“Yes?”
“Shift change rounds are starting,” she says, then, glancing at Jake, “any problems with the suturing?”
“No,” Jake says before I can speak up. He holds up his arm, like it’s proof. “She did a great job.”
It makes me laugh. Then we’re standing, and the other nurse is showing him where he needs to go to discharge from the emergency room. And just like that, I think, this might be the last time I see Jake Bradson.
Until he turns around at the end of the hallway, just shy of the door that will take him back out to the waiting room.
“Lara?” he asks, those dark eyes serious.
“Yes?”
“Would you like to get a drink sometime? Or hang out? Just to catch up.”
I should say no. There are a million reasons why this is the worst idea in the world. Letting Jake back into my life — even just to grab a single drink — could be a catastrophe.
But I’m not thinking with my head, and so, in front of all the other ED nurses, I smile and say, “Of course.”
CHAPTER 16
JAKE
“Ithink we should list the house how it is,” I say to Shelby, who’s on the other end of the call.
Yesterday, I’d started by trying to cut some wood for the banister, to strengthen it, only for the saw to backfire and cut my forearm. I’ve never cut myself with a saw before, and that’s convinced me that this renovation shouldn’t happen.
The only good thing that came out of the injury was seeing Lara in the emergency room. At first, I didn’t recognize her. She looked different in her scrubs, with her blond hair shorter than I’d ever seen it, tied back in a stubby ponytail.
And the way she looked at me — like I was a fallen angel, or at least someone she thought was gone forever — had me wondering why in the world I’d ever left Wildfern Ridge. Why did I leave when Lara was here? Just because she didn’t want to come to Michigan with me?
Asking her to hang out was natural. Just like the first time, after that party. After the tree house.
But I don’t tell Shelby about Lara.
Instead, I tell Shelby about the cut, the time wasted, the stitches, the pain. I explain that I think the house might be cursed, and if I try to do anything else to fix it up, I’m convinced an evil spirit might do something worse than a couple of stitches on my forearm.
I expect Shelby to be sympathetic to this request, but she just huffs on the other side of the phone, sounding like an exasperated mother.
“It’s going to make a lot more money if you do the bare minimum to fix it up,” she says, grunting, and I realize she must be loading something on the other end of the line. Always working.
“Who cares about the money?”
“Spoken like a true professional athlete,” she scoffs. “Welcome back to the real world, where we care about making twice as much on the sale of our childhood home.”
The way she sayschildhood homemakes it sound like there are a lot more warm and fuzzy memories here than there really are. I stand in the center of the kitchen, scowling with disdain at the old, orange-toned cabinets, the carpet in the kitchen — who in the world thought that was a good idea? — the mold that’s probably growing round the sink.
“Everything here needs replacing,” I argue. “It’s going to take forever.”
“Your season doesn’t start until September,” she argues. “You have the time.”
“I didn’t know you were a hockey fan,” I tease. Shelby sighs on the other end of the phone.
“Are you serious, Jake? I’ve seen every one of your games.”
For some reason, that knocks the air out of me. Maybe she only means the games since I became a Los Angeles King. How could she have possibly seen my college games?
I remember her in the crowd back in high school. She hadn’t missed a single one of those, even coming to the away games with her group of friends to cheer me on.
