Still not his fault.
I know that. Iknowit. But it doesn’t make the sigh rattling my chest any lighter. The ache in my chest any less potent. And I don’t like it. It’s why I need to behere, in this unfamiliar place, starting over for the hundredth time. Because if there’s one thing worse than being dumped, it’s the sound knowledge that the dumper has barely noticed you’re gone.
It’s a reality that weighs heavy on me, and it shouldn’t. Skylar’s a nice person—messed up, but nice. Honest. He told me from the start he was only up for NSA sex, but my stupid heart didn’t hear him. And that’s what I need to take from this—my umpteenth stroll into a brand new place: the next time someone tells me they’re just down to fuck,listen.
Or at least, get in there first. I like sex. And I like not getting hurt. On the off-chance I’m ever brave enough to get nekkid with someone again, I’m setting the boundaries.
The utter brilliance of my internal monologue brings me within sight of the hospital’s main entrance. A huge set of double doors that will take me to the third floor and the HDU ward I’ll be haunting for the next six months. A temporary contract I signed in the dead of night when I’d drunk too much cider and melancholy. To get there, I need to cross the throughway and pass the A&E department which is already spilling out into the taxi ranks and ambulance bays.
I weave through a couple of drunks, about to cross the road, but a lone figure ahead of me catches my attention. A dude with his arm cradled to his chest who nears the A&E doors and abruptly veers away, heading back to the far side of the car park.
I’m pushed for time, and I’ve already wasted most of my day washing my clothes in a local laundrette so I don’t roll up to my new place in the morning rocking hobo vibes. But my gaze follows the man as he comes to a stop and hunches over, bowing his head, and staying my course to the looming double doors ahead is a wrench my soft heart can’t handle.
I dig the hospital ID I picked up a few weeks back from my jacket and let it hang loose against my chest. Then I veer off-piste and stay on the wrong side of the road, catching the tall bloke up as he rotates to lean against a lamp-post, glaring at the misty sky.
The motion makes the hood he’s wearing slip back, revealing his face, and my pace falters, my whole body stuttered by the scruffy perfection of his profile.
Shaggy hair.
Unshaven jaw.
A face tattoo that’s too small and intricate for me to make out, and eyes that gleam in the dark, like a wolf in the forest.
They might be brown, his eyes, but in the murky light, it’s hard to tell, and I’m close enough by now that staring is going to get me in trouble. This fella—he’s pretty—so pretty—but there’s an edge to him I’ve seen in beautiful men before, and I rein myself in, playing nurse instead of creeper, wondering if he’s one of the homeless men I’ve seen sleeping under the bridge. “You all right there, mate?”
Slowly, the man lowers his gaze, gifting me a full view of his face. Of the messy dark hair that falls to his chin, and the tiny ink that simmers below his left eye. “What?”
I gesture to the arm he’s still holding to his chest. “Are you okay?”
He stares, a minuscule frown pleating his brows. As if he’s trying to place me, when I know he can’t. There’s no way we’ve set eyes on each other before. Noway. I’d remember this bloke in a coma. I’d remember hisvoiceas he clips a single syllable at me. “Yeah.”
It takes me a second to remember what I asked him. Then to see through the lie.
The arm he’s holding, it isn’t strapped, and there’s dried blood on his fingers. More than that, as searingly attractive as he is, it takes more than a hard gaze to hide the kind of pain I spend my working life confronting. This man…he’s a lot of things. But in this momentokayisn’t one of them.
“Have you been triaged inside?”
“What?”
“Triaged.” I try again. “So a doctor can look at that arm.”
Seconds tick by, and I begin to think he won’t answer. That I’ll have to walk away on the weakness of his first response and spend the rest of the night pondering his fate.
It’s a road I’ve travelled before, but as I resign myself to it, something seems to shift and he sighs. “Honestly, I’m fucking fine. Just banged up a bit, but it’s better already.”
He gifts me the smallest half grin, and it’s almost enough to dazzle me into believing him, but I don’t believe him. Not even close. He has no intention of going inside, but the fact that he didn’t keep walking before I reached him is clue enough that he knows he should.
I try a different tack. “What happened?”
“Something fell on me.”
“What was it?”
“French oak.”
“A big bit?”
“Lots of big bits.” The man appraises me, taking in the scrubs I’m wearing and the ID I pried free of my jacket. “You work here?”
