Page 100 of Sergeant O'
Huh. So, I guess it is what it looks like.
Before I could answer, her phone buzzed again. She glanced at it, then frowned. “It’s Jade. HR called her in.”
I rubbed a hand over my face. “Fantastic.”
Adam looked from Lainey to me. “You gonna tell us what’s really going on?”
The truth sat heavy on my tongue, but I swallowed it back. Until Jade and I figured things out tonight, I needed to stick with our story.
“Nothing’s going on,” I said evenly. “We just talked.”
Even to my own ears, it sounded weak.
Lainey blinked slowly, like she was trying to process what I’d said. “Just talked. At five in the morning. You know, ’cuz that’s when normal people—who don’t live together—talk.”
Okay, so obviously we were going to need a better explanation than that.
****
Jade
I waited until I pulled out of the hospital lot before hitting the call button for Sophie. My pulse was still pounding from the meeting, and I needed to hear a friendly voice.
“Well, if it isn’t Haven Springs’ favorite viral nurse,” she teased when she answered. “Girl, you’ve been on my feed more than Taylor Swift.”
I groaned. “Please tell me that’s an exaggeration.”
“Okay, maybe slightly, but ‘Florence Nightingale and the Hot Cop’ is popping up a lot lately. On the bright side, you’ve looked adorable in all the photos, so there’s that.”
“Yeah, well, the hospital isn’t as impressed.”
Her tone softened instantly. “Uh-oh. What happened?”
“I just left HR.”
“Oh dang. On a Saturday? That can’t be good.”
“No, it wasn’t. I got the wholewe value professionalism and public imagelecture.” I turned onto Main Street, gripping the wheel tighter. “They said I’m not in trouble, but I needed to ‘be mindful of how my actions reflect on the hospital’.”
“Oh, barf. Did you say, ‘You mean my actions where I help save people’s lives on a regular basis? Or when I regularly work fifty-plus hours a week without complaint?’ Fuck them. You haven’t done anything wrong. You’re allowed to have a personal life. Surely they can’t expect you not to date a patient. You live in fuckingHaven Springs—everyoneis going to be a patient at some point.”
I nodded in agreement as I turned onto my street. “You’re not wrong. I think if it weren’t plastered all over the internet, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But—”
“And how is thatyourfault?”
“I don’t know. Brian thinks if we just lay low, this will blow over.”
“Was that what he was doing when he was sneaking out of your house this morning?Laying low?”
My heart stuttered while I waited for the garage door to go up. “Wait—what? How do you know about that?”
“Honey, everyone knows about that. It’s trending.”
I put the Prius in park and banged my head against the steering wheel, grousing, “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“Sorry, I thought you knew.”
“No, I had no idea.”
