Page 21 of Heartsick & Lipsticks
NICK
Construction noisesand traffic hummed in the background as I made my way down the crowded street on my way to lunch. I checked my phone to see if I’d gotten any updates from Gary, the day nurse. I hadn’t. I assumed that meant there weren’t any issues with Naomi. I did check in on her before I left for work, but she was asleep. I wasn’t sure if she was sleeping so much because of her medication, or if it was because of her failing heart, or if it was because she’d been released from prison the day before.
Even though her release must have been something she was looking forward to, I assumed that it must still be a stressful and anxiety-inducing situation for her. I was happy when I saw her smiling and coloring with Bella yesterday. Things were awkward between her and me, but not between her and Bella.
As I crossed the street, my mind drifted to the same place it had been all day. The night nurse, Skye. I wondered if she was at home, asleep. She must be considering that her shift meant she was awake all night. Just like I’d been.
There’d been a pressure in my chest since the moment I’d laid eyes on her. One that I assumed would go away, but it hadn’t. After our 3 a.m. talk, I’d gone to my office and tried to think of other reasons it might be there. I thought it might be due to the stress of moving my mother into my home for her last days and had nothing to do with the hazel-eyed beauty that had nearly brought me to my knees. But that theory lost all validity when I turned around this morning and saw her standing in my kitchen.
Seeing her instantly caused the tightness in my chest to get worse. Her effortless beauty temporarily rendered me unable to breathe as I just stared at her. The only thing that snapped me out of it was the realization that I wasn’t wearing a shirt when I noticed she was staring at my bare chest, and I actually got flustered by it. Me. Nicholas Locke. Flustered. I’d never felt flustered in my life.
I hadn’t tried to give her a gun show. My morning routine was always the same: I worked out, woke up Bella, then made her breakfast, usually shirtless if the shirt was sweaty. Once Bella was eating, I went up and showered. That was what I was in the middle of doing when Bella announced that Skye was going to eat breakfast with us.
Who was this woman who had inspired feelings of protectiveness, rendered me speechless, and caused me to be fucking flustered? Not only that, I’d actually been jealous of how happy she’d seemed when Kurt showed up. I’d almost stopped them on their way out and said that I would drive her home instead of Kurt. If Parker had been there to watch Bella, I probably would have.
What the hell had I done wrong?
What was different about her? Why was my reaction to her so much stronger and so much more potent than I’d ever experienced before? Why was she all that I’d been able to think about?
Objectively, she was gorgeous. Naturally beautiful. But I knew atonof beautiful women. So, what was different about her? The question had barely formed in my head before answers began populating my mind like a computer virus.
Her scent.
Her smile.
Her mannerisms.
Her voice.
Her innocent sex appeal.
Her caring, nurturing nature.
Her confidence.
Her poise.
Her grace.
Her style.
Her style?I questioned. She’d been wearing scrubs with her hair pulled back in a ponytail.
Still, there was an effortless way she carried herself that set her apart from everyone else. Either that or I was having some sort of mental breakdown, and it was presenting as an obsession over Skye. I couldn’t rule that out as a possibility. Things in my life were definitely stress-inducing.
I shook my head in an attempt to clear it of all things Skye-related as I pulled open the glass door to the place that had been my home away from home. The Golden Gate Diner aka the Diner.
I’d been coming here with Alex and Maddox since we were kids. We used to scrounge up change to buy a soda and bottomless fries. At least, we thought they were bottomless. It turned out that Leticia, a server who, over the years, had become like a surrogate mom to us all, took pity on us. If it weren’t for her, we’d have gone to bed hungry more nights than I cared to think about. This place felt more like home than my own home.
“Hey there, Delilah, is our booth available?” I sing-songed the modified lyrics to the Plain White T’s hit song titled “Hey There Delilah” to the hostess named Delilah, who was standing at the podium in the lobby.
A wide smile spread on her face, and her cheeks reddened with a blush. “Yep, and the guys are already here for your SSDC meeting.”
Leticia liked to brag about our success since she’d known us when we barely had two dimes to rub together. Once we all became CEOs, one of the younger, female wait staff dubbed our weekly lunches the Sexy CEO Club. That lasted for a few years until we all became dads and it morphed into the Sexy Single Dads Club. And that had now been shortened to our SSDC meeting.
I walked through the restaurant, and the soles of my shoes squeaked on the black and white tiled floor. Red tufted booths lined the dining room of the ’50s-themed restaurant, and the walls were filled with black and white art depicting the city over the past hundred years. The place was packed with the lunchtime rush of businesspeople and tourists.
Normally, I was the first of the sexy single dads to arrive, but all day I’d felt like I was a beat behind. I wanted to blame it on the arrival of my mother, but she wasn’t where my head kept drifting.
