He focused on me. “Thank you, baby … for helping me find my way.” He found my lips and kissed me tenderly. I craved his touch. Selfishly craved my safe place. “Let’s go home.”
“Mmm.” I buried my head against his shoulder and hugged him tightly. That sounded amazing. Home with Chase could have been in outer space or behind a garbage can. It didn’t matter. He was my home.
25
We're good
“Oh god, I missed this.” I peeled my cheek from the super soft pillow and cracked my eyes open.
Chase slid glasses on my face and a steaming hot latte in my hand. “Girl coffee, beautiful.” Holy hell, his smile freaking killed me. Even at this ungodly hour.
“Mmm. You’re my lifesaver. Personal delivery, too, I’m a lucky girl.” Pretty sure I purred. I sat halfway up against the oversized leather headboard. It took all of three seconds for my body to remind me it was still pissed with me for last night. Deservingly so. What about two bottles of red and three rounds of begging for more and harder was a good idea on a work night? My head throbbed.
His smile turned wickedly sexy. “Damn straight, baby. Did someone have a rough night?”
“Ummm, ya think?” After the day we had yesterday, it was pretty easy to lose ourselves to each other into the wee hours of the morning, even though I knew the stiff price I was going to pay today. So totally worth it. If it kept his smile and those glistening eyes, I would have suffered through sleep deprivation and a killer hangover any day of the week. Hands down. No question.
“We’ll have a quiet night tonight, promise. Make up for lost sleep.”
Over my dead body. I half smiled and sipped my girl coffee. Oh yum. And not just the coffee. A quiet night together sounded ... perfect.
“I have a crazy day in the OR, but we can sleep at your apartment tonight. Sound good, baby?”
What part of that didn’t sound good? My smile got bigger.
“Fuck, Blue, whatcha smiling at?”
“You want to sleep with me again?”
“Ya think?” I loved that he repeated my words, but his eyes were the furthest thing from joking. “You are it for me. I want you in my bed. Tonight. Tomorrow … every night ... forever.” He brushed his lips against mine and my butterflies fluttered. Hell, my heart fluttered.
“Um wow. I like that truth.” There wasn’t a scene in any romantic movie or book that held a candle to this moment.
“Truth. You want the honest truth? I love you, Blue, more than anything.”
This man had the ability to stop my heart with just a look. I love you wasn’t even close to covering what I felt. Not by a long shot. Truth.
Chase ran a hand down my hair and stood from the edge of the bed. He was already dressed for the OR in his scrubs, looking ... amazing. The beat beneath my chest started again and my mouth watered, as I not so subtly roamed his body with my hungry eyes. All I wanted was to feel his body against mine, get lost in where I ended and he began. It was all I’d ever want. Forever. I finally got what he meant every time he said mine. He was mine.
“See something you like?” He smirked.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Baby, if you don’t stop looking at me like that I’m never gonna get out of here.”
“Truth. Sounds perfect to me.” Now I smirked.
“Ahh fuck, you’re killing me. You know scrubs don’t hide a hard-on very well.”
I laughed. He had a point there.
Leaning down, he kissed my nose. “Text you in a bit, see how your day is going…”
“K.”
So was this my life? I sunk back into the fluffy pillows and sighed. I wanted this to be my morning every morning.
With each click of my heels against the hospital floor I thought of all the work I had waiting for me after missing yesterday. Even a mound of insurance paperwork couldn’t dampen my good mood.
Rounding the corner to the pediatric nurses’ station, a familiar face made my smile grow.
“Hey, you!” Sam looked up from his tablet. “Whatcha doing up on peds? Hanging with the kiddos getting ready for your babe?” I smiled. Sam was gonna be a great dad.
“Hey Lil, yeah, I wish, but no. Unfortunately we have a kid with a head trauma.” My stomach plummeted. Kimi’s gorgeous face flashed before my eyes. “Twelve-year-old boy, bike accident, no helmet.” We both shook our heads. Really, no helmet. “Poor kid came in over the weekend. Luckily didn’t need surgery, but ER attending hooked him up to the KimCore unit. Not sure if Colton even knows yet.” Sam frowned. “He wants us rounding on everyone on the unit.”
“Oh, right.”
Two months into his internship Sam had already lost that nervous hesitance that new doctors had when talking about patients. He sounded like an old pro, casual and confident passing on routine information to a colleague. But it was anything but mundane to me. I immediately felt a personal connection to the little boy and completely understood why Chase was so adamant his team follow and take care of every patient on his unit. His medical device was what saved brains, and in return, kept Kimi’s memory alive.
Sam probably saw the melancholy squeezing me. “Don’t worry, Lil.” If only Sam knew what was actually squeezing me. My gut. My heart. From here on out every time I heard about a patient with a traumatic brain injury I was going to relive the nightmare all over again. I finally understood Chase’s daily struggle. “Looks like the kid’s gonna do fine. Was probably a soft call to hook him up to begin with. They’re way more aggressive with the kids, trying to prevent any long-term brain damage if they can. He’s already rewarming. Plan is to pull the tubing today.” Sam was rambling as my mind was wandering, but the word tubing caught me by surprise.
“Tubing?” He was getting a little too technical for me. I was lucky I got the concept of hypothermia at all. At least I thought I got it. Cool the body temperature down for a day or two, help reduce brain swelling and hopefully wind up with less damage in the end. Then slowly rewarm the patient for another day or so to avoid the bad stuff that could happen if you didn’t. That was the extent of my understanding, which was fine with me. But after my personal guided tour this weekend, I’m not sure Dr. Brillant would have been impressed with my layperson’s synopsis.
Already bitten by the teaching bug, Sam explained anyway. “It’s actually a catheter, like a huge IV, attached to tubing—that’s why we call it that. Goes in a large vein in the groin. When we pull it out it can bleed like a bitch, so we basically have to stand there and hold pressure for half an hour. They make a sandbag contraption that can hold pressure for you, some of the other attendings use it, but it’s not good enough for Colton.”
“Oh, okay.” That was a lot of information that I probably could have done without. Catheter in the groin, lots of bleeding. Yeah, probably didn’t need that visual so early in the morning. “Well I’m glad the kid is doing well, glad the tubing is coming out. I’ll have to stop in and visit him later.”
“I’m gonna head in now and see him, if you wanna come.” Sam started down the hall.
“Um no, I’m good, you go. I’m going to find the peds’ residents and run the list. I’ll check in on him later.” I was not ready to go into that room. I needed a minute, a pause to pull myself together.