Page 39 of Mason

“Duck!” Jo warned and turned on her computer. Mrs. Grinch was patrolling again. Beth slid off the seat and hid under the admitting desk.

“Did I hear you talking to someone?” Mrs. Grinch asked.

“I was humming to myself.” Jo looked up from her computer. “Have you heard anything else about the storm we’re expecting tonight?”

“It’s not good. The temperature is supposed to drop down to the low teens tonight, and now they’re saying we might get close to a foot of snow.”

“Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much snow.”

“No?”

Jo shook her head. “I’m from California. I moved here for school.”

“Welcome to winter in New York.” Mrs. Grinch smiled wryly. “It can get nasty. This has been a pretty mild winter compared to most. As soon as the snow starts, expect the first influx of patients.”

Mrs. Grinch strolled off, and Beth gaped after her from under the desk. “Did she just have a civil conversation with you?”

“I know, right?”

“I better get back upstairs.” Beth pulled herself up. “I have a full house tonight, and I need to do my rounds. Talk to you later, Jo.”

“See ya!” Jo called after her friend and opened her work email. There was a list of things for her to do waiting in the email, and at least it would keep her mind off those flowers until it got busy in here. Time to work.

***

It was after two in the morning before she got her first break. When they told her the ER would get crazy, they hadn’t been exaggerating. The snow started around eight-thirty and hadn’t let up since. According to Josh, one of the EMTs who had been through last, there was a good five inches on the ground. Two inches would have shut San Francisco down. Five would have been catastrophic.

The ER turned into a madhouse. It looked like a bomb went off. Car accidents, people coming in who didn’t need to simply because they were afraid they’d not get out in case they got sicker, and people just looking for a warm bed for the night. While it might sound like a normal night in the ER, they saw ten times as many patients as they normally did.

She was grateful to be able to slip away. Mrs. Grinch came and relieved her because Lisa had called in, claiming she couldn’t get here due to the snow. Jo didn’t blame her. She wouldn’t want to be out driving in that mess either.

The staff room was full to bursting, so Jo bypassed it and instead found her way to the place she and Beth usually had lunch. It was downstairs in the basement, two hallways away from the morgue. Gruesome, but it was quiet. They even had snack machines down here, from which she got a bottle of water. Jo hopped up on an empty gurney and broke out her bag of chips and a sandwich. She checked her watch. She got an hour for lunch, and she still had forty-five minutes.

Her phone revealed two missed text messages from Mason checking on her. She had a feeling Mason would always check on her, even when they were both old and so feeble they could barely get around.

Even though it was late, she called him. It was Friday night, and his frat always had a party going on Fridays. Chances were he was still awake. Besides, she wanted to tell him not to drag himself out of bed to come get her in the morning. She’d use one of the empty on-call rooms to get some sleep until the roads were clear enough for people to be out.

“Josephine? Are you okay?”

His sleepy voice pulled a smile from her. She’d expected him to be partying, not sleeping.

“I’m fine. Just tired. This place is a zoo.”

“I bet,” he yawned. “It’s a blizzard out there.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“Might as well be.” She heard him moving around and the mattress squeaking. “Why are you calling so late, baby?”

“I missed you.”

“I missed you too.” He said something to someone else. “Keith says he misses his sleep and for us to shut the fuck up so he can get back to it.”

“Well, isn’t he a grouchy Gus.”

“He’s drunk,” Mason said. “I dragged him up to our room an hour ago. Dude was swaying where he was standing. I wasn’t about to leave his ass where the brothers might decide to play a prank on him with permanent marker. They’re notorious for that shit.”

Jo could just imagine Keith waking up with God only knew what on his face. Drunk frat guys? Keith better be thanking Mason in the morning.

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