MATHEW
“Why aren’t you on the schedule tomorrow?” Aiden demanded.
Mathew glanced up from his tablet briefly before returning to it and tapping out of a patient’s file. “Because I have several days off banked, and I might as well use them.” The explanation was easy enough, but it was the way Aiden managed to move across the room at lightning speed that threw Mathew off.
His friend’s hand came to his forehead, and a look of shock filled his face. “Are you sick? You don’t feel feverish. Maybe you were abducted by aliens. Or maybe you’re a clone. You’d tell me if you were a clone, right?”
Mathew pushed his friend’s hand from his face with an irritated eye roll. “What’s the problem? You need something from me tomorrow?”
The shock morphed into somethingmore. Mathew would have thought his favorite nurse was having a stroke if it wasn’tfor the fact that he was still alert. Though his left eye had started to twitch a little.
“Aiden?” Mathew tried again.
His friend pulled out a chair and settled into it at the nursing station. “You’re going to marry this girl, right?”
And that was when Mathew would have tripped over his own feet if they’d been walking. He would have choked on air. He would have lost the ability to form words.
In fact, he did.
He blinked at his friend for a moment, and they stayed in that stare-off until a slow smile adorned Aiden’s face. He grabbed Mathew’s shoulder and chuckled. “She’s good for you.”
“What?” Mathew finally blustered.
“The girl who’s responsible for you taking time off.”
“How do you know it’s for a girl?”
Aiden arched a brow and folded his arms, not saying anything.
Mathew shook his head. “Okay, fine. Yeah, it’s about a girl.”
“Well, I’ve never seen you this… at ease. This…happy.”
“That’s not true,” Mathew started to argue, but another nurse walked by on her way to a patient’s room.
“Oh, he’s definitely right,” she said in passing.
Mathew gaped after the woman. She was new enough that he didn’t know her by her first name. How could she possibly know about him?
Aiden chuckled. “Relax, man. It’s a good thing. Your brother and sister think so too.”
That caught Mathew off guard. “You’ve been talking to my siblings?”
He shrugged. “I was at the café the other day to grab a sandwich for lunch. We can all see it. What, like it’s some big secret? You’ve been hanging around your cousin’s farm a lot lately, and we all know it has to do with that mechanic lady.”
“Her name’s River.”
He made a clicking sound with his tongue and pointed his index finger in the air. “And that’s what I thought.”
Mathew’s eyes narrowed, but it was hard to keep his expression irritated when his friend was smiling so broadly. His happiness was infectious.
With a chuckle, Mathew turned away from Aiden. “Well, to be fair, my day off isn’t just to spend time with River. I’ll be having lunch with Jason and Penny. And you can bet I’ll have a word with them about minding their own business.”
“Hey, now, don’t rat me out!” Aiden called after him, to which he merely chuckled.
Lunchwith his siblings was more of the same.
“You’re in love.” Penny pointed a finger at him.
