The Good Luck Charm(58)

I knock on the door and peek my head in. “Hi, Emery.”

She looks away from the TV in the corner of the room and gives me a small smile. “Hi.”

“I’m Lilah. I’m your nurse, and I’ll be checking in on you this afternoon while you’re in recovery.”

“Okay.” Her eyes have that postsurgery glassiness about them.

“How’s your pain?”

She lifts a shoulder. “I don’t know. Okay? I feel high. Like I’m floating.”

I laugh. “That’s the morphine. If it makes you feel queasy, let me know and I can speak with the doctor about adjusting the dose.”

“I think I’m good for now.” She nods a little, as if she needs to convince herself.

“Your file indicated this happened during a soccer game. Do you play for the college team?” I make small talk as I take her blood pressure and monitor her vitals, giving her something to focus on other than my poking and prodding.

She nods. “Yeah. I’m on a soccer scholarship at the University of Minnesota.”

“That’s great. I went there for my undergrad. It’s a good school. Where’s home?”

“I grew up in Texas.”

“Minnesota is a bit of a change, then, isn’t it?”

“Oh yeah! There’s so much snow in the winter. I’m used to playing outside all year, and here we’re stuck inside for half of it. And now that we’re getting close to the end of all the crappy weather, this happens.” She gestures to her casted leg. “I don’t even know if I’m going to be able to play again after this.”

“You’re young and Dr. Lovely is a fantastic surgeon. The best, really.”

“Oh my God! He’s gorgeous. I can’t even function around him. How do you deal?”

I chuckle. Dr. Lovely certainly isn’t difficult to look at, but he’s a drill sergeant in the operating room and highly professional. “Often he’s wearing a surgical mask when we’re around each other, so I don’t get the full force of those dimples.”

“I think my heart rate went through the roof when he was in here. It was so freaking embarrassing. How old is he?”

“Um, midthirties, I think?”

She gives me a saucy grin. “Hmm. I don’t suppose he’d be interested in a freshman college girl, huh?”

“I can always ask him for you.” I wink. I have no idea what kind of women Dr. Lovely is interested in, but I don’t think barely legal college students fit the bill. Regardless, I like this girl. She’s got sass, especially for someone who came out of surgery less than two hours ago.

She waves me off. “Nah, he’s too old for me. I think twenty-five should be my cap for now. But I’m definitely not into college boys. All they want to do is get drunk and hook up.”

“I’m sure they’re not all like that.”

She lifts one shoulder and lets it fall. “I had a boyfriend for, like, three years, but I got accepted to college out here and he got a scholarship in Texas. We thought we would try to make it work long distance, but my schedule is so busy and it was hard being so far away. So we broke up.”

“I’m sorry. That’s so tough.”

“Thanks, and yeah, it is. Or was. Maybe it still is. He said maybe we could try in the summer when we’re both back home. Like, this was just going to be a temporary break, but, like, less than a week later he started posting all these drunk party pictures where he’s hanging off other girls.”

I feel for her and how difficult that would be to see. “That must’ve hurt.”

She blinks a few times, eyes dropping. “My mom said it was for the best, but yeah, that really sucked, ya know? Like, we were together for all that time, and he couldn’t even wait a week before he was hooking up all over the place and posting it where he had to have known I’d see it.” She presses her fingertips together, studying them. “I wasn’t planning to move back home this summer. I had a lifeguard job lined up here, but now”—she motions to her leg—“I don’t even know how long this is going to be on and whether I’ll be able to keep that job or not.”

“It’s only the beginning of March, so pool weather is still a long ways off. You have lots of time, and there are lots of other jobs if that one doesn’t work out.”

“Yeah. I just don’t want to go home and see him and have to deal with all of it. Relationships suck. I spent this whole year focused on sports and keeping my grades up so I don’t lose my scholarship, and I’ve done well, but, like, sometimes it’d be nice to have, like, a person.” She looks up at me and cringes. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this. You don’t even know me and I’m, like, barfing out my life story on you.”

My smile is genuine. “I don’t mind.” We call it “morphine motor mouth,” and it can be quite entertaining, but I don’t tell her that.

“Do you have a boyfriend? Wait. Can I even ask you that? It’s kinda personal, isn’t it?”

“That’s okay. Yes, I have a boyfriend.”

“I figured. You’re too pretty not to have one.”

I laugh at that. “Thank you. And my current boyfriend was actually my high school boyfriend.”