Finding Faith (3 page)

“George and a new guy, John, were the lucky winners tonight.” Mike peered over at Grace who was wrinkling her nose at the mention of George.

Not wanting to get started down that road, Mike changed the subject back.

“Yeah, we all know Dickhead's a snake. Don’t worry about what people think about you, Faith, you’re golden. A bunch of us are meeting at Halligan tomorrow. It would be great if you two could come.”

Mike’s eyes volleyed between the two of us, hanging on Grace, whose wrinkles had smoothed out with his stare. Grace’s eyes lit up to the invitation and Mike’s shoulders relaxed in response.

The second I saw their responses I was left with no choice but to say yes. How could I deny Grace? I wasn’t the only one dealing with an ex, and denying Grace a chance to hang out with her secret crush, even if I had no desire to be around people, would be heartless. Grace would never go if I didn’t tag along. We did everything together. We had grown more into sisters than friends, and more than ever Grace felt a need to protect me.

“Come on, Faith, what are you going to do? Go home and curl up in bed alone? Why not find someone to curl up next to and take your mind off of stuff for at least one night.” Grace was biting the corner of her lip in anticipation. If I waited too long she would need stitches.

“I even know a few guys who would be more than happy to help you with that if you want,” Mike said, raising an eyebrow mischievously.

Grace dropped her jaw in lieu of chewing her lip and gave Mike a smack in the gut.

Even though my friends tried soothing my concerns, I couldn’t shake the feeling that coworkers thought of me as a druggie and a thief. It didn’t help that Brad was telling everyone who would listen that I was exactly both of those things.

For Grace to suggest a one-night stand was insulting. I had never slept around, and didn’t intend to start now. What was Grace even thinking? That was easy to answer looking at the girl. She wasn’t. She was drooling over Mike. If he stayed any longer I would have to get a mop and bucket to dry up the floor underneath her.

The two conspirators got an annoyed look from me as I stepped into the opening of a black upright cylinder, spinning it shut in silence. Like a magic trick, when the door opened up to them again I was gone.

Mike could be heard saying, “That’s the coolest thing ever! It reminds me of something you’d see on a Star Trek show. I never get tired of seeing it.”

His childish amusement made me smirk. I let out a gush of air that I hadn’t realized I’d been holding until I was away from their interrogating eyes.

The room I transported into welcomed me with a low orange glow cocooning me with a sense of protection. Even if for only a few minutes I would soak up the calm. While in the closet-sized room, I thought how thankful I was that the hospital was horrible with budgets, keeping them in the archaic age. If they had gone digital, this room would become obsolete, taking away this little haven I ran to whenever I needed to escape while working.

When I emerged from my hideout, Grace and Mike were both still leaning against the wall in front of the black roll door. Their bodies were facing each other while their eyes watched me come out of the tall cylinder. Their arms crossed in front of them now, looking like they were waiting for a bus to pull up. First stop, the loony bin. Everyone whose life is in the shitter, please step up.

Not making eye contact with either one, I walked past them in the direction of the X-ray room. The two immediately started trailing behind me in silent anticipation.

Abruptly stopping before entering the perp’s room, I whipped around and said with a resigned breath, “Fine, but not a word about my situation. I don’t want it to turn into a night of bashing the creep, or worse, a pity party for me.”

I gritted the last part out through clenched teeth, pointing a finger in both of their faces. “Especially Luke and George. Warn them ahead of time that I don’t want any of their usual come-ons,” I said.

“Deal.” Mike grabbed the hand I was pointing with to shake on it. That word let me relax my jaw. Then Mike added, “This works out perfectly. I want you to meet the new guy who works with them. I think you’d be great together.”

He glided past me, pulling the drunk off the table by his cuffs and continuing toward the door. “We call him Killer because the ladies can’t get enough of him,” he finished, ignoring the man who was wiggling around like a worm on a hook.

Mike was halfway out of the room when the drunk turned to me, giving me a look from head to toe. Through foggy eyes he responded with what sounded like “I’ll be your killer,” flashing a bloody, toothless grin and a swag of his eyebrows.

The bloody come-on made me grab at my stomach that had begun to heave, causing me to instantly regret agreeing to go out. And to be purposely introduced to a guy nicknamed Killer even more so.

Mike was already halfway down the hall when I yelled, “My warning goes for killers too, Mike. I mean it!” The attraction I had to bad boys was how I had gotten into trouble with Brad in the first place.

The guys gave me the nickname Killer, as in Lady Killer, and they couldn’t have been further from the truth. The only thing I wanted to kill nowadays were spiders. How in the world had I ended up here?

One minute I was outside, the next I was following Mike through a throng of people in the minuscule bar on one of the busiest nights of the year, Thanksgiving Eve.

It had been six years since I’d set foot inside a bar, and I didn’t miss it one bit. The guys from the department had given me such a rash of shit the day before about not hanging out that I felt I had no choice. Even if it was only once to shut them up, I still didn’t like it. I promised myself that I would only stay five minutes, long enough to get the guys off my back.

Before I had been found by Mike, I was deciding whether I should go in or not. People shuffled around me in a hurry as if I didn’t exist, which is how I felt most days. The chill in the air was making my face numb, but I didn’t care. The decision I was trying to make was weighing heavy on me. The last thing I should be doing was going out to bars. I had no desire to date, no urge to socialize outside of work.

I had gone out of control for a couple of years, sleeping with random women and drinking practically every night of the week into oblivion. I didn’t think it mattered back then. No one cared about me, so why not live up to that.

Then my younger sister Sarah started to emulate my habits. Our oldest brother Steve was no help, pretending that everyone was fine.

When I saw what Sarah was doing, it hit me like a slap in the face and I knew I had to stop. The partying and night life quickly worked its way out of my system and had been replaced with taking care of my baby sister.

If I left before someone I knew saw me I’d be off Scot-free and could make up an excuse later, deciding I’d rather take the jabs at work than go in.

Finally, committing to my change of heart and feeling a huge sense of relief, I spun on my heel to make a quick get away. Instead, I ran right into a goofy smile.

Damn, Mike.

Faded green eyes sparkling with kindness from Mike’s boyish face reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t place who.

“Hey, Killer, great timing. Let’s go in and find everybody,” Mike said enthusiastically, wrapping his slim arm around my shoulder. “Wait until you meet the girls I invited to come hang out with us. They’re some real hotties.”

If Mike wasn’t such a likeable guy I would have told him to get lost. Unfortunately, I couldn’t let myself do it. We had met on one of the first calls I had been on. Mike was at the scene and one of the few who had gone out of his way to make me feel welcome. Oblivious to my hesitancy, Mike kept urging me further inside the sardine can until he took over the lead.

The impression I got from Mike wasn’t exactly screaming womanizer. For all I knew, these hotties were only pretty after some well-placed beer goggles that I had no intentions of putting on tonight.

We shimmied through the crowd of strangers. The smell of beer hung like a blanket in the air, giving me a headache without even having the fun of drinking one. We kept walking, making me think we were going to keep heading out the back door, which would have been fine by me.

Mike had been shouting over his shoulder the entire time, but over the music and the voices I wasn’t able to hear what he was saying. I followed without answering, nodding my head in agreement occasionally, pretending I knew what he was talking about. I was too busy concentrating on pulling my feet off of the sticky stone floor without losing a tennis shoe to bother listening to Mike blab.

In the dark bar I caught the top of Mike’s head swerve off to the left toward a corner and through another doorway. The neon sign that hung above the doorway flashed a picture of a pool table; I figured we must be getting close.

We had walked through the entire expanse of the place and I still hadn’t seen anyone I recognized. When I crossed the threshold a quiet tingle started running up from my toes into my legs, becoming more noticeable as I made my way into the room. They felt like they were asleep but on the verge of waking up. The closer Mike and I got to one corner, the stronger the strange feeling started to hit me.

I was vaguely aware that I acknowledged some of the guys from the department, but with no more than a one word remark or a nod as I kept going.

The guys I worked with on shift were all huddled together. Everything around me felt like a fog. All the voices that were aimed at me were bouncing off like I was wearing armor.

I wasn’t able to shake the feeling that this was a dream. With each step I took closer to the tables, the more enthralled I became. Not only did the sensation get stronger in my lower half like an electric shock, but it now started in my chest and was working its way down both arms. For a second, I thought I might be having a heart attack.

A sudden flushed sense of relief was immediately followed by terror when the sensations created a bulge in my pants, instantly making them a size smaller.

It had come out of nowhere. I hadn’t had that happen to me since my ex-girlfriend. I never thought I’d feel like that again. A brief wave of aching flowed through me, making me realize how much I’d missed that feeling.

I tried to adjust my pants to accommodate the strain that was growing more uncomfortable by the minute. What I didn’t understand was I still hadn’t seen the reason for the reaction.

Like a hawk looking for a mouse, I scanned the room for the explanation of the sensation, ignoring everything else around me.

Mike halted abruptly, causing me to run into him. I had completely forgotten about him. After I regained my balance I saw her. Well, the back of her. My already hard cock became stone just from the view I had from behind.

While I inconspicuously pulled at my jeans to try to relieve the discomfort, I soaked up the mystery woman.

She was wearing a burgundy scrub shirt and black scrub pants. So she worked at the hospital. She must be a nurse. I would let her give me a sponge bath anytime.

God, I couldn’t believe I was thinking like that already. I hadn’t even seen her from the front, much less met her, and that’s where my head had gone. I knew it had been a long time since I’d had sex, but this was ridiculous. No matter how hard I tried to look away I couldn’t pull my eyes off her. The harsh colors of her clothes accentuated her creamy pale skin that I wanted to lap up like milk.

My eyes became greedy after my first assessment. Slowly trailing up her soft, delicate arm, my attention was drawn to her hair. Her deep amber hair was straight and long. Even while pulled back into a pony tail it hit just past her shoulders.

The image of me ripping the hair tie out and letting that silk float across my bare chest caused me to wince in pain.

By not walking away, I realized I was asking for whatever pain I was feeling. I couldn’t get myself to leave. There was a feeling I couldn’t get past. We had some kind of connection, but I didn’t understand it.

One thing I did know for sure, if I didn’t get relief soon I would scream in agony right there in the middle of the sardine can that was posing as a bar.

Maybe she wasn’t opposed to a quickie in the bathroom. That would fix me. My God, where did that come from? I hadn’t spoken to this woman, or even seen the whites of her eyes, and she was already driving me insane.