Page 5
He didn’t say anything and after a moment I looked up at him. He was sitting there studying me. He looked genuinely concerned.
He had really pretty brown eyes. It struck me as weird I hadn’t noticed them the night we met. Maybe the lighting wasn’t as good. I also hadn’t been this close. Or maybe I hadn’t registered how kind those eyes were and that’s what made them beautiful now.
“Nancy left her bag in the trunk,” he said.
“I know.” I sniffed. “I didn’t have your number to call you. Mike isn’t replying to my texts.”
“Migraine.”
“Yeah. I know.” I drew in a shaky breath. “Thank you. You can go home now. I’ll be fine.”
“No.”
It took me a second to register what he’d said. “What?”
“No,” he said again. “I’m staying.” He gazed at me levelly.
I laughed a little, and it completely threw me out of my spiral. “What if I don’t want you to stay?” I asked.
“Don’t care. I took a job. I’m gonna do it. And you can’t fire me. You didn’t hire me, you’re not my boss.”
He got an amused scoff out of me.
“Have you eaten yet today?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No.”
“Why don’t we go get breakfast. My treat.”
“I… I don’t know if I should leave…”
“She’ll be in surgery for at least an hour,” he said.
“How do you know? You don’t even know what surgery she’s having. Unless Mike told you.”
“He didn’t tell me. With prep and recovery, no surgery takes less than an hour. The hospital has a text message notification system for updates. I’m sure they set you up,” he said. “There’s a café just across the street. If they page, we can have you back here in five minutes.”
He waited for my reply.
“I’m hungry but I don’t think I can eat,” I said.
“Then maybe we should just go, sit down in a booth, and rate the bread.”
“Rate the bread…” I said slowly.
“Yeah. They’re a bakery too. We can get a bunch of different loaves and eat them. Rate them from one to ten. When your stomach’s upset, you can always eat bread.”
He looked at me, stone-cold serious.
I let out a breath. “Okay. I have to check the menu, though. I have a nut allergy.”
“Oh. Okay. I’ll do it.”
Then without another word, he pulled out his phone and dialed.
I don’t know why this made me want to cry again. Maybe because I was exhausted and even the small task of making sure the restaurant was safe felt overwhelming to me right now?
I watched him call.
