“You need to go to sleep,” she says, standing up to make her exit.
I yawn again, wishing she could stay and talk to me all night, though I know she can’t. But before she leaves, there is something I need to tell her.
“Thank you.”
She gives me a confused look. “For what?”
“For making my night better.”
My words earn me a shy smile.
“Good night, Garrett. And Merry Christmas.”
“Good night, Paige. Merry Christmas.”
Chapter Eleven
Garrett
One. More. Day.
I’m on night eight of hospital life. I probably would have been out of here sooner if not for the holiday, or at least that’s what I’m telling myself. Jesse says I should be released tomorrow, but I’ve reached the point where I’m convinced I’ll be here forever.
Doctors really are the worst patients.
Mom and Mark have been here every day like clockwork. Annika has not. Mom quit asking about her after she realized she didn’t come to visit on Christmas Day. Though, she was skeptical and asked a few non-discreet questions when she saw a Christmas card next to an American flag on my bedside table that hadn’t been there before.
I laugh as I pick up the miniature flag, courtesy of Paige. She brought it to me on Christmas morning after her shift, and just like the night before, our laughs couldn’t be contained. Except for this time, we definitely woke up Boomer. We talked for hours about everything and nothing. It was the perfect Christmas present.
“You going to tell me what that flag means?” Boomer asks, noticing me gently waving it back and forth.
“What fun would that be? You already see my ass when I go to the bathroom. We have to keep some mystery in this relationship.”
“Yes, I do. And if I haven’t said it before, it’s quite the nice ass.”
“Should I warn your wife you’ve been checking me out?”
“Go for it. I’d love to hear that conversation.”
I could have done a hell of a lot worse in terms of hospital roommates. We have bonded in the last twenty-four hours. Boomer is a few years younger than me, is also a runner despite a congenital heart defect that goes back to his childhood, and we both have a weakness for a good burger. His real name is Robert and I’ve learned that the only people who call him that are his doctors and his wife.
“Did I hear you are getting out of here soon?” Boomer asks, turning as best as he can to face me.
“Hopefully tomorrow. No offense. I’m tired of waking up next to you every day.”
“None taken. You’re not exactly a treat to wake up to either.”
“What about my nice ass?”
“What about it?” Boomer’s wife, Kelly, asks as she walks into our room.
“Your husband thinks I have a nice ass. I don’t know. He might be having inappropriate thoughts toward me. You should be worried.”
She laughs before leaning in to give a kiss to her husband. “That’s fine. You can be his brofriend.”
“Brofriend? What the fuck is that?” I ask, genuinely confused.
She laughs, taking a seat between our beds. “It’s like a man crush, only you are in a man relationship. I have one with one of my female distributors. We go get pedicures every month, I wish I had her boobs, and she loves my taste in clothes. So, if you two could start something up, it would make me feel less guilty for having someone on the side.”
Boomer reaches for her hand. “If it makes you feel any better, I love your boobs.”
Kelly laughs, swatting his hand away. “Of course, you do. They are the only ones you’ve ever seen.”
The easiness of their relationship is baffling, and frankly, I’m jealous of it. I found out that not only are they ridiculously in love, they were also high school sweethearts after years of claiming they were just friends.
What would it be like to have a marriage like that—where you not only love the person, but that person is clearly your best friend? The ease these two have with each other is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.
That’s not entirely true. I see it with Mark and Charlie and the men he served with and now works with at Cole Security. Until I met Boomer and Kelly, I thought it must have been a SEAL thing.
Apparently, it’s not.
I turn my tablet on, letting their conversation about what his doctors said and what his latest prognosis is fade into the background. It’s been years since I’ve read a book for pleasure. If I really thought about it, the last book I read was likely Lord of the Rings when I was twelve.
I used to love to read. More times than not, my head was buried in a book as a kid, which Mark would tease me about ruthlessly. I didn’t care. Science fiction, mystery, fantasy, it didn’t matter. I loved them all. Yes, I was a bit of a nerd.
That was until I turned thirteen. And no, it wasn’t because I started noticing girls or the other things that happen to boys around that time. Even though I absolutely did. I broke my arm in an unfortunate accident that involved me, Mark, a tree, and a wayward remote control airplane. I was in a cast for almost three months.
To me, that was about two months too long. It was then that I ditched the science fiction for every health and medical book I could find. I was determined to invent a way to heal bones faster, feeling that it was my duty to prevent any other child from having to suffer the torture I was going through. A cast in the middle of summer will do that to a kid.
That summer was when I decided I wanted to become an orthopedic surgeon. Every medical book I read fascinated me more than the last one. Eventually, I didn’t just want to heal bones faster; I was going to find new ways for athletes to recover after ACL surgeries. Shoulder surgeries were going to be walks in the park. I was going to rewrite the medical journals.
When I arrived at Harvard, I thought I had made it. That was until I didn’t get picked for a project I desperately wanted. Despite my 4.0, apparently I didn’t know the right people or have the right last name. The student who was picked had money, status, and his father was an alumnus. He also barely came to class, and I know for a fact he slept with every female medical student so they would do his homework.
I was livid. I worked my ass off, and for what? For some guy who had the right last name to get picked over me? I decided that if I couldn’t beat them, I would join them.
And that’s what I did. I pledged the right fraternities. I started hanging out with the crowd that would put me on the lists. It was a small price to pay when it came to my career.
Or so I thought. That was how I met Michelle. That decision is what put me on the road to where I am now: in a hospital bed at forty-two years old after a blood clot almost killed me, about to go through a second divorce, and realizing that I haven’t done anything I wanted to do with my life.
I didn’t care about money or prestige when I first got to college. I wanted my name in medical journals because of inventive surgeries, not on a “who’s who” list of doctors under fifty because I flirted with the editor. Even the clinic wasn’t opened for the right reasons. It was a tax write-off. Plain and simple.
I sit straight up in my bed as if I was struck by a bolt of lightning. And like I couldn’t stop it, the questions about everything come rolling through my head all at once.