Code blue, p.7
Code Blue, page 7
She didn’t want to depend on him, but she liked having him around. She liked the way he made her feel. And she didn’t know if that made her a bad person, but it didn’t feel like it did, especially when he appeared to enjoy being with her just as much as she liked being with him.
In any case, she told herself, it wasn’t a matter of taking advantage of anyone. They were both adults, and Landon knew exactly what he was getting into with her. He could be held accountable for his own actions.
“Hey,” Landon said, walking over to her. “Are you okay? You look a bit lost in thought.”
“Yes,” she replied, smiling at him. “I’m good, I’m just feeling a little…I’m not sure how to put this.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Like, this is good,” she said. “I don’t want to scare you off, but it feels like the way it was supposed to be. Sorry, am I coming off too strong? I’m not saying I want to be in a relationship or anything. I’m just saying that, for the first time in a long time, this felt like something real.”
His eyes widened, and he seemed a little taken aback.
“Sorry,” she said, biting her lower lip and taking a step back. “The last thing I wanted to do was freak you out.”
“You aren’t freaking me out,” he said. “I think it’s sweet.”
“Sweet?” she asked, her eyebrows raised.
“In a nice way,” he said. “I like it. I like when you are sweet.”
She twisted her lips, her arms crossed over her chest. He walked over to where she was and looked at her, their gazes meeting.
He put a crooked finger under her chin and tilted her head up a bit. “Hey,” he said. “I loved that, and I loved spending time with you. I’m going to give you your space, but how about, I don’t know, a date?”
She smirked, her heart beating fast. “Are you asking me out?”
He furrowed his brow. “Yes,” he said. “I am.”
“You could’ve bought me a drink before bedding me,” she said.
“I can buy you a drink now,” he replied. “Well, not…now. Though I am a bit confused about where you’re going to sleep.”
“I am walking over to my mom’s at some point,” she said. “Probably now, before it gets dark.”
“Weren’t the movers coming?”
“Tomorrow,” she said. “I haven’t finished packing everything.”
He laughed. “So, you did get me here under false pretenses,” he said. “In order to seduce me.”
“Yes,” she replied, smiling at him as he moved away from her for a second, wrinkling her nose slightly. “Of course, I did.”
He laughed, and for a second, everything was okay.
LANDON
He didn’t want to rescind his invitation, but he didn’t know what had gotten into him. She had been his patient, and she was clearly going through something traumatic, but the sex had been so good, and he enjoyed being around her so much.
He knew that the moment he took her out on a date, the rumor mill was going to get started in their town, and everyone would be talking about their date. That, of course, included the medical professionals he worked with. While several of them were commuters, many lived in town for convenience, and they were unlikely to be spared.
That was one of the reasons Landon had wanted to escape his small town when he was younger. When he had gotten pulled back into it, he had told himself that he wasn’t going to let himself get tangled up in any drama. But what had happened with Marie Parker was more than just drama. She had become something of a celebrity, which wasn’t at all surprising considering what had happened to her. There was already a level of renown attached to her, being an elite athlete in a town as small as theirs, but after her accident, there had been articles written about her, and people would often whisper about what had happened to her.
A couple of bold people even asked him how she was doing. He had always deflected with humor, without ever saying anything about HIPPA, no matter how much he wanted to.
But he was in it now. He couldn’t exactly back out. He couldn’t take her anywhere outside of town, because she might think that he didn’t want people to see them together. She wouldn’t be wrong, but he wasn’t ready to have that conversation.
He decided, instead, to invite her over to his place. She had never been to his house, and he would drive her there, which meant that there would be no strange car parked outside. That would do a little to stave off any potentially nosy neighbors.
It had been a couple of weeks since she had moved, and it had taken them a little while to get the logistics down, but he had finally cleaned his place thoroughly, gotten all the ingredients that he needed for a nice dinner, and was on his way to pick her up.
He was nervous. That was why he was thinking about other people, because he was trying not to think about how nervous he was to actually see her. It felt like it was the most important date of his life. He had been nervous before dates before, but never quite as nervous as he was at that moment.
There was so much that could go wrong…so many things to consider…he didn’t want to feel like he was competing against this shadow, but it was a huge part of her life, and he couldn’t help but think that he would never be able to live up to her dreams.
Fuck.
He needed to calm down. He wasn’t even sure if he was serious about her yet. Being so committed to something that had not happened was probably not the world’s best idea. Originally, he had planned to tell her after the date, no matter how well it went, that they couldn’t do this. She was an adult; he knew she would understand.
But the closer he got to her apartment building, the less likely he was to do that. He was nervous because he liked her so much, and he worried that after that date, he would simply want more.
Because that was what had happened so far. Every conversation that she had with him, every time she flashed him a smile, and then what had happened on the day that she moved… He wanted more of it. Not less. It didn’t matter how much he tried to stop himself, because this wasn’t just lust.
If it had been, he would’ve known how to handle it. He had been a teenage boy, after all, and he’d had plenty of relationships in his twenties, casual and otherwise. But she wasn’t just somebody that he looked at with lust.
She was fascinating; her life experiences were fascinating; she was, perhaps, the most interesting person he had ever met, full stop. He enjoyed being around her, not just because he learned more about her, but because he felt like he was learning more about life.
About himself.
He loved it. It was so outside from the norm in his life. He didn’t know what any of her experiences meant, but that didn’t matter. The fact that she’d had them at all was enough.
He was outside her apartment, parking in the only free spot, and looking up at the stairs as he tried to pump himself up to go and knock on her door.
Before he could, he heard a knock on his passenger door. He turned to see Marie, looking breathtaking. She made a gesture for him to open the lock, and he did as he was told.
She got into the car, closing the door loudly. “Sorry,” she said. “I know the ladylike thing to do would have been to wait at my place, but fuck being ladylike. I just want to do things I’m excited about while I have a chance to. You know?”
He looked at her and smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MARIE
She wasn’t sure how she was going to feel when she arrived at Landon’s house, but when he opened the door for her in order to allow her to walk in before him, all she could do was smile. His house was almost exactly what she had expected. It was a large, open space, a dining room right next to her as she walked in, an open kitchen with a black island next to it, and a large living room with an L-shaped, leather couch that contrasted with the rest of the color scheme. It was a bachelor pad through and through, if a little bit on the higher end. It smelled like peach and cookies.
“What’s that?” she asked, smelling around the place.
“A peach candle. Do you like it?”
“Yes,” she said. “What about the cookies?”
“I baked some, for dessert. Kind of presumptuous of me to assume you would want dessert, but I figure it couldn’t hurt. And then, you know, if you don’t want dessert, I get stuck with a ton of cookies,” he said. “So, whatever happens, things turn out pretty well for me.”
She laughed, lines appearing around her eyes as she did so. “Okay, I can’t argue with that logic.”
“I hope you’re hungry.”
She nodded. “Yes, I’m starving for some real food,” she said. “All I’ve eaten lately is pizza, and my mom brings junk food around every day.”
“Why?”
She laughed, a little dryly. He gestured for her to sit down on his large couch and she did, putting her bag next to her. She was wearing a strapless, black dress, which flattered her, but the hemline reached her ankles, and despite a slit that went all the way up to her thigh, she was feeling comfortable enough in it. She knew she had made the right choice with it because Landon couldn’t stop staring at her. She could tell that he was trying his best to be discreet, but it wasn’t working. She caught him glancing at her a lot, and maybe it was her imagination, but it looked to her like he was blushing. For her part, she was nervous. Here was this gorgeous, older man, the first man she had slept with since her life had been split in half, and he seemed to like her too. The idea of it tripped her up.
She didn’t want to get ahead of herself, but she could, sometimes, see glimpses of her having a future. Instead of being stuck in the past, in her own head, in her own experiences. Her life would never be the same—she didn’t think she would ever be as happy as she had been in her other life, in what felt like her real life—but at least it would be good.
For the first time since she had woken up, she felt like it could be…okay. Like being around him might make things okay again.
“Marie?”
“Sorry,” she said, looking around. “I was just admiring your house.”
“Not much to admire. But I appreciate the attempt, in any case. Would you like something to drink?”
“What do you have?”
“Wine,” he said. “Rose, but I also have diet sprite, if that’s more your speed.”
She laughed. “You know me so well,” she said. “I’ll take the wine, then I’ll go ahead and take you up on that sprite when it’s time for food.”
He smiled. “Of course,” he said.
She watched him walk over to the kitchen. “Do you need help?”
“No, I’m okay,” he replied. “You just sit there and look good, okay? That’s all I need you to do.”
“I got that covered,” she said, smiling. “At least I think so. This is the first time since I’ve woke up that I’ve actually, you know, dressed up for anything.”
“Well, it suits you,” he said. “Honestly, you look amazing.”
She smiled at how smooth that had been. If he was nervous, then it wasn’t particularly obvious to her. He seemed to have his shit together. Unlike her. Whose shit had been thrown entirely out of alignment. “I don’t know what the deal with my mom bringing me food is,” she said after a little while, when he had brought her the wine. “I mean, of course, there’s a part of me that is really happy she cares. And I don’t take any of that for granted. I really don’t.”
“But...,” he said when she paused.
“But it feels like a lot,” she said, sighing and taking a sip of her drink. “Like, I just want to be an independent adult, and it’s hard. It’s really hard. There is a part of me that just wants to tell her to stop, but I know the transition is hard for her too. At the end of the day, she was the one who saw me get hurt. I don’t think it was easy for her at all. In fact, if anything, she probably still struggles with it. But she’s been really good about letting me go, even when it is clear that she is not very sure, herself.”
“What about you? How are you feeling about it?”
She thought about it for a few seconds. “I’m glad,” she said. “I’m glad that I’m living by myself and that I can live independently. For the first few days, everything made me giddy. I was going to get myself a drink and no one jumped up to help me. I decided what to watch on the TV, and I didn’t have to feel bad about it because everyone else just wanted to do whatever I wanted. I had to sign up to paying a bill online and it was immensely frustrating. I loved it.”
He raised his eyebrows.
She shrugged her shoulders. “When you are in a situation like the one that I find myself in,” she said into her wine glass. “Frustration happens, and it happens a lot. But when it comes to mundane things, things that people can help me with, well, they do their best to allow me to avoid that frustration. And I get it. I get why they would want to do that. I just...I want to be able to feel normal again and part of that is having to deal with every day things. Including how frustrating it is to pay a bill.”
“That’s fair,” he said. “And don’t worry, I’m sure there is a lot more of that coming.”
“Yes,” she replied, finishing her wine. “That was great. Great choice.”
“Thanks. Do you drink a lot of wine?”
She furrowed her brow. “I don’t know,” she said. “Before the coma, I don’t remember. And after, well, I’ve been on so much medication, I was told to abstain from drinking until very recently.”
“How recently?”
“Like today recently,” she said. “I mean, I’m sure I could’ve done it before, but it didn’t feel right to do it before. So, this is when I’m doing it.”
“Shouldn’t you wait to have something to celebrate?”
“I do have something to celebrate,” she said. “This date certainly feels a bit like a celebration.”
He nodded and put his hands on his knees. “I should go check on the food,” he said. “You stay here, okay? Don’t go anywhere.”
“Okay,” she replied. “Deal.”
He smiled and got up. The living room was filled with the smell of salty potatoes and salmon with honey, and her stomach grumbled at the thought.
“I’m not a very accomplished chef,” he called out from the kitchen. “Truth is, I don’t cook much at all. Fortunately, I have one dish up my sleeve that I impress all the girls with.”
“So, I’m just one of the girls.”
“Yes,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “Something like that.”
LANDON
Landon waited for a few seconds to sit down. He had taken the salt and the drinks to the dining room table, and though he wanted to, he had resisted the impulse to light some candles. He sat down in front of her, and he noticed that she looked like a vision. Her hair was curled slightly around her face, framing it. Her eyes were huge and there was a smile playing on her lips that he could hardly stop looking at. She was hypnotizing, even as she cracked open the diet can of Sprite. “Turns out,” she said, meeting his gaze. “Wine makes you thirsty. And I have turned into something of a lightweight.”
“You can’t be blamed,” he said. “But maybe have some food. That will line your stomach and make you feel a bit better.”
“It was probably irresponsible of you to feed me wine without offering me food first.”
“I offered you food first[MOU3],” he said. “You just decided to go for the wine. Indiscriminately.”
“You didn’t offer me food first.”
“Okay, but I invited you to dinner.”
“Indiscriminately, huh?” she asked, her smile widening as she shook her head.
“Exactly,” he said. “Indiscriminately.”
They talked about the weather and other random things, including the road work in town and the new developments around them. Landon generally didn’t enjoy small talk, but it was different with her. He enjoyed listening to her speak, to the way that she looked at him when their gazes met, and when she smiled, there were two dimples on her cheeks. He could’ve stared at her for ages, just listening to her talk about absolutely nothing, just letting his gaze dart around her face, taking in her beauty.
After they had finished eating, she smiled. “That was so good,” she said. “I can see why this is your go-to date meal. But if there is going to be another date, you are going to have to learn how to cook more meals.”
“Does that mean you’re never going to cook for me?”
“I don’t think I’m allowed near a stove yet.”
“You didn’t say that earlier.”
“Well, it’s my mom’s rules,” she said, a smile on her face. “So according to her…no cooking.”
“Not even with supervision?”
She smirked. “Are you offering to supervise?”
“Something like that,” he replied. “But only if you want supervision.”
“I don’t know about supervision,” she said. “If you behave, though, I might make you some French toast in the morning.”
“Does that mean that you are spending the night?”
“Only if you provide dessert,” she said. “Which you said you would, so…”
He smiled. “I told you,” he said. “I made cookies.”
“Great,” she said. “You know that I love cookies.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MARIE
She hadn’t planned on spending the night with him, but when it had happened, she was happy about it. They had spent the night on his bed, getting to know each other intimately. There was no rush, since they had all night, and Marie enjoyed his kisses immensely, the way his hands felt on hers, the way it felt when he made her orgasm. The longer she spent with him, the more it seemed like he was real, and the more she appreciated being anchored to this world.
She didn’t know if she was ever going to stop having the dreams about her family when she had been in a coma. She didn’t even know if she wanted to. It was important for her to hold onto it, to hold on to her memories of what her life had been like. But when she was with Landon, she wasn’t too worried about it.
Things seemed to make sense, and they felt like they kept making sense. The closer they got to one another, the more right it felt. Marie expected that she would get spooked, but she still hadn’t. And as much as she wanted to get back to what felt like her real life, if she couldn’t, then she supposed that this wouldn’t be too bad.
