Page 18 of Guarded By Atlas

My first instinct is to slide to the floor and just lie there, but his grip keeps me upright until my legs are steady enough on their own. I move away from him, cleaning up fast before exiting the shower in a rush. “Careful, sweetheart.” His chuckle follows me as I run out to get dressed. He is only in there for a couple more minutes before he walks out too, laughing when he finds me half dressed. I allow myself a few seconds to ogle his body, slapping my cheeks to focus when I realize I’m staring. The dangerous glint in his eyes has me grabbing the rest of my clothes to get dressed on the opposite side of the room.

“Don’t come any closer to me,” I warn him. “I have less than an hour to get to work. I love working there and don’t want to give them a reason to fire me.”

There’s a contemplative look on his face as he slides into a pair of jeans. “Why do you work?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your parents are wealthy,” he says, surprising me by mentioning my parents' wealth for the first time since I came here. “You could live a comfortable life, traveling the world and doing whatever you want.”

His sentiments are not new. I’ve heard this all my life. From my friends who weren’t as lucky to come from the wealth my parents and grandparents provided. “I wanted to do all that when I was younger,” I tell him. “Funny thing, my parents would have let me. They don’t care what I do as long as I’m happy and fulfilled. But that’s exactly the problem. A life like that wouldn’t have satisfied me.”

“And nursing does?”

“I’ve always loved taking care of people, feeling needed for more than my money. I fell in love with nursing, especially taking care of the elderly, and when you fall in love with something,”—or someone, as I have fallen hopelessly in love with you—“it’s for life.”

“Huh.”

“Isn’t it the same for you with the MC?” I ask, tugging the towel from my hair. “Isn’t that why you left a life you knew and moved to an entirely different city? Because you fell in love with riding and wanted to do so with like-minded people?”

“I didn’t leave much behind in West Odessa.”

I chuckle. “And you think I left something behind?” I muse. “Maybe you coming to work with me is a good idea, and then you’ll see that I am not really missing out on anything. I would pick my lovely senior citizens over any exotic trip. Trust me, it’s an adventure on its own.”

There’s doubt in his eyes, but I don’t bother explaining it to him, figuring it’s something he’s going to have to see for himself. Oh, I can’t wait until he gets a load of Debbie, and I am excited when an hour later we both walk into the nursing home. I clock in for my shift as he takes in the place, and I try to look at it from the perspective of someone who, by his own admission, has never been to a nursing home before.

The walls are painted a soft beige and the floors are shiny linoleum that reflects the dim light. We walk down the hallway, past one of the entertainment rooms where several of the residents are sitting in armchairs, watching some kind of gameshow on a large flat-screen TV, the sound turned on low. Each open door we walk past reveals an entirely different story, and the hallway is decorated with both art and smiling pictures of retired staff. I lead him to the main lounge, and my eyes fall on the large grand piano my parents donated to the nursing home. The piano was a treasured gift from my grandfather, and when he passed away in this very nursing home, they felt it only right to leave a piece of him in a place that had taken such excellent care of him in the last precious moments of life.

“Marie!”

We both turn at the voice, and I smile when I spot Debbie walking toward us. I feel a sense of guilt when I notice the tired lines around her eyes and mouth. “Debbie, you’ve not been sleeping well,” I say as I step forward, but she simply brushes off my concerns.

“If you were worried about me, why haven’t you been here? You left me to deal with an intern who doesn’t appreciate my jokes,” she says, narrowing her eyes on me before she spots something over my shoulders that grabs her attention. “And who is this?”

I flush at the smirk and the devilish look that widens her eyes as she looks from Atlas to me. “Debbie, this is Atlas,” I say, reaching back to grasp his arm and pull the gentle giant to my side. “Atlas, this is the resident I was telling you about. You know, the one who likes to keep the nurses on their toes. Mrs. Debbie Hawkes in the flesh. She is Chelsea’s grandmother.”

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Hawkes.”

“Please, call me Debbie. Hawkes was my husband, poor bastard left me at the tender age of seventy. God rest his soul,” she says with a smile, taking his hand when he offers it. “Now, are you the one who’s been keeping my nurse away from work?” Her head tilts to the side as she runs her eyes over his frame, humming in appreciation as she does so. “It makes a lot more sense now why she was late to work. Marie is never late!”

I don’t have to look at a mirror to know that my face is as red as a tomato. The memories of what happened this morning are still fresh on my mind. “Debbie,” I reprimand, placing an arm on her shoulder and steering her away from the man before she scares him off. “You can’t say that to him.”

“He looks like a snack. You have a good eye, I’ll give you that,” she says as I lead her back to her room, hoping she’ll let me convince her to rest. “He reminds me of my husband.” My brows wing up at her words, which makes her laugh. I’ve seen the pictures of her late husband; even in his prime, he looked nothing like Atlas. “Not his physical appearance.”

Debbie must’ve really missed me, or maybe she’s just distracted by the man standing by her door as she doesn’t fuss as much when I do a quick assessment on her. “What do you mean that he reminds you of your husband?”

“It’s the eyes,” she says, letting me take her temperature. “He had kind eyes too. My John was built like a stick pole andthe biggest muscle on him was that kind and generous heart of his. Fifty years of marriage, and I still remember the first time I saw him.”

“When was that?” I ask absently, humming when I note her temperature is just slightly above normal. I’ve heard this story a million times, and I imagine she’s not telling it to me but the man standing by the door, faced turned away but ears tuned in.

“He was a small thing when we were younger, and the boys in my neighborhood would pick on him a lot. Until one day, at eight, I jumped one of them and scratched his face, yelling for them to bully someone their own size. I lost a tooth that day and my daddy whooped my ass for fighting, but I gained a best friend, and twelve years later, he became my husband,” she muses, with a dreamy look in her eyes. “I spent my entire youth loving the man, through the good and the bad. I can flirt all I want with these old geezers here because what else does an old lady like me have to do? However, none of them can or will ever replace my John.”

“That’s a lovely story, Debbie,” Atlas says, and I turn to look at him. He’s leaning against the door, staring into the hallway and seems to be deep in thought. There is something about his stance that has my brows furrowing.

Atlas seems distracted, and he remains that way for the rest of my shift. He manages to get himself pulled into a game of cards, then later into some conversations on politics by another group, and before the end of the day, he’s made his rounds in the nursing home, pulled in all directions. Everyone seems to love him and won’t let him leave until he promises to come back again.

But despite it all, he still has that thoughtful look on his face when he hands me the helmet at the end of the day. “Are you okay?” I ask, concerned when he climbs onto the bike without a word. “The seniors didn’t say anything to offend you, did they? Sometimes they get like that, but don’t take it to heart.”

“No, I enjoyed my time there,” he says quietly, and I want to push, but I don’t say anything as I climb on to the back behind him. I decide I’ll bring it up later when we’re not in public.

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