Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 72401 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72401 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Sure, I had friends, but they weren’t him.
I knew I’d be going to dinner with him, too.
“Hey,” Mona yelled, making me stop watching Cleo’s exit.
I turned to find Mona standing at the door to the entrance to the ER with a clip board in her hand. “I have one for you.”
My heart sank.
I was an ER nurse.
Had been for nearly ten years now.
However, I’d only been a SANE nurse for five years, and it never got easier, most likely never would.
***
Rue
Stupid me.
I was waiting for him after work.
However, after waiting a good thirty minutes, it made me realize how much of a fool I really was.
What made me think he’d keep his word?
I walked away from the front doors, weaving in and out of the cars parked in the emergency department’s parking lot.
I was parked in the far back lot.
Employees weren’t allowed to park in the patient parking lot until after six in the evening. However, I never saw the point in going to get my car at six when I left work at eight.
I could barely find time to eat lunch, which I hadn’t done today at all. Why did they think I’d manage to find time to move my car?
I was also allowed to call security to have them escort me to my car, but it was a fuckin’ chore to even find them when you needed them.
It was easier to just walk.
It was dark, though, and we were in the middle of downtown Shreveport; but I hadn’t had a problem yet.
I’d just turned the corner into the very back parking lot, where it was the darkest, when two hands slipped around my stomach, pulling me back into a solid wall of muscle.
I squeaked and started to flail, but one word from that tempting mouth, and I settled. “Chill.”
My shoulders slumped, and my noodle legs refused to hold me up anymore.
I dropped...or would’ve if he hadn’t been holding on to me.
He grunted, but other than that, he didn’t show the strain of holding my body up in the least.
“What’re you doing walking back here by yourself?” He growled against my ear.
I straightened my legs, pushing up until I was standing on my own two feet again, before I disentangled myself from his arms.
“This is where I’m parked. What’d you want me to do?” I asked honestly.
“No one else could’ve walked you to your car?” He asked in outrage.
“The guards were busy doing something, and I didn’t want to wait thirty minutes for them to finally come walk me,” I explained as I walked to my car.
“That’s stupid. Thirty minutes is worth it,” he snapped.
My temper, which only came out to play when I was extremely upset, got the best of me. “What’s it to you, buddy?”
I emphasized that question with a poke to his chest.
He looked down at his chest, and my finger poking it, then back up to my face. “What’s it to me? I’d be pretty fucking upset if you got raped, that’s what I’d be!”
I started walking toward my car with all the speed I could and still manage to look like I wasn’t running away.
Stomach clenched, I said, “Well, you lost that right when you left and wouldn’t return my calls. Maybe if you had at least returned one call to let me know that you were all right, then you’d have that option; but you didn’t, and you don’t. Now, I’ve already missed my appointment. I’ll see you later.”
I didn’t wait to hear his reply. I just got into my car, slammed the door in his stunned face, and backed out of my spot.
I didn’t necessarily have an appointment. More like a dedicated time that I went to visit someone every night after my shift.
I arrived at the nursing home within fifteen minutes, unaware that I had a tail until I was swiping my card at the front doors.
“What are you doing here?” I snarled, trying to slam the door in his face.
“If your plans were with your Nonnie, I would’ve understood and met you here,” Cleo said understandingly, as he caught the door that I’d tried to slam in his face.
I ignored him and kept walking.
Although I tried valiantly, I couldn’t get the image of him burned out of my brain.
He was wearing black jeans that hugged his thick thighs like they were a second skin.
The belt buckle was still the same one he’d worn a year ago. Although I’d never seen him actually ride a bull, thank God, I knew he still loved the sport. Based on his stories and his love for talking about his experiences, I knew it was still very important to him.
His red t-shirt showed off his sculpted chest, and I could tell he was just as muscular now as he was then.
Not a drop of fat could be seen on any part of his body, and that still had just as much power to annoy me now as it did back then.
The black leather vest was new, though.
I’d known he’d been a part of a motorcycle club, but he’d never worn that around me, until today.
“I would’ve told you, if you’d have stayed to listen,” I explained as I walked purposefully towards Nonnie’s room.
“You could’ve called me. My cell hasn’t changed,” he ground out.
The heat of his body at my side felt like I was standing next to a potbelly stove.
The heat emanating off him could keep me warm during the coldest of nights, if my memory served me right.
“Really? And how would I know your number hasn’t changed? I don’t even have it anymore,” I lied.
I could feel his gaze on my face, but I refused to acknowledge the lie that we both knew was just told.
I knew his number by heart. Just like he knew mine.
Funnily enough, what started our whole relationship was our phone number.
One day, Nonnie had given the home health nurse the slip, and gone to visit Papa at the graveyard.
Cleo had been visiting his mother and had found her there.
Nonnie had been lucid enough to give Cleo my number.