Page 18 of What We Break
"You were looking?" I don't like that. Which is stupid, since he's happily married.
"I'm a trained observer, Reid. It's my job." Tony claps me on the shoulder. "Ask her out. Worst she says is no, and you cry into your oatmeal."
"I don't cry into oatmeal. I cry into waffles. It’s more effective because of the pockets."
"Go." Tony shoves me toward my truck. "Before you talk yourself out of it."
"I don't know," I say, but I'm already thinking about it. About asking her out. About seeing if she's as easy to talk to over coffee as she was over hospital beds.
"What's the worst that could happen? She says no, you move on with your life."
The worst that could happen is that she says no and I have to keepbringing patients to her hospital and pretending I don't remember the way she smiled at me. Like I was someone worth smiling at.
Shit. The actual worst that could happen if I don't ask is that I spend the next however long wondering what if.
And after all the times I’ve been left with that question, all the times I wished I could go back and change things, I don’t know if I have it in me to wonder about her, too.
"Five bucks says she turns you down flat!' Tony yells as he heads to his truck, leaving me standing in the station’s parking lot. The sun's starting to come up, that gray pre-dawn light that makes everything look washed out. My shift's over, I should go home, get some sleep. I have to be back on in a few hours.
Instead, I'm thinking about the fact that Laine's shift is over too.
"Easiest money I'll ever make," I yell back. The son of a bitch is reverse psychology-ing me, and I don't hate it. I get in my truck and sit there for a minute, engine off. This is stupid. I barely know her. We worked one crazy night together, that doesn't mean she wants to go out with me.
But Tony was right - I was checking back on patients all night. I've never done that before. Shit. What do I do. It's just a date. A pretty girl. Why the fuck does it feel like such a big deal.
I pull out my phone and call Blake.
"You're alive," Blake answers on the first ring. Background noise—dishes clinking. He’s emptying the dishwasher.
"I am alive. I am also fifty dollars richer. Tony has been vanquished."
"Congratulations. You can buy half a water heater part." Blake pauses. "You sound wired. How was the shift?"
"Fourteen patients. Full moon energy without the full moon. We had time travelers, Blake. A husband and wife team."
“Fuck. That’s a lot of tripped-out hippies."
"Yeah, well, one of them thought I was a dolphin and pet me. She almost grabbed my junk.” Okay, it’s funny now. Hell. It was funny in the moment. Really fucking inappropriate, especially in front of Laine. But she seemed to think it was hilarious.
Blake laughs. "Please tell me you have pictures."
"You wish. But listen, I need a reality check."
"Okay."
"There was this nurse. Laine."
"The one you were texting me about at 2 AM?"
"I didn't text you at 2 AM."
"You sent me a gif of a heart beating out of a chest. No context."
"That... might have happened." I rub my face. "She's great, Blake. Smart. Funny. And she’s... real. Not a stick figure. She’s got these soft curves and wavy hair the color of dark honey. She played along with the hallucinations and she didn't look at me like I was just some dumb taxi driver." To be fair, most of the nurses are amazing. But there are always a few that seem to think my IQ is somewhere in the single digits. You talk about Sponge Bob once and suddenly you're a joke.
"So what's the problem?"
"The problem is I'm sitting in the parking lot like a stalker instead of driving home. I want to ask her out, but I don't want to be 'that guy' who hits on nurses after a shift."
