After Hours (InterMix)(79)
“I’m not real used to getting the whatcha-call-it. The benefit of whatever.”
“The benefit of the doubt?”
“Yeah,” he said, tossing all the cards in a heap and seeming done with losing for the time being.
“Well, I don’t see how anybody can be expected to get back on their feet, if people keep kicking them when they try to stand up.”
“I guess. But people must f*cking love kicking, considering all the boot marks I got on my ass.”
“Sadly, I think you’re right. Some people do get off on kicking.”
“Thanks for the game, Nurse Downer,” Lee said, pretending—rather poorly—to find my wisdom depressing. He was welcome to the act, if it made him feel safer.
“I prefer Ms. Coffey,” I said, standing when he did. “But anytime you want a game, I’m happy to whup your butt.”
He responded with an eye roll and a “Whatever,” but I knew I had him.
* * *
If part of me was secretly wishing Kelly might initiate another encounter, then I was secretly disappointed.
No catching me after sign-out, no turning up at my bedroom door. No calls. No nothing by the time my next pseudo-weekend arrived after Tuesday’s shift. Not that I had the time. I was babysitting Jack most of the day on Wednesday, and Thursday was for chores—an overdue trip to the grocery store, maybe call some apartment listings and work on moving away from campus. Though I was procrastinating that latter task.
I needed to ask Kelly which neighborhoods to avoid in Darren, and I’d rather do that casually, during lunch on the ward. A phone call seemed too . . . personal. Ridiculous, when what we’d done on his couch and floor and bed had been pretty f*cking personal. But calling him . . . That seemed too familiar, now that we’d sunk so thoroughly back into professional mode. Too normal, when I didn’t want Kelly to become a normal thing. He was what he was, and what had happened had been transcendent. I’d probably even mess up and let him seduce me again, if he hadn’t lost interest. But I would not put myself in a position to start thinking about him like a potential boyfriend.
What we’d had for those two days had left me pretty self-satisfied, the secret wrapped around my shoulders like an invisible mink. Add to that my progress with Lee, plus two perfectly instinctual, by-the-book emergency sedations, and I was feeling damn-near confident. Damn near like I knew who I was, and trusted that I could survive the jungle I’d parachuted into.
I got to Amber’s early on Wednesday, wanting to take her up on an offer to cut my hair before she left to go do more of the same, at work.
She settled Jack on the floor with his trucks and got me ready at the kitchen table, draping a towel around my shoulders. As she finger-combed my hair, I marveled at how gentle it felt, after Kelly’s fists. The entire world seemed softer. Even the ward’s linoleum had looked cool and soothing after the burn of Kelly’s carpet.
“Girl,” Amber said, scrunching my curls, “you are so overdue for this.”
“Tell me about it.”
“What do you want? Anything special?”
“Nah.”
“Something short and trendy?”
“Like our toddler hair stays styled for more than five seconds.”
“True. Something more romantic? I hear hockey fans can’t resist a girl with a mullet.”
I snorted. “Just whatever. Just as long as I can still put it in a ponytail.”
Amber evened out the layers and did that thing with a round brush and a hairdryer I envied. Normal women don’t stand a chance when they leave a salon.
“Thanks,” I called, preening before the bathroom mirror. “Looks great.”
“I gotta take off,” Amber said, leaning in the doorway. “But before I go, I gotta know. Who is he?”
I whipped my head to the side. “Pardon?”
She laughed. “Oh yeah, busted. You only ever say pardon when you’re being extra proper. Overcompensating.”
“Why do you think I met a guy?”
“Because you’re . . . I dunno. You’re all different. You’re even walking like you got laid.”
Fuck a woman so hard she wakes up half-crippled. “How so?”
“I don’t know,” she sighed. “All slinky.”
I brushed past her, heading down the hall. “Well, I’m not seeing anybody, so you’re hallucinating.”