“Can I borrow your truck, Hank?”
“Uhm, yeah, sure…” Hank patted his side pockets. “What do you mean, exactly? You’re headin’ down there?”
“Yeah,” Finn nodded, reaching for the keys that Hank was dangling in front of him. “I’ll go give him a hand. I fixed the screwdriver already. Good as new.” Strange how Finn’s lips were moving, but Hank had trouble recognizing the words and the sudden authority surrounding the man standing in front of him. Suddenly, his posture was all different, his shoulders straight, his eyes focused.
“Thanks,” he smiled at Hank, before zipping up his coat and slinging the scarf around his neck. “I’ll just meet you at the diner later, okay, Hank?”
“But…” In a flash, Finn turned on his heel and jogged towards the garage doors.
“Hank, what’s going on?” Henry spoke from the other end.
“Uhm, I’m not quite sure, but Finn’s comin’ to help ya.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks,” Henry rushed out like it made perfectly good sense. “See you down at the diner, then.” Hank was left with the phone in his hand, his mouth slightly agape as he watched Finn press the button of the automatic doors.
“But Finn…” he yelled over the sliding, rattling sound. Turning around, Finn smiled at him before he slipped out the door. Turning around mid-run towards the truck, he waved at Hank, his glasses slightly askew.
“It’s okay, Hank,” he called out. “I’m a nurse.” Then he turned around, threw open the car door, and jumped in. The truck sprung to life, Finn still waving at him like some mad small-town Clark Kent, and then, in a flash, he was gone, the crushing sound of gravel all that was left.I’m a nurse. I’m a nurse. What the hell?
“What was that about?” Colton placed a hand on his right shoulder, staring after the truck that had left deep tire tracks in the snow.
“I’m not exactly sure.”
“Where’s he goin’?”
“He… uhm… he was gonna go give Henry a hand at the clinic,” Hank mumbled, the truck disappearing behind the tree line at the end of the snow-covered dirt road.
“Oh, okay. Everythin’ okay?” Colton squinted.
“Yeah, I think so,” Hank nodded, Finn’s departing salute going on repeat in his head.I’m a nurse. I’m a nurse.Okay, then.
Chapter Eighteen
Finn
Now
“So, meanwhile, Brutus the Brute is humping Finn’s leg like a seventies porn star on Viagra, and Finn’s trying to nudge a frantic Lulu inside the carrier,” Henry giggled through his recount of what had gone down at the clinic. Finn was finishing up his stack of pancakes, trying to soak up the last of the syrup with a side of praise, his cheeks flushed crimson from all the attention that this morning’s chaos at the clinic had brought on.
“Lulu is Mrs. Oakley’s cat, right?” Colton spoke around a mouthful of bacon, gazing at Henry with stars in his eyes like he was the second coming of… everything. No one had ever looked at Finn that way, that was for sure. Well, not aside from Cara.She always used to look at him like he was fucking everything. Aside from that last time he’d seen her, all small, pale, and broken in that hospital bed, her complexion competing with the white sheets. He hadn’t been able to read her expression then, her eyes red-rimmed, lids swollen from crying. Sadness perhaps. Or defeat. Her blue eyes had haunted him all the way to Nevada, into the vast expanses of the dry Mojave Desert, and further into Arizona like an unwanted travel companion.
“Yeah,” Henry chuckled, and even Hank, who’d been mostly silent throughout lunch, seemed to soften from the veterinarian’s boyish charm. Combined with his melodic laughter, he was pretty adorable and if Finn had been into the wholesome type, he might’ve been smitten too. “The cat has an infected paw and if it hadn’t been for Finn distracting her with some salmon treats, I wouldn’t have been able to disinfect it properly, that’s for sure.” He nodded in recognition at Finn, who kept his gaze down, fixating on his now-empty plate. The food at Tilly’s was divine, Vernon an undiscovered culinary wizard, cooking up a storm every day. It mostly sounded like he was fighting in there, loud banging noises and muffled curses drifting through the doors, the occasional “Til!”thrown in with an “I’m okay!”after a particularly earsplitting crash.
“So, a nurse?” Tilly beamed like he was a regular Florence Nightingale while pouring Henry another cup of coffee. “We sure could use a medical professional around here.” She threw a quick glance at Henry. “Not that you’re not one, hon. You’ve been doin’ a stellar job at doctoring all the folks around here.”
“Yeah, but it’s not really my field of expertise, Til. I’m with you there,” he said, nodding. “And you should’ve seen Finn. He was amazing, like a real pro.” Turning towards Finn, he smiled. “Well, youare. A pro.” Finn’s cheeks were positively on fire by now as he mumbled a low “thank you,”throwing Hank a quick glance. His landlord still seemed somewhat stunned from thismorning’s revelation that Finn was a nurse, not as talkative as usual around Tilly.
“What kinda nurse are ya, then, sweetheart?” Tilly tilted her head, resting her bony forearms on the counter.
“Uhm, I’m an ER nurse.”
“Oh, my,” she cooed. “That’s fancy. ER nurse. Ain’t that somethin’, Hank?” She did look rather impressed, perhaps thinking of that famous TV-showERand that yummy silver fox, George Clooney, that all women had been moaning about when it aired. His mom one of them, much to the chagrin of his dad.
“I don’t know,” Finn replied. “I’ve never really thought about it one way or another. It just always appealed to me to be frontline like that. You know, to be there when patients first come in.” He didn’t mention that being a nurse was plan B. Not that he was heartbroken about it. Well, not anymore. He had been at first, of course, when any hope of becoming a fighter pilot was crushed during the preliminary health check. But he’d long reconciled with the fact that plan B would have to do, and, in the end, it had become his passion—working in the hectic ER, never knowing what you were met with. “It’s a meaningful job, I guess, though I haven’t worked as a nurse in a while,” he shrugged.
Tilly nodded ceremoniously, soaking up every word spilling from his lips like it was the holy sacrament or something.
“Well, I think it’s an honorable profession, young man,” she reached out and squeezed his shoulder, a moist sheen to her eyes. “We sure could use someone like that around here. Why, remember just last spring when Glenn got his hand caught in that saw? Blood everywhere, Glenda yellin’ and howlin’ like a mad cow. We sure could’ve used an ER person around here, instead of young Henry here goin’ all the way into Whitney with him. Gettin’ your truck all messy and such, didn’t ya, hon? Didn’t they end up flyin’ him to Chadron?” She paused briefly for air before continuing, not waiting for Henry to answer. “Didn’tmake that man any prettier, no siree, but at least people look at his hand now instead of that huge forehead of his.”
