Page 25 of Heartsick & Lipsticks
I threw in a load of laundry because I’d worn my last pair of clean scrubs last night. It was taking all my willpower not to think about Nick as I grabbed the onion and put it on the counter. I was mid-chop when the front door opened, and my mom walked in.
She seemed surprised when she saw me in the kitchen. “Oh, you’re up.”
“I am.” I continued chopping and didn’t look up at her.
“I’m sorry about Craig. He didn’t tell me he was coming over.”
Everyone told me that teenage girls were the worst, but I felt like I’d had a lifetime of experience dealing with one. I doubted Callie could come up with any excuse I hadn’t already heard from Lola.
“You didn’t have to let him in.”
“I didn’t want to be rude.”
Now I stopped chopping and looked up at her.
“Fine. Okay. Sorry.”
The front door opened again, and Callie came in. She dropped her backpack onto the couch before grabbing herself a soda out of the fridge.
“How was school?”
“Good.”
I couldn’t believe that in just a few weeks she’d be done with her freshman year. In three years, she’d be graduating and then off to college. Or at least that was the plan. It was true what they said: The days are long, but the years are short.
“I have homework; can I use your tablet?” she asked.
“What about your laptop?”
Lola and Callie both looked at each other.
“What?” I asked.
“I dropped it last night and the screen cracked,” Callie admitted, then rushed to explain. “I didn’t want to tell you because you just bought my uniform.”
Uniforms. Plural. But whatever.
“What’s wrong with your phone?”
“It’s easier to read on your tablet.”
“Yes, you can use my tablet. It’s in my bag in my room. But I need it before I go to work.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be done by then.” She grabbed a sleeve of Ritz crackers and headed toward my room.
“And don’t drop it,” I called out.
That tablet was crucial to my job. Technically, I could access the Complete Care database and input charting on my phone, but that would be such a pain in the ass.
I finished prepping for dinner and was headed back to my room when I heard Callie shout my name as she ran out of her room, “Mom! Mom! Mom!”
“What?!” I spun around.
She lifted up my tablet. “Why do you have an NDA with Nicholas Locke’s name on it?”
“What?” I grabbed the tablet. Why was that open? I’d signed the NDA and immediately sent it back to Jada.
When I looked down, I saw that this NDA was in a message from Sonja. She must have sent it because she forgot to send it yesterday.
