“You ever think about leaving for good?” he asks.
I take a drag, let the smoke out slow. “No.”
He waits knowing me all too well.
“Sometimes,” I correct.
Smoke nods, understanding. “That’s the thing about roots. Even when you cut them, they still ache to take hold again.”
I flick ash into the dirt. “You sound poetic.”
“Been riding alone too long,” he says. “Gives you time to think. Dangerous habit.”
We stand there in silence, the hum of bikes and voices behind us, the open road stretching invisible beyond the town limits.
Salemburg holds me. The club needs me. I don’t resent that. But when Smoke kicks off the dust and heads for his bike in a few days, when he throws me a look that promises miles and motion and no one asking where I’m going, something in my chest tightens.
I will stay. For now. But, I’ll keep one eye on the road, just in case.
Smoke rides like he’s got something to prove. Not to me. Not to Country Boy. Not even to Stud and those two seriously have tension and testosterone toying with them every time they are in eye sight of each other. No, Smoke is trying to prove something to the road itself—like if he doesn’t keep moving fast enough, it’ll swallow him whole.
Two
Danae
By hour ten, my feet feel like someone swapped them out for concrete blocks and forgot to tell me. It doesn’t matter what shoes I buy even the fancy nursing shoes, the closer to the end of a shift the time comes, my feet ache. I’m on my final hour of this twelve hour day and absolutely ready for shift change.
The ER never really slows, not in the way people imagine. It just changes needs. Early mornings bring chest pain, overnight dehydration due to illness, or an on the way to work motor vehicle accident. Midday is on the job accidents and stubborn infections. Nights are when the real messes roll in, when alcohol and bad decisions collide with gravity. And kids happen throughout because there is nothing predictable for the life of a parent, that is what nursing has taught me.
Today is all of it. And as the day came down to late afternoon, into dinner, and now the early evening, I feel the ache of every patient I’ve encountered.
I move from curtain to curtain, clipboard tucked against my chest, brain running on muscle memory and caffeine. A teenager with a broken wrist. A man swearing his pain is a ten while scrolling his phone. Is he here to get a fix? I don’t know. It’s not my place to judge. Pain manifests differently in every person. He says his pain is a ten so I will treat him with the proper care. As soon as the doctor orders meds, I’ll make sure he gets them. As a nurse, though, I can’t diagnose him, nor can I put in the order for pain meds, even if the man has already told me exactly what he requires down to the milligram. Beside him, there is an elderly woman who most likely has a urinary tract infection, it’s quite common. I’m waiting on the lab to give me the results and a doctor to order her meds and set up discharge instructions. Every bed is full tonight and the one that hurts the most just arrived about an hour ago. A woman crying quietly because she is miscarrying and she’s alone. Those are the moments that really hurt my soul. Watching anyone suffer alone is hard, but knowing her suffering comes at the loss of an unborn life is a special heartache. The life wasn’t born, it didn’t exist in a physical form, just in her hopes and day dreams of what was to come. And now, she’s facing what never will be.
I chart. I medicate. I smile when I need to and shut it off when I don’t.
“Danae.”
I don’t have to look to know who it is.
Dr. Lucas Reeves, late thirties, good hair, good teeth, and the kind of confidence that comes from being told you’re impressive one too many times. He leans against the counter like he belongs there, coffee in hand, gaze lingering longer than it needs to.
“Yes, doctor?” I ask, keeping my tone neutral as I scan vitals on the screen.
He smiles. It’s practiced. “You’ve been running nonstop. You eat today?”
“I had a granola bar,” I reply. “At noon.” Why does he care what I’ve ingested? My meals or lack thereof haven’t impacted my job performance.
He winces theatrically. “Tragic. Let me take you to dinner after shift. You can tell me how you survive on air and willpower.”
I finally look up at him. “No,” I state simply. Something I’ve had to work on is my instinct to over explain. I don’t owe him a reason. In the past, I would want to justify the rejection even when it isn’t necessary.
He blinks, like he wasn’t expecting that word to exist. “No?”
“No,” I repeat. “I’m not interested.”
The smile flickers. Not gone, just cracked for a moment before he plasters it back on. “Come on,” he says lightly. “It’s dinner, not a proposal.”
“I know,” I reply. “And the answer’s still no.” I turn back to the chart, signaling the conversation is over. Or it should be.
