“Right now, it’s nice to just have someone here. Do you mind?”
“Of course not. Let me…” Iona slid the two computers back into her bag and rustled through the outer pocket of it. She pulled out a plastic baggie of…
“Trail mix?” Sophie said, sitting up. She went through homemade trail mix like a junkie went through crack cocaine. “Oh, my God, you are the best!”
“Figured the food here sucked.” She handed the homemade mixture of nuts, coconut flakes, and raisins to Sophie, who dug in and then shared.
Sophie threw a handful in her mouth just as she remembered how much it hurt to swallow anything harder than a milkshake. “Mmm. The taste is divine.” She chewed and chewed, long after she normally would have swallowed. Finally, she forced the food down, and tears sprang up in her eyes. “I think I’m going to have to save it for later. But thank you. So…”
Sophie took a drink to wash down the pain. Then she endeavored to push all things work-related out of her mind, even though those seemed the easiest to talk about. She’d told Iona to put away work for a reason—even if she didn’t know much about this friend thing her injured brain seemed to be set on. “I’m so glad you came. Turns out hospitals are crazy quiet.”
“Lonely,” Iona said. “I remember from when I had my appendix out in college. Even though it’s always so noisy when you want to sleep—”
“Exactly! Although I didn’t have any problem sleeping yesterday, I guess.”
“That’s good. You needed it.”
“My timing was not good, actually,” Sophie said, thinking about the nameless firefighter and trying to get up the nerve to tell Iona about him. She longed to tell her, but … this sharing concept. It didn’t come naturally to her.
“Oh? What’d you miss?”
“Well, you know I was carried out of the burning building by a firefighter, right?”
Iona nodded and leaned closer, her eyes widening expectantly.
Sophie took a steadying breath, closed her eyes for a moment, and saw … him. “Turns out he’s … oh, my God, he’s so good-looking. And he hung out in my room yesterday. All day. While I slept…”
5
Without opening her eyes, Sophie groaned, wishing the nurse who was grabbing at her hand would give it a rest. She was hospital-ed out. Vital-ed out. Everything-ed out.
“No more,” she mumbled, trying to sink back into sleep. God, she was so tired.
“Hey.”
The voice was a man’s, and his hand was still on hers. Her eyes popped open.
Her firefighter was here again.
Her defenses melted, and she turned her head toward him, grasping his hand, letting her eyes droop shut again. Time passed, and she might have drifted off … maybe for a minute. Maybe for five. When the bed dipped lower on his side by her waist, her brain fired up, and she opened her eyes. He sat on the thin mattress, his butt warm and solid up against her middle in order to fit.
She gripped his fingers more tightly and tried to smile.
“Hi, Sophie. Okay if I move this?” He gestured to the rolling table with her cold dinner on it.
She nodded sleepily. “What time is it?”
“Little after eight p.m.”
Iona had sat with her for the whole afternoon and they’d done something Sophie hadn’t done for eons — watched a movie. A chick flick, no less, just like girlfriends would. And it’d been pretty flipping awesome once she’d relaxed and, well, gotten over herself. Her assistant — friend — had taken off when they’d brought Sophie’s tray full of carbs plus a tiny slab of dry turkey, also known as dinner. Sophie must have crashed not long after picking at the turkey and then pushing the tray away. Her stomach growled now.
The firefighter laughed quietly, and Sophie frowned, embarrassed. “The food here…” She made a face.
“Sucks?”
“I’m sure it’s fine if you don’t mind white grains. Bread. Noodles. Cookies.”
“You don’t eat cookies?”
