Talkin' Trash
Page 13

“Go back inside and have someone look at it,” I urged.
“I will,” she murmured. “This day has been just peachy. I swear to God, had this final been my first final, I would’ve quit. I thought nursing school was hard with all the ‘pick the best correct answers’ but swear to God…these are even worse. And honestly, I think the teacher does it just because he can.”
“Teacher sounds like a douche,” I admitted.
“He is,” she agreed. “And he hates you.”
I frowned. “He hates me?”
“Yes,” she snickered. “In class, he always uses you as an example. Like if we’re giving patient A—which is always you—a blah, blah, blah, what would we do in this situation kind of thing. Not to mention on the days that you win, he really comes back in a sour mood. I really do think he hates you. No joke.”
I started to laugh. “Football is a big sport. Some even call it a religion.”
She scoffed. “I’ll see you later. I gotta go get this looked at. It hurts super bad.”
After we said our goodbyes, I contemplated what to do next, wondering if we were too new to be visiting each other at work yet.
Probably.
Maybe.
My phone vibrated in my hand while I was still contemplating my next move. I pulled it out and snorted at what I read on the screen.
Zee: Your girl couldn’t stop looking at me.
Linc: Fuck you. And, just sayin’, you shouldn’t be texting and flying. Especially with a critical patient.
Zee: Not a critical patient. A heart. But same thing. And I’m not texting you, the awesome flight nurse that I work with who is the best ever is texting you for me.
I grinned at that.
Zee: I also didn’t embellish in the least. She’s totally hot, and one day I’ll capture her charms.
I rolled my eyes at that.
Good luck with that, buddy. Zee was a commitment-phobe, and on a good day, he barely even said hello to women.
There were times that I wondered if he was gay with the lack of attention he paid to women, but then there were other times when I’d see his eyes lingering on a certain curvy woman who came to the clubhouse once in a while with her friends told me he did indeed find women attractive.
Not responding to the message, I shoved my phone into my pocket and decided on my next move.
***
I walked up to the security desk and smiled at the oldest security guard on the planet and tried not to walk around the desk to help him when he came to his shaky feet.
“Excuse me,” I said. “But could you point me in the correct direction?”
The security guard, whose nametag read ‘Mr. M,’ nodded his head. “Sure, son.”
“I’m looking for my girl. She’s a nurse in the ER. How would I find her?” I asked, raising my bag of food. “I brought her lunch.”
Mr. M smiled, and I saw a row of straight white teeth that were obviously dentures. They even moved when he started to speak again.
“Right through that door, Linc James. By the way, I think I about shit my pants when you were hurt a few years ago. If I’d been able, I’d have crawled right through that dern TV and ripped that ol’ Merriweather a new one with my bare hands.” He paused. “The code is 0911.”
My eyes widened slightly as he spewed information, much faster than I would’ve expected for a man his age.
Then the grin formed on my mouth. “Thanks, sir.” I offered my hand to him. “And I’m okay now.”
The old man put his frail palm in mine and had a surprisingly strong grip. “Tell Conleigh hello for me when you see her. She’s one of my favorites. Always shares her cookies with me.”
I grinned and dropped his hand. “No cookies in here, though there is cake. I think there might very well be enough for you, but I’ll let her bring it out.”
Mr. M grinned. “She shares her special cookies with me, boy. Go on now, I have to go back to work.”
I didn’t point out that he hadn’t been doing any work when I’d walked in, but instead chose to nod my head and go in the direction he’d pointed me, punching the code in all the while wondering what the hell kind of special cookies Conleigh was giving the old man.
Walking through the door, I came to a stop and took stock of the room that I found myself in.
The area was a large white room with curtains parting hospital beds along the far wall. A nurses’ station was directly to my left, and to my right were the trauma rooms—and the only reason I knew what they were was due to the fact that they were labeled Trauma Room 1 and Trauma Room 2 right beside the door.
There were quite a few people in the area. Two women were sitting at computers at the nurses’ station, and two doctors were also writing something—one of them was Tyson McFuckFace—in patients’ charts.
My eyes did a second scan of the room, and I finally came to a stop at the curtained off bed all the way to the right. Conleigh had a stethoscope in her hand, and she was leaning both fists at her hips as she nodded her head at a patient.
She was wearing navy blue scrubs with bright turquoise tennis shoes. Her brown hair was up in the familiar bun that women could accomplish in half a second with very little effort, and she had a slight smile on her face as she nodded every few seconds.
“Can I help you?”
I looked over to find Tyson glaring at me, and I smiled. “Yes, actually. I’m here with Conleigh’s lunch.”
“You can leave it here,” he suggested.
I wasn’t born yesterday, moron, my look said.
“I’m sure I could,” I said. “But I want to talk to her. I haven’t seen her since yesterday.”
Tyson’s face soured, but it was the woman beside him that caught my attention.
“You’re Linc?” the woman asked.
She had curly blonde hair that reached mid-back, and she had a beautiful face. She was gorgeous.
But…she wasn’t Conleigh.
“Yep,” I confirmed, my eyes going to her name badge on her left breast pocket. “Pru. Pru Mackenzie, by chance?”
The woman beamed. “That’s me!”
I laughed and offered her my free hand. “Nice to finally meet you. Conleigh talks about you all the time.”
Pru’s eyes shined. “Good things, I hope.”
“Well,” I hesitated. “Mostly.”
Pru threw her head back and laughed.
She was really pretty, and when she laughed, she was even prettier.
But, I had a thing for a foul-mouthed little pain-in-my-ass who was in a perpetually bad mood. One with a heart of gold, a killer smile, and a touch that threw me off balance.
“Linc? What are you doing here?”
I turned to find Conleigh hurrying toward me.
I took her in, studying everything.
She had a pen mark in her right hand, and a pocketful of what looked like Band-Aids, alcohol swabs, and pens. It was her eye that caught my attention, though.
I placed the food on the tall counter at my side and walked forward until I came to a stop directly in front of her.
She didn’t back away but looked at me quizzically as I lifted my hand and touched one finger to her puffy eye.
“Looks bad,” I said softly. “Did you get whatever was in your eye out?”
Conleigh grimaced. “I had Dr. Fernaldi look at it. It’s an abrasion on my cornea. It’ll hurt for a few days while it heals.”
“She’s a trooper,” who I assumed was Dr. Fernaldi exclaimed as he too held out his hand to me. “I’m a big fan. It’s nice to meet you.”
I took it, shook it twice, and then dropped it to turn back to Conleigh.
“Ouch,” I told her. “Good thing you have tomorrow and the next day off…is the redness from you touching it?”
She nodded. “It should be all cleared up for the banquet this weekend. Don’t worry.”
That was the last thing on my mind. “I’m not worried about it. You’re the most beautiful woman in the room regardless of what you wear or what your eye looks like, honey.”
The ‘awww’ from Pru, as well as the gag from Tyson, had me grinning at the girl in front of me.