A Really Bad Idea Page 18

  Everything that has happened between me and Christian has moved so fast. That’s what happens when you’re around a man with a magnetic field as strong as Christian’s.

  When we pull up to my building, he tells the driver to wait and steps out of the car, giving me a hand to help me out. I walk toward the entrance, but he pulls me back. This time, his arms envelop me into a tender embrace. I drop my shoulders and fall into his wide expanse with my head in his chest and my hands gripping his back.

  “We did it,” he says as he moves my body, so we’re face-to-face.

  I laugh lightly. “We did.”

  He places a knuckle under my chin and pulls my gaze to his. “I don’t know what to do next.”

  My heart comes back up to the forefront and flutters. I’m happy to feel those flutters again because I was starting to think I’d gone stone cold. “You and me both.”

  As he holds on to me with his strong arms, I move my hand to his chest and play with the lapel. He seeks my attention again.

  He rests his forehead against mine and confesses, “I’ve always been flirty with you, but this is intimate.”

  “You don’t regret it, do you?”

  His eyes widen as if I insulted and shocked him at the same time. “Never. Not even a thought. Do you?”

  “No,” I answer quickly. “My only regret is, I didn’t plan what comes next.”

  He laughs and kisses me on the forehead. “We’ll just be us,” he says with a shrug. Like it’s perfectly natural. “If we start overthinking things, we’ll risk becoming something we’re not, and I don’t think either of us wants that.”

  I take a deep, deep breath and exhale loudly. “Us,” I reiterate. “I wouldn’t want to be anything else.”

  “I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

  “If I’m around,” I say as I step out of his embrace and walk toward the door. “I’m a busy woman.”

  He places his hand over his heart and appraises me. “Spin class, grocery shopping, catch up on your shows. I’ll call when you’re a box of Kleenex deep while watching This Is Us and drinking bad wine.”

  “You’re so smug.”

  “That’s why you love me.” He winks and walks around the door to get into the cab. “Now, walk inside, so I know you’re safe.”

  “Don’t wait until I’m in the elevator. I think you’re giving Sal a complex, making him think he’s not fit for the job.”

  “That’s a lie, but I’ll meet you halfway and drive off once I know you’re in the lobby.”

  I give him a captain’s salute and walk inside the doors where Salvatore is standing and walks me to the elevator bank. I look back and see the cab drive away. I feel the smile on my face.

  “I take it, you had a lovely evening,” Salvatore says as we wait.

  “I did. Thank you.”

  “You are positively beaming.” His words give me pause. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think that doctor of yours is your sweetheart.”

  I shake my head in dismissal. “That would be wishful thinking on your part.”

  The elevator doors open, and I step inside.

  “Shame. I’d like to see you with someone who puts a smile on your face, Ms. Duvane.”

  “Me, too, Sal. Have a good night.” I hit the button for my floor, all the while thinking about how easily I could fall in love with Christian Gallagher.

  Whoever says sex doesn’t change things has never gone to bed with their best friend.

  “It began with searing chest pain, and then I felt pressure in my sternum,” Mrs. Lerry, a patient of ours, explains when she walks into the office.

  I pull out my stethoscope and listen to her heart. “And now? Where’s the pain?” I ask in a calm voice.

  “It’s spread to my arms and back.”

  I look at the woman standing before me. Mid-fifties and fit from being an avid runner. Her color is a bit sallow. She has high cholesterol that we treat with medication.

  “Why didn’t you go straight to the hospital?” I ask and escort her to a room in the back. As we pass Angela, I instruct her with urgent eyes, “Get Dr. Gallagher Sr. into room two.”

  I make Mrs. Lerry comfortable on the examination table.

  “I thought it was heartburn, but it hasn’t stopped. I didn’t want to go to the emergency room and waste everyone’s time, only to find out it was something minor,” she explains as I get the electrocardiogram machine, putting the tabs onto her chest to take a test.

  “I’m glad you came in,” I say, not showing I’m certain the woman is having a heart attack.

  She grabs her lower back and inhales.

  “On a scale of one to ten, how’s the pain?” I ask as the machine’s line jumps, showing me her heart is under stress.

  “Six?” she says like it’s a question.

  “We’re calling an ambulance to get you to St. Xavier,” I state.

  Her eyes widen. “Don’t do that. I can walk myself over.”

  With a shake of my head, I admonish, “You are in our care now and have to follow my orders. You’re having a heart attack, but don’t worry; you’re in great care. The ambulance will ensure you get right up to cardiology without having to wait in the emergency room.”

  As the words come out of my mouth, the door opens, and Thomas walks in. His eyes go straight to the results of the electrocardiogram. I grab the phone from the wall and call over to the hospital to have them send over an ambulance.

  “I eat right, and I exercise. I’m a runner,” Mrs. Lerry gasps, astonished, now clutching her side.

  “The body works in mysterious ways. We’ll get a CT scan at the hospital to rule out artery dissection, and we’ll go from there. I’ll follow you over and be with you every step of the way,” he assures her as he lays a hand on her leg. “You will be okay.”

  “Did I wait too long? I thought it was heartburn, maybe even an ulcer. I’ve been sitting like this for hours. I only came in because you were closer than my internist.”

  “You have a strong heart and the best in the field looking after you,” I say.

  There’s a knock at the door, and then it opens quickly. The two EMS workers are here to take Mrs. Lerry to the hospital.

  “I have to call my husband,” she says while we unhook her from the EKG.

  I hand her, her bag where she takes her cell phone out and scrolls through the screen. She’s adamant she walks herself to the ambulance. Thomas gives the okay.

  It takes a moment for her to walk hand in hand with the EMS team to the ambulance where they secure her to the gurney, close the doors, and take off down the street.

  I’m on the sidewalk, seeing Mrs. Lerry’s ambulance drive off, and Thomas comes out with his suit jacket on.

  “Good work, Meadow.”

  “I think it’s spontaneous coronary artery dissection. Who’s the thoracic surgeon on call today?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m headed over there. I should be back within the hour.”

  He walks away, and I head back inside, realizing my own chest is pounding. Heart care is boring some days and intense others. It’s so intricate; my hands feel tied half the time.

  As a nurse practitioner, there’s only so much I can do for a patient. Thomas is a cardiologist, and he can’t even operate. There’s a different surgeon for arteries and valves, and even those specialize in different techniques.

  When I chose to study cardiology, it was because the heart was the most important organ in the human body. You can live without a spleen, stomach, a lung. Hell, you can survive with half a brain. The heart is the strongest and most vital.

  It’s rare we have a patient come in, having a heart attack. To say my nerves are rattled would be an understatement. I feel it down to my toes. I don’t know how Christian operates every day. He’s literally held on to a beating heart and hooked it up to a heart and lung machine, working on the human body and sewing it back together. Surgeons don’t get nearly enough credit for the miracles they perform.

 
; “That was crazy town!” Angela exclaims when I walk to the reception desk and look at the chart for my next patient.

  “I can’t believe doctors do it all day in the emergency room. All I did was perform an EKG and call an ambulance, and I’m fraught with worry.”

  “Fooled me. You were as cool as a cucumber.”

  “On the outside.” I rub my chest and shake away the rush going through me.

  “Despite the nerves, you did everything right. I didn’t even think Ms. Lerry looked sick. You took one look at her in the waiting room and knew something was off. You should be proud.”

  “Thanks,” I say and take the chart for the next patient. I call her name to follow me, leaving Angela as I head to the exam room.

  With Thomas out for the next hour, I have to see his patients and hope nothing major develops. One patient has an arrhythmia, so I ask her to sit tight to wait for him. The next three are routine checkups I’m able to handle on my own.

  When I bring my stack of files up to the front desk, I notice a large vase of red roses hiding Angela. When she peeks her head around the petals and gives a devilish grin, I don’t have to ask who the flowers are for.

  “You can argue with me all day that sunflowers mean friendship, but red roses? Girl, you will lose this argument badly.”

  I hold out my hand because I know she has the card in her possession. She forks it over with a sly smile.

  It is just a simple statement—Love, Christian. His handwriting, not called in over the phone.

  I drop my elbow to the desk and cover my face with my hand. He’s not making this easy. I don’t mind that he is sending me flowers. It’s a sweet gesture from the consummate gentleman. I just wish he’d sent them to my apartment.

  “He’s away this week at the heart valve symposium giving a lecture about the breakthrough technologies in noninvasive heart procedures,” I say in explanation.

  “And thinking of you.”

  “Did you know he’s one of three surgeons in the world performing a new valve replacement procedure using a transfemerol approach?”

  “Did you know he’s sending you roses to the office like a love-swept boyfriend?”

  “Can we talk about something else?” I plead.

  “No. And you’re going to tell me all about the gala over lunch.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t leave.”

  The door to the waiting room opens, and Thomas walks back in. I stand up straight, eager to know the prognosis of Mrs. Lerry.

  “You were right. Spontaneous coronary dissection. She’s in surgery now,” he says.

  I’m relieved Mrs. Lerry is getting the right care. I give him the rundown on the patients I saw while he was out and let him know about the one waiting for him in the back. He gives a sturdy head nod and pats me on the back, his way of saying I did a good job.

  As he walks away, he glances at the vase and grins, making him look just like his son. “Two-dozen roses? I taught my boy right.” He walks away with a proud look on his face.

  I cringe at the fact that he knows so much. I lean forward and hit my head against the reception desk.

  Angela’s laugh echoes the thumps of my head.

  “You are so screwed,” she says.

  Oh, she has no idea.

  “Now, take me to lunch.”

  We head to Starbucks because all I have time for is a grab-and-go lunch. I eye a few of the cake pops in the glass case but decide against it and get a protein box.

  “I saw Sexy Nurse Natasha at the gala,” I tell her as we wait to order, hoping no one can hear me over the names being called out and the serene-sounding coffeehouse music on the loudspeakers.

  “Give me the dirt! She looked beyond hot, didn’t she?” Angela says. Her giant cat-eye sunglasses make her already small face look extra tiny.

  “So hot. Like Midtown Barbie.” It’s my turn to order, so I do so. “Grande, skim caramel latte.”

  “Venti, dirty chai,” Angela pipes in. “Dirty chai for a dirty girl.”

  I roll my eyes and give the barista our names. Then, I pay for our drinks and boxes. “Anyway, she cornered me and warned me of Christian’s bachelor ways.”

  “As if you didn’t already know. He’s a hot-as-fuck doctor. If he were celibate, I’d be concerned.”

  A spark of jealousy hits me at her observant yet truthful comment.

  We move down the line to the pickup counter and wait for our drinks.

  I get bumped in the side as someone grabs a to-go order and continue, “Anyway, I assured her I was not there to be romanced.”

  “You’re so full of shit,” she says, and I give her a sneer. “I know; I know. Just friends. Yadda, yadda, yadda.”

  “She seemed concerned. Told me he would use his tried-and-true moves to get me into bed.”

  Her shoulder rolls with the question, “So, did he? Use his moves to get you into bed?”

  “No.”

  It’s not a lie. He didn’t use his moves to get me into bed. He used Backstreet Boys.

  “What’s so funny?” she asks as I chuckle to myself.

  “Nothing. It was an interesting night.” I’m still laughing as she looks at me with a puckered mouth. “Oh, relax. I was home before ten.” I turn away from her look that tells me she doesn’t believe me when I see someone standing by the store’s entry, and my stomach drops. “Oh my God.”

  Angela turns around in the direction I’m looking. “What’s the matter?”

  “Brock,” I state as I stare at my ex-husband, who’s in the order line, talking to a petite brunette with perky boobs and a crop top.

  “Who’s Brock?” Angela asks.

  “My ex-husband.”

  She shoots back at me with a surprised squeal, “You have an ex-husband?”

  I nod toward him as he steps up to the register to order. I know from years of living with him that he’s asking for a venti iced coffee with milk and three pumps of vanilla.

  Angela turns around and lowers her chin to get a good look over the top of her sunglasses. “You mean, the pale Jason Momoa over there is your ex?”

  “Yes.” I try to turn away, but it’s no use.

  For all the times I’ve avoided the television when a game is on or looked away when I saw a sports article, I seem to be making up for lost time with the way I’m taking him in. He’s still as large and empowering as ever with his thick neck and wide back. His chestnut-colored beard is long yet trimmed, as it is this time of year. It hides his mouth, which is a shame because he has a really nice smile. Those dark eyes I used to stare at every day are winking at the girl taking his order.

  “He looks familiar,” Angela says.

  “He plays for the Islanders.”

  “I’m all about basketball, but hockey just might become my next favorite sport. Why did you break up?”

  “He cheated on me.”

  “With her?” Angela’s tone of admiration has changed into a girl who looks like she’s about to cut a bitch.

  I grin at her turn of attitude. “No. I caught him with a ginger-haired Canadian. He gets around. I heard he’s dating a Victoria’s Secret model.”

  “She’s definitely not a VS girl. I’d know,” she says. “Sorry you were married to a scoundrel. I had no idea.”

  “Meadow. Venti caramel latte,” the barista shouts out.

  I raise my hand to take my drink. It shouldn’t surprise me that, since I have a unique name, paired with the order I’ve had since I was twenty-five, the call gets Brock’s attention.

  His eyes jump to me, and the smile he had a moment ago has now fallen. He doesn’t look sad or angry. Just shell-shocked, like a man who has seen a ghost.

  Angela takes her drink, and I usher her to walk away before Brock can make it to us. There’s another entrance that will lead us to the side street, so we make our way for that one.

  We’re not fast enough.

  Brock’s hand is on my shoulder, his grip calling me back.

  “Meadow,” he says.
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br />   I turn around. This is what I’ve been avoiding—looking at Brock. As much as I hate him for being a disgusting pig, I can’t help but feel that pang. It’s why I keep the albums in my nightstand. The memories of us are etched into the fiber of my being. I can’t erase Brock. Not with all the Johnnie in the world.

  “How are you?” His interest keen.

  “Good,” I answer. “You look good.”

  Believe me when I say, out of all the times I envisioned seeing him again, my first words were not going to be, “You look good.”

  “I was gonna say the same thing. About you. You look great.” His eyes roam over my face, probably taking in my hair that’s a little longer and lighter and my cheeks that are a bit thinner. “How are your parents?”

  When we were together, family functions were the bane of his existence. Asking about their well-being wasn’t one of his good traits.

  “They still hate you.”

  He flinches. “And you?”

  Me? What does one say to their ex-husband who they haven’t seen since signing the divorce papers a year ago? I still hate what he did. I hate how he took our vows and tore them into the bedsheets. I hate the fact that the life we planned is now not going to happen.

  And yet I’m confused. Confused because, for the first time, I’m wondering if it was a blessing in disguise. This notion is so foreign that I don’t know how to process it, so I don’t. I look toward the brunette waiting for Brock, holding their coffees, and then behind me to Angela, who is glaring at Brock from beneath her sunglasses.

  “I have to get back to work,” I say as I walk to the door. Because, really, what else is there to say?

  “It’s been a crazy week of late-night office hours. I haven’t even gotten my nails done,” I say to my mother on the other end of the phone.

  She’s been talking to me for twenty minutes about the new spa she goes to where they have a five-hour revitalization package.

  “Don’t let your eyebrows go. They get bushy. I blame your grandmother.”

  “Why do you always blame my negative attributes on the Duvane side of the family?” I ask. My hands are in a sink of soapy water as I clean up from dinner.