Page 13 of Sergeant O'
“Thanks.”
As she left, I stared up at the ceiling, exhaled hard, and made a mental note to request pajama pants.
Immediately.
****
Jade
Before I went home, I asked Allie McDowell, the charge nurse, if I could be assigned as Brian’s nurse when I came back for my next shift.
When she raised her eyebrows at me, knowing that I’d just reneged on working with him, I offered, “My sister asked me to, as a favor to her.”
I mean, it wasn’t a lie.
And since it was a small town, and everyone already knew what had happened to Lainey, Allie wasn’t going to deny my sister’s request.
When I got home, I had a cup of chamomile tea to try and relax before heading to bed. Tonight would be the third in my three-on, three-off rotation, although it usually ended up only being two days off. Something my bank account appreciated, but my personal life paid the price for.
I snorted out loud at the thought.
What personal life?
My best friend, Sophie, lived in Charleston, so we texted more than we actually saw each other.
I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d gone on a date, let alone had sex—at least with another person. I was pretty good at scratching my own itch, so to speak, with the help of a few battery-operated boyfriends. It was a good stress reliever.
I hugged my body pillow and conceded, I missed being with a man.
And wouldn’t you know it, I dreamt of that very thing.
Chapter Five
Jade
I parked my white Prius in the employee lot and started toward the hospital entrance, still a little rattled about theveryvivid dream I’d had starring Brian O’Shaughnessy.
It’d started with us at prom, but we were the adult version of ourselves. Yet, it wasn’t weird we were there. He looked sexy as sin in his tuxedo, and the way he’d stared at me made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the ballroom. Then suddenly we were inourbedroom—I wasn’t sure how I knew that, I just did. But our house was his current Craftsman home. I was riding him in our bed, and he was verbalizing what a great job I was doing.
Of course, I woke up before we reached the high point.
Normally I’d try to fall back asleep and pick up where I left off, but the realization that I’d just had a sex dream aboutBrianhad me too flustered. So instead, I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling while I tried to figure out what the heck was going on in my subconscious.
I rolled out of bed and attempted to put it out of my mind as I went through my routine: a two-mile walk, followed by breakfast (although it was really lunchtime), then some light housekeeping as I listened to a podcast. Normally, it was a true-crime one, but I decided that considering recent events, I would switch it up and listen to one of Mel Robbins’ episodes.
I’d been successful at putting the dream out of mind until I got in the shower. As the warm water sprayed my body, it was easy to imagine it as Brian’s touch.
I allowed myself five seconds of that fantasy before turning the faucet to cold.
The freezing water didn’t do anything to get the dream out of my head.
I’m sure it’s just that I’m relieved he’s okay after getting shot while saving my little sister.
Yeah, that was it.
It wasn’t because I really wanted to hook up with Brian. Or live with him, like I was doing in my dream.
Okay, yes, I was attracted to him. But I was attracted to a lot of people; it didn’t mean I wanted to date them.
