Page 185 of What We Brave
That does it. Reid's twelve frantic texts versus Blake's three dry words — it cracks me open. A laugh escapes through my fingers, loud enough to echo off the linoleum, and I have to turn my face into my shoulder.
One more buzz.
Reid
he's eating the floor pizza Laine
he picked it up and he's eating it
I live with an animal
I type back with shaky fingers:
You guys are the best. Go back to sleep.
Reid
he says goodnight but in a grumpy way
I press my phone against my chest. Close my eyes. Warmth spreads behind my ribs, filling in all the places that used to just sit there, empty and waiting. I can picture it so clearly it almost hurts — Reid in hisboxers, hair going six different directions, standing in the kitchen doorway with his hand on his chest like he's clutching imaginary pearls. Blake at the table, bleary-eyed and irritated, eating pizza off the floor because of course he is, because spite is a perfectly valid meal plan. The light on over the table. The rest of the house dark.
Home. That's what it feels like. They feel like home.
God, I've got it so bad.
"That's a good smile."
I jump. Danielle — one of the night aides, twenty-three, perpetually chewing gum — is leaning over the counter with a stack of charts. She's looking at me with that knowing, gossipy grin that I'd normally find endearing but right now makes my skin prickle.
"What?"
"That smile." She nods at my phone. "Tell your boyfriend I said hi."
"Will do," I say.
I shove my phone in my pocket. Stare at the empty nurses' station.
Boyfriend.
Whatever. It's nothing. She was being nice.
I should chart. I should check on room four. I should do literally anything except stand here getting weird about a word.
So naturally I follow Danielle.
She's restocking the supply closet in bay two, humming something I half-recognize, sorting gauze pads like she's done it eight hundred times. I grab a box of gloves off the cart and start stocking the other side because I need something to do with my hands.
"Slow night," I say, tapping on the wood rail lining the hall. Don't want to tempt fate.
"The slowest. I've reorganized this closet twice." She blows a bubble with her gum. Pops it. "I started ranking the doctors by attractiveness out of sheer boredom. Don't tell anyone."
"Who's winning?"
"Dr. Okafor. Obviously. Thosehands." She fans herself with a package of tongue depressors. "But he's married, so. The tragedy of my life continues."
"Devastating."
"Right? My love life is a complete — okay, so I was seeing this guyMarcus for like a minute? And he had this thing where he'd only text me after eleven PM, which — I'm not stupid, you know?"
