Page 43 of Hearts on the Table
She smiled softly, reaching for him. “Come here, love. I think it’s okay.”
He cradled her, sweeping the hair back from her face. “Sam, what are you seeing?”
I backed out of the room as Sam gave his brother a surprisingly accurate and succinct rundown of Jas’s condition and the monitoring we’d done this afternoon. There was something intimate about the three of them together, hunched over Jas’s file. Family. Even if I’d started to call them friends, I felt like I was intruding.
In the hall, I took a moment to breathe. Jas and the baby were fine. And, hey, I’d just spent over an hour with freakin’ Katie and the world hadn’t melted. Was this what being an adult felt like?
I wasn’t sure I liked it. Even if I was still standing, being around her and watching her be competent at her job was hard. She’d been the same old Katie, warm and disarming, cracking jokes that almost even made Jasmine forget that “we hated her.”
“All good in there?”
I whirled. Speaking of the devil. We stood in the hallway, squared off. Tumbleweeds should have rolled past. I swallowed, thinking once again of how scared Jas had been a little while ago. How happy she was now. Calm.
“Fine. Her husband’s here, so I figured I should pop back upstairs and see if the residents have burned it down yet.”
“I thought I smelled smoke coming from the elevator…” She smiled at her weak joke. I couldn’t find it in me to reciprocate, but I could still be an adult. (Ugh.)
“Thank you. For seeing her so last-minute. It means a lot to her…and me.”
“It wasn’t any trouble.” The rows and rows of pregnant women in the waiting room would say otherwise. She was probably lying, but I didn’t push it too hard.
We stood there awkwardly; her clutching her tablet while I tried to think if there was anything else to say here. I opened my mouth to tell her I was heading back when she blurted: “Reese, huh?”
I willed my muscles not to lock up, reminding myself I’d look defensive if I got defensive. And I had nothing to worry about.
“He’s a friend.”
She nodded, glancing around. “You seem close to his family. I mean, you accompanied his sister-in-law to an emergency medical appointment.”
I shrugged. “Sam was in a meeting. I wasn’t going to let her come down here by herself.”
“Sam…” I realized my mistake when Katie repeated his name back to me. I’d said his name, not Reese.Crap.“Just be careful there, Lainey. He’s an attending.”
“I’m aware of that. We’re just friends.” Not true. Even if we slapped a “trial period” label on it, I knew what he tasted like, which went well beyond friend territory. “We’re not dating.” Also arguably not true, but I felt like I had to put it out there.
“I don’t want you to get hurt. The hospital has all these crazy workplace relationship policies in place. Nathan and I had to do so much paperwork when he got accepted for an interview—”
“I know about this hospital’s policies. I’ve worked here for almost five years,” I snapped. I didn’t want to hear anything about what she andNathanhad been getting up to. When I’d known them, they’d been Katie and Nate. But they were all grown up now. Kate and Nathan. Gross.
So much for being an adult.
She started to say something else, but halted when the door to Jas’s room swung open. Sam and Conner stepped into the hallway. I staggered when Conner wrapped me up in a hug without warning.
“Thank you,” he whispered, tightening his grip around my shoulders. Haltingly, I patted his back. “Thank you for being here with her.”
“I just brought her down in a wheelchair.”
“You did more than that.”
I read somewhere that the cast members at Disney World are trained not to break a hug with a fan until the kid breaks it first. I gave Conner a few more pats while he cleared his throat. It took him a few more seconds to pull away. His voice was thick. “Next time we get tacos, it’s on me.”
“Didn’t you pay last time?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He turned to watch as Katie approached. His eyes flicked up and down. Surely the once-over was Jas’s doing. Of all the Reeses, I knew Conner the least. But it seemed he, too, was ready and willing to ice out the doctor who was just doing her job, all because she’d wronged me years ago.
Sam’s mouth curved into a smirk when he saw it, too. We shared a look before I tore my gaze away. Sharinglookswith my attending right after Katie’s not-so-veiled warnings would only fuel the fire. Once I made Conner promise to have Jas text me when the results were back, I spun on my heel and made my way to the bank of elevators.
It didn’t matter that I’d barely seen Sam in days, and all I wanted to do was steal a few minutes of conversation with him on the ride back to our floor. I couldn’t give Katie any more ammunition than she already had.
