Page 47 of One Last Summer
I swallowed and finally said out loud the worry that had been plaguing my thoughts for the entire ride. “What if something’s wrong with her, or the baby?”
“Didn’t Nick say the doctors’ initial reaction was ‘very chill’?”
“Yes, but—” I was interrupted by the clank of the passenger door as I opened it, the sound sending Mack bolting out of his seat and around the car to meet me, shoving the door closed behind me with a heft of his shoulder.
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “Gotta add that to my fix-it list. You were saying?”
Streetlights illuminated the pathway to the hospital even though it wasn’t quite dark yet, moths darting in and out of the shadows, getting ready for their night’s work. Somewhere in the quiet, Mack’s fingers laced through mine with a reassuring squeeze that felt intimate in a completely new way. There was nothing sexual about it; it was a gesture entirely intended to be comforting.
“I should have been there to help,” I said finally as we neared the entrance, slowing to a stop underneath the flickering red EMERGENCY sign.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what Sam had said earlier, over coffee. I didn’t want her to be scared—or worse, in pain—and alone.
“Millen, I know you have, like, seventy different superpowers,” he said, chuckling when he caught my eye roll at this. “But I’m pretty sure you’re not a doctor. I know some folks who work here. She’s in good hands.”
I opened my mouth to let the words tumble out—I’d let Sam down by flaking on her, flaking on our friendship, and now what if I’d unintentionally done it all over again?
“Okay,” I said instead, nodding.
Our friends had claimed a corner of the ER waiting room, and were splayed out in dingy, purple armchairs. Nick paced in front of a TV that hung from the ceiling at a precarious angle, showing some sort of home renovation show with the volume off.
“It’s the dream team,” Nick said, forsaking a greeting. “I thought about running down to the boathouse, but I didn’t want to—”
“He was ready to barge in on you naked.” Eloise mustered a tired smile, head nestled on Linus’s shoulder. Her eyes glanced down to where my hand was still locked in Mack’s, before offering up a knowing twitch of her brow at me as I tugged my fingers loose. “We saw you run inside in your underwear.”
“I’d been swimming!” I protested.
“Purely G-rated,” Mack added. He looked down at me, eyes glinting, irises the color of cut grass in the fall. I gave the slightest shake of my head back. An unspoken acknowledgment that things had been much closer to PG-13.
“How is she doing?” I asked, desperate for info about Sam, and also eager to get this conversation away from the topic of Mack and me.
“We were brushing our teeth and talking when all of a sudden she was, like, doubled over,” Trey said matter-of-factly, as even-keeled as ever. “She called her doula, who said she should get checked out by a doctor, just to be safe.”
“So it could be nothing,” I said. I waited for relief to wash over me, but all I felt was nervous tension.
Nick nodded. “Or the baby could be coming tonight. We won’t know anything until she’s been monitored for a bit. So go get some coffee, it’s going to be a long night.”
“You want?” Mack turned to face me, his hand gently coming up to squeeze my forearm. “I’ll go grab some.”
“Yeah, thanks,” I said, folding my body onto one of the stiff, vinyl chairs next to Eloise with an exhausted sigh.
My mind was too focused on Sam to think about much else, but the sensation of Mack’s calloused finger brushing up against my skin just now was a heated reminder of what we’d just been doing.
Eloise patted me on the arm reassuringly. “She’s going to be okay,” she said.
“I know,” I replied, trying to will the words into reality. “But let’s talk about something lighter for a minute. I need to take my mind off of things.”
She shifted like a cat waking from a nap, stretching an arm in the air as she eyed Mack—now deep in conversation with Nick—speculatively, before turning back to me. “Must have been some swim you guys had. Can we talk about that?”
The digital clock on the wall ticked past 11:59 p.m., and I welcomed Monday with a nervous sigh.
I was the only one in our group still awake, going on my third hour of very intense solitaire gaming on my phone. Mack had lasted alongside me until around eleven, fueled by the late-night caffeine boost, but even he had tapped out and was now slumped over next to me with a sweatshirt on top of his head.
His knee was nestled against mine, a shift in his sleeping body made without intention, but it felt achingly familiar, and something deep inside me wanted him to stay like this forever, close by and casual, touching without thinking.
“Who’s here with Samantha Cohen?”
A masked nurse in pink scrubs shuffled out from around a corner, clipboard in hand, looking around the waiting room.
