forever With You (Silver State Series) (45 page)

A little while later, the band clears the stage for a break.  I turn to ask Toby if he wants another drink and catch him staring after Jenn as she struts off in the direction of the ladies room.  “Why don’t you ask her out, dude?” I say, rousing him from whatever fantasy world he’d slipped into.  “She said she’s here for the whole summer.”

He looks at me as if he thinks I might be testing him, like he’s afraid to agree too readily.  “Really?” he asks.  “That wouldn’t bother you?”

“Why would it?  I’m not her boyfriend.”

“Yeah, but you were.”

“That’s ancient history,” I reply.

“You’re telling me you aren’t interested?” he says.

“Not at all, no.”

He relaxes back in his seat, mulling it over.  “You think on that,” I say, clapping him on the back.  “I’m gonna go for a smoke.”

When I return for the second set, Toby’s all over Jenn.  She pretends to laugh at his jokes, but I can tell she isn’t really interested.  Poor guy.

Chapter 3

Kenna

MY SECOND ENCOUNTER with Linus the Maintenance Guy is two weeks later and happens entirely by chance.  I’m staffing the surgical ICU and the census is low, making for a pretty laidback afternoon.  After lunch I clear out the order queue and do a couple of med recs, then decide to indulge in a break and go for a cup of coffee.  I take the stairs down to the first floor lobby and follow the corridor back to the Starbucks in the northwest corner.  I pay for a tall nonfat caramel macchiato, then step to the side to wait out my order. 

Leaning back against a nearby pillar, I fish the code pager I carry on ICU days out of the deep front pocket of my white coat.  Thankfully there haven’t been any code blues yet today.  Instead, the pager is crammed full of text alerts about Stanley Cup playoffs and Mariners baseball scores.  I roll my eyes and chuckle under my breath as I clear out the alerts, knowing most of them were sent by either Chuck, the ER pharmacist, or Dr. Riddle, the intensivist fellow.

My name is called, and I scoop up my drink, then head back the way I came.  Just as I reach the stairwell, my hospital-issued Blackberry vibrates in my pocket.  “What’s up, Elaine?” I say as I hit the button to answer.

“Do you still have that flash drive with the presentation we put together for the Joint Commission folks?”

“Yeah, do you need it?”

“Do you mind?  I totally forgot I told Dale I’d show him in our four o’clock meeting today.”

“No problem,” I reply.  “I’m just out for coffee.  I’ll stop down there and grab it for you.”

“Thank you, Kenna.”

I tap End Call, then take the steps down instead of up.  I swipe my badge to enter the pharmacy and unlock my office door just as Elaine walks over from the IV room.  She’s a petite woman with sharp green eyes and prematurely gray hair.  Elaine and I became close over the year she served as my residency director; now she’s my boss and mentor.  She was the one who went to bat for me when the other department leaders questioned my ability to handle this job after only one year of experience, and she’s been supporting me without fail ever since.

“Here you go,” I say, handing over the flash drive from the top drawer of my desk.  “You remember the password?”

“I’ve got it written down in my office,” she replies.  “Thank you so much.  Sorry to disturb you.”

“You’re no bother at all,” I reply.  “See you later.”  Elaine hurries out the door, and I exit the pharmacy to resume my post on 3 South.

That’s when I see Linus.  He rounds the corner up ahead and swaggers toward me, looking every bit as effortlessly handsome as he had in my office two weeks earlier.  I can tell the moment he recognizes me, because his mouth curls into a smug grin.

My intention is to say hello.  Unfortunately, the universe has other plans for me.  Before I can begin to process what’s happening, my ankle twists painfully sideways, and I lurch forward, landing in an ungainly sprawl across the floor.  My hands smack against the linoleum as I put them out to catch myself, and my face misses the hard surface by only inches.

I want.  To.  Die
.

Footsteps scramble toward me, and I can feel him leaning over me.  “Kenna?  Are you all right?”  He sounds worried.  Slowly I turn my face and push up on my hands, testing my weight.  My wrists are tender from taking the brunt of my fall, but I’m pretty sure they aren’t sprained or broken.  I straighten my skirt and twist around so I’m sitting on my butt, then look around for a foreign object I may have tripped over.  Suddenly the puzzle pieces fall together: lying on the floor about six feet away is the heel from my shoe.  The damn thing must’ve snapped off.

At last I gather the courage to glance up at Linus.  He looks concerned, but now that it’s obvious I’m not dead, I can tell he’s also trying hard not to laugh. 
Dick.

The hilarity of the situation isn’t lost on me, but something tells me if
I
start laughing, he’ll be unstoppable.  I’m afraid my ego is too fragile at the moment to risk it, so I simply shoot him a cold smile as I kick off both shoes.  “Did you see who pushed me?” I murmur as I cross my ankles and push up to my feet.

“Seriously, are you okay?” Linus asks.  His statement is broken by barely suppressed laughter.

“Oh please, I’ve already done this five or six times today,” I say with a wave of my hand.  I glance at my watch.  “One second faster than last time – I’m getting good at this.”

His tall frame shakes with laughter, but I refuse to give in.  Biting back a smile, I level a glare at him, then pivot to walk away.  Continuing to stand here will only increase the likelihood of further embarrassing myself.

“What’s your plan?” he calls after me as I start to walk away.  “Go back to work barefoot?”

I look down at my red toenails and my splintered shoe.  I really need to leave an extra pair of flats in my office.

“Come on,” he says, catching up to me.  “I’ll help you fix it.”

“You will?” I ask, caught off-guard.  “How?”  He doesn’t answer, so I follow him as he pulls out a heavy key ring.  He inserts one of the six hundred keys in a nearby door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. 

Flipping on a light, he points at an upended cement bucket.  “Sit.”  I do as I’m told.  He roots around in a box and comes back with a small tube of epoxy glue.  “How’s your ankle?” he asks, crouching down in front of me.

“It’s fine,” I say quickly.  My breath catches as he lifts my leg and places my ankle gently in his lap.  When his bare hands cup my foot and slide up my calf, I suck in a sharp breath, causing him to look up in alarm.

“It hurts?” he says.

“No,” I say, abruptly jerking my ankle off his lap and returning it to the safety of the floor.  “Did you say you could fix my shoe?”

His eyes remain fastened to mine for an uncomfortable length of time.  That smug smile is back, and it’s annoying as hell.  I curl my fingertips, clutching the sides of the bucket to keep from slapping it off of him.

“What do you do here, Kenna?” he asks, looking away to pick up the pieces of my shoe.  “You’re a pharmacist, yeah?”

“That’s right,” I reply warily.  “Did you deduce that from the fact that I work in the pharmacy?”

“Your name badge helped, too,” he says.  I’ve only just recovered from the shock of his last touch when he reaches out to rap his knuckle against the “Pharm.D.” printed on my badge, right over my breast.

He goes back to work.  I watch as he carefully applies a thin stripe of glue to the broken heel, then fits it together with the rest of the shoe.  “So how come you don’t have a boyfriend?” he asks, still concentrating on the task at hand.

My initial reaction is another surge of self-righteous anger – but then I recall having
told
him I don’t have a boyfriend.  Just a stupid cat.  UGH, I hate him for remembering.

“I’m hard to handle,” I spit out.

“Oh?” he asks, undeterred.  “And why is that?”

“I think it’s this clown fetish I have.  It’s challenging for some people.”

Even with his face angled downward I can tell he’s smiling.  It isn’t exactly the response I was going for.  “I could see that,” he replies casually.  “I guess that’s probably a pretty limited demographic.”  He blows lightly on the seal, pursing his lips and hollowing his cheeks in a way that’s frighteningly alluring.  This time when he lifts my foot, I don’t have it in me to resist.  “Still,” he says, fitting my toes in the shoe before sliding on the heel, “my hunch is you’d be worth it.”

He winks at me.  That’s right.  WINKS.

A caustic chuckle escapes me.  “You would be right about that, Maintenance Guy,” I say as I shove my other foot in the appropriate shoe.  “As always, thanks for your services.”  I give him a two-finger salute, then walk out the door.

Linus

“REDGRAVE.  PHARMACY.”  Big Mike taps his desk, indicating the blueprint for the renovated pharmacy space.  Apparently the hospital contracted with a construction company based out of Seattle to get started on it sometime next month.  “They need your eyes down there for some wiring stuff.  I told ‘em you know your way around the electrical panels.”

“On it,” I reply.

The pharmacy.  Again. 
Fuck
.

Two days have passed since I rescued Kenna Aldridge from her near death experience.  Everything about our encounter confirms the assumptions I formed two weeks ago.  She’s an angry, conceited bitch with a superiority complex.  She wears nice clothes, presumably because she feels the need to broadcast her exaggerated sense of self-importance.  She probably grew up in the same type of neighborhood I did, but whereas I rejected “the finer things in life” as a result of that pretentious upbringing, she developed a dependency on them.  I’ve seen it a million times.

So then why am I kind of, sort of hoping to catch another glimpse of her while I’m down there this afternoon?  Why have I spent so much time picturing the way she looked with her skirt bunched up around her hips after she fell, or the sinful smirk that touches her lips when she’s preparing another spitfire response to something I’ve said?  And why have I replayed our conversation so many times in my head I could recite it from memory?

There are no good answers to these questions, so I choose not to dwell on them.  Instead, I focus on gathering everything I’ll need to head over to the main building.  Flashlight, tape measure, duct tape, multi tool – that should do it.  I can feel Shayna’s eyes on me as I walk out, so I hold up my hand in a wave.

When I reach the basement, the door that’s typically shut and locked is propped open.  Two men in ties stand just inside with their hands on their hips, gazing up at the ceiling.  “Did somebody call maintenance?” I ask, tapping lightly on the doorframe to get their attention.

“That’s us,” says the taller of the two.  “I’m Todd Cumberbatch, and this is my partner, Greg Sweeney.  What’s your name, son?”

“Linus,” I reply, taking Todd’s hand as he offers it to me.  “You had a question about the electrical system?”

They wave me in and start rattling off details of their refurb strategy, but my mind is momentarily pulled elsewhere.  I can’t help feeling the slightest bit disappointed when we stroll past Kenna’s office.  The door is shut and the lights are out, like she isn’t even at work.

Half an hour later, Todd, Greg and I are standing around a set of lockers in the break room at the back of the pharmacy, talking logistics.  “You’re a handy guy to have around, Linus,” says Todd, clapping me on the back in a way that’s charmingly avuncular. 

I start to respond, but a beep from my radio cuts through our conversation, followed by the squawk of static.  Whipping it off its holster, I bring the radio close to my mouth and press the button to respond.  “Yeah?” I say, wondering whether someone was trying to get ahold of me.  More static.  A second later the little red light next to the antenna goes out.

“Shit,” I mutter.  “Guys, I’m sorry, I just need to run grab a spare battery for my radio here.  Back in five, okay?”

“Take your time,” says Todd.

I weave back through the pharmacy, nearly tripping over a stack of plastic crates on my way out.  It’s clear the department has outgrown its space.  Judging from the crammed aisles and overflowing corridors, this renovation business is long overdue.

The quickest place to find four AAAs is the maintenance closet I took Kenna to a couple of days ago.  When I unlock the door and flick on the light, my gaze immediately settles on the bucket she’d used as a stool.  I don’t linger, however.  I snatch a pack of batteries from a drawer against the back wall and let the door shut and lock behind me.  I’m till busy trying to fit them in the back of my radio when I walk back into the pharmacy and overhear Kenna’s name.

“Did you try that cake Kenna brought yesterday?”  The question comes from a beefy guy with a blond buzz cut.  The badge affixed to the pocket of his blue scrubs says “Scott, Pharmacy Technician.”

“Oh my God,
yes
,” replies another technician named Sandy.  “The chocolate pound cake?  Isn’t it
amazing
?”

I loiter inside the door, pretending to tinker with my radio as I strain to hear. 

“Best I’ve ever had,” Scott gushes.  “I think Barbie almost cried tears of joy when she brought it in.  She’d been having a really shitty birthday.”

“Aww, bless her heart,” says Sandy.  “Kenna’s such a sweetheart.  I hope she’s okay.  Elaine said she had some kind of family emergency.”

“Maybe we should make
her
a cake for when she gets back.”

“Or at least get her a card,” Sandy agrees.

I snap the back on my radio and drop the dead batteries in a nearby garbage can, then walk around the gossiping technicians to rejoin Todd and Greg.  I’ll admit I’m confused by what I just heard.  I’m having a hard time reconciling “sweetheart Kenna” with the cynical bitch I’ve come to know.  Not that baking her co-worker a birthday cake puts her in the running for sainthood all on its own… Still, it’s nice to know there’s some warmth beneath that chilly exterior she seems to wear like a second skin.