Authors: Stephanie Fournet
When he reached her lunch tray, he lifted the lid off the center plate. A pork chop floated in a gelatinous ooze of gravy. Grayish green peas and a heap of dried-out mashed potatoes rounded out the meal. With a look of disapproval, Dr. Hawthorne touched the rim of the plate before replacing the lid.
“That’s ice cold. It’s probably been sitting here for hours.” He looked back at her. “You’re not allowed to eat that.”
“Trust me, dude. There isn’t enough money in the world to make me to eat that.”
This time, he did laugh, and it was a laugh like classic rock. Comfortable. Familiar. But steely, too.
“Here,” he said, reaching into his pocket. He handed her a Kind bar. “They don’t serve dinner until 5:30, and I’m hoping to get you out of here by then, but you need to eat something.”
She hesitated a moment, but, when her stomach growled again, Wren reached for the granola bar.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome, Ms. Blanchard,” he said easily.
She shook her head. “It’s Wren.”
He nodded, and the edges of his eyes crinkled with a smile. “Yeah, you said that before.”
“I did?” Wren felt a jolt. “I probably said a lot of things.”
Dr. Hawthorne laughed again.
Oh shit. What did I say?
Her cheeks grew hot.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” she muttered. But it was a lie. She did like the sound of his laugh.
“Everybody gets a free pass in the ER,” he said.
“Phew.” She mimed wiping imaginary sweat from her brow. At the gesture, she noticed her pits were heating up. She clamped her arms to her sides and realized that it had been more than twenty-four hours since she’d showered or brushed her teeth.
So what?
He’s your doctor. He’s not flirting. And if he were, ew!
“It was a pleasure to meet you, Wren,” he said then, giving her a little bow. “I wish you a full recovery.”
“Thanks, doc.”
He stuck out his hand then, and she shook it, remembering a flash from the night before. Had she held his hand? At the thought, she released him first, but she saw that his eyes lingered on the blackbirds at her wrist.
Dr. Hawthorne stepped back into the open doorway of her room, and he rested a hand on the doorframe. “Take care.”
And then he was gone.
Wren turned the granola bar over, read the label again, and nodded in agreement.
FRIDAY, AT 6:10
p.m., Lee took the elevator down to the ground floor. For the first time in weeks, his day off coincided with the weekend, and he didn’t feel that tired. He might even be up for dinner out with Marcelle before fatigue won. Someplace quick. Like Sakura. They could get dinner, and he could still be in bed by eight o’clock.
Lee dug out his phone and sent his girlfriend a text.
Lee:
Can I take you out on a date? Sakura?
If she wasn’t at Red’s Health Club, she’d already be waiting for him at his place, he knew, so he kept his phone handy as he stepped out of the elevator and crossed the lobby.
Marcelle:
What about Tsunami? It’s so much nicer!
Lee sighed. The wait at Tsunami could be an hour or even two on a Friday night. He’d never make it.
Lee:
If you can get a reservation in the next hour, I might be able to keep my eyes open.
He debated calling the restaurant himself. Chances were Marcelle would ask him to anyway. And even if he did get a reservation before eight o’clock, dinner at Tsunami was never a quick affair. Marcelle would want time to get ready, and she’d want him to shower and shave, too. They’d run into friends or some of Marcelle’s clients, and he’d be lucky if they got back home before eleven.
Lee muttered a curse and stepped outside. But the sight of black hair streaked with blue stopped him. Wren Blanchard sat on a bench past the hospital’s entrance.
Was she just now discharged?
He’d signed her release forms hours ago.
“What are you still doing here?” he asked as he approached her. Wren turned, looking startled at first, and he saw that she pressed her phone to one ear. She held up her free hand and silently asked him to wait.
“No, Mamaw, it’s okay,” she was saying. “Rocky is coming to get me.”
Lee frowned. Why was she still at the hospital? Was this Rocky her boyfriend? If so, why the hell hadn’t he picked her up?
“I’ll call you as soon as I get home. I promise… Okay, Mamaw. Bye." She ended her call and stuffed her phone into the multicolored bag at her side, all without meeting his eye. He watched her square her shoulders before looking back up at him.
“Why are you still here?” he repeated, even though he suspected the answer. Lee found that he was a little pissed at this Rocky guy.
“I’m just waiting on my ride,” Wren said. Her cheeks colored, and with a nervous gesture, she brushed her blue bangs out of her eyes. He noticed a piercing in her left brow he hadn’t seen before.
“When were you discharged,” he asked, watching her closely.
She gave a defeated sigh, and Lee could see that he’d embarrassed her. He didn’t mean to, but she should be in bed, not sitting on a metal bench as night fell.
“Around 4:30. My grandmother was supposed to be here, but she doesn’t drive. Her neighbor was going to take her, but there was…” Wren waved her hand dismissively. “…a pot roast incident.”
Lee’s eyebrows leapt. “A pot roast incident?”
“Yeah, um, apparently, when you get old, everything revolves around dinner. And her neighbor Nanette had this crockpot failure, and…” She took a deep breath and eyed him with desperation, her cheeks now scarlet. “I can’t even go on. Old people drama.”
Lee forgot all about Rocky and sushi reservations as he watched her blush deepen.
“Anyway, it’s fine. I can Uber,” she said, pulling out her phone again.
Lee held up his hand.
“Wait, I thought you just told your grandmother that Rocky would pick you up.”
Wren rolled her eyes. “Well, she’s seventy-eight, and she doesn’t need to know that Rocky’s daughters have strep and my best friend had to work, and I’m stranded at the hospital. She feels bad enough as it is.”
Lee shook his head, knowing that she wasn’t going to Uber her way home. “You’re not stranded at the hospital anymore. I’m taking you home." He held out his hand to help her up, but she just stared at him.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
He wasn’t sure, but she sounded offended. “You didn’t have to ask. I offered.”
Wren didn’t budge. “I can get my own ride home. I’m not a charity case.”
Lee opened his mouth to argue that, as a patient in a charity hospital, she, indeed, was a charity case, but he thought better of it.
“Of course not, but I’m not walking away. Hippocratic Oath. First, do no harm.” Lee well knew the oath didn’t read this way, but admitting that wouldn’t help his cause. “Leaving you on this bench for another thirty minutes while you wait on a ride would harm you.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “How so?”
Sassy. Everything about her was sassy. The look in her eyes. The tone of her voice. Even her haircut. It wasn’t long or short, but with its shag of blue on black that just touched her shoulders, it had plenty of sass.
“Apart from increasing your soreness, the temperature is dropping, and you aren’t wearing a jacket,” Lee said, glad that his years in high school debate served some purpose. “Surgery is stressful, and your immune system is compromised. You shouldn’t be out in the cold.”
It was early April in South Louisiana. It was hardly cold, but Lee wasn’t going to give any ground. The air was chilly, and the bench was hard, and he wasn’t leaving her.
Wren must have sensed his determination because she rolled her eyes again.
“Fine.” She took his hand and let him help her stand.
“Smart girl.” He meant for her to smile, but she blanched as she got to her feet. Too late, he realized he probably should have walked to his car and driven it around to pick her up. Her progress was slow, and she stooped as she walked. Lee knew her discomfort was normal, but he still felt bad for her.
They reached the passenger side of his Jeep, and he opened the door. Wren reached up and was about to hoist herself inside when he stopped her.
“That’s going to hurt. Let me give you a hand.” Before she could object, he scooped her into his arms. He felt her go rigid before he settled her onto the passenger seat.
“Um… that wasn’t necessary,” she muttered, smoothing out her black skirt and avoiding his eyes.
With a jolt, he remembered her reluctance to be examined. He stepped back at once.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine,” she said, giving a terse shake of her head and reaching back for her seatbelt.
Lee watched her for a moment, unsure if he should say more, but he decided against it and made his way to the driver’s side. Even as he cursed his stupidity, he couldn’t quite shake the feeling of lifting her up. She’d weighed almost nothing.
“Where do you live?” he asked, climbing into the driver’s seat.
“On St. Vincent.”
Lee started his Jeep and frowned. “Is that in the Saint Streets?”
“Yeah, a block off St. Julien.”
“I live in the Saint Streets, too. I’ve just never seen St. Vincent.”
“It’s a tiny street. Almost directly behind Izzo’s.” But she eyed him with skepticism. “You live in the Saint Streets?”
He nodded, navigating his way out of the parking lot. “Yeah, on Dunreath. I love it there.”
Her mouth made an
O,
but she didn’t say anything.
“What does
that
mean?” he asked, unable to help himself.
She shrugged. “Nothing. That just makes more sense.”
Lee guessed that he knew what she meant, and the idea chafed. He wanted to make her say it aloud so he could tell her she was wrong. “What makes more sense?”
Wren’s left brow, the one with the small hoop, arched. “The fact that we live in the same neighborhood. Not too many doctors live in the Saint Streets,” she said, eyeing him up and down. “But the houses on Dunreath are pretty nice — in a
Southern Living
kinda way.”
Lee cocked his head back and gave a surprised laugh. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sort of sounds like you’re judging me.”
“Oh, I am. Just like you’re judging me.” She sounded tough, but her eyes were smiling. “People do it all the time, and if they say that they don’t, then they’re judging
and
lying.”
“Wow, that’s blunt.” A part of Lee’s brain told him he should be offended, but he wasn’t. Instead, he felt intrigued.
“It’s the truth. It’s natural to evaluate. We do it constantly. Without even thinking,” she said without apology. “You meet a person, and you take in what you observe about them and what you know about the world, and you try to categorize them. Friend or foe? Threat or asset? Peer, superior, or inferior?”
Lee made a left from North College onto Johnston Street. “That’s a pretty harsh view of the world.”
She gave him a wry smile. “Well, sometimes the world can be pretty harsh.”
He knew what she said was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. “I kind of think we’re responsible for making our own world.”
“Well, naturally, I agree with you there,” she said, her voice smoothing out.
“Naturally?” he questioned.
Wren shifted the bottom of her skirt so that her left calf was visible. A brown-and-black-striped feather spanned the length of it. The feather seemed to be falling, twirling downward. The shading and detail were extraordinary.
“As a tattoo artist, I absolutely agree.”
Mesmerized, Lee glanced back and forth between the traffic on the road and the artwork on her leg. He wasn’t sure, but he guessed it was a wren’s feather.
“You did that yourself?” Surprise was clear in his voice. Wren smiled.
“It’s never a good idea to ink yourself, but I did draw the design.”
“That’s really good.” It would be inappropriate for him to mention that the cherry blossom tree on her stomach was a masterpiece, but that didn’t stop him from thinking it. It also didn’t stop him from blabbing on. “I don’t have any tattoos.”
Wren said nothing, but her look of mock surprise made him laugh. “There you go again,” he said, shaking his head. “Judging me.”
Her expression softened. “No judgment. Ink isn’t for everyone.”
Lee wished then he had a tattoo. It would have made her rethink her assumptions. He took a left onto St. Julien Street.
“I’ve heard they’re addicting. That once you get one, you want to keep doing it.”
“I’ll say,” she muttered, tracing her fingers over the blackbirds on her wrist. Then she sat up higher and pointed. “Turn left here.”
Lee made a left onto St. Michael and drove slowly.
“Take the next right,” she said, pointing to St. Vincent. “I’m in the duplex halfway down.” Wren dug through her purse and found her keys as he pulled into the driveway of the two-story house.
“Upstairs or down,” he asked, looking at the steep stairway that led to the second floor.
“Up.”
“And no one’s home?” Lee asked, frowning.
“Uh, just a pissed-off cat named Agnes.”
He didn’t mean to, but he laughed. “Why is she pissed?”
“Well, duh, because no one was here last night or this morning to feed her,” Wren said. “She probably shat on my bed just to make her disapproval clear.”
“Oh, God. You’re kidding.”
One side of Wren’s mouth lifted. “It’s happened, but it’s been a while.”
“Well, I really hope she hasn’t,” Lee said, killing the ignition.
Wren shrugged. “I’ll live.”
“You? You’ll be fine. I’ll be the one cleaning it up.” He got out of the Jeep, but not before he saw her stunned look.
“What are you doing?” she asked after he came around and opened her car door.
“I’m helping you up those stairs, and, in the event that Angry Agnes has soiled your sheets, I’m going to be making up your bed because you are in no shape to do it yourself.”
“What?” she asked, eyes wide.
“You heard me.” He held out his hands. “Do I have your permission to carry you up the stairs?”