It doesn’t matter what I say anyway. Sierra draws her own conclusions. And she takes it upon herself to answer all the other nurse’s questions on my behalf.
“Oh yes, she had a very nice day off,” Sierra answers, her voice dripping with innuendo.
“Oh, she is more than okay today,” she tells the physician assistant who asks if I worked out too hard. “And yes, she worked out, too, too hard. That is exactly why she’s walking funny today.”
“Girl, don’t even bother inviting her out with us,” Sierra says, interrupting one of the other nurses before she can even finish asking if I want to go to a new club in Philly with them tonight. “Mr. One Night Stand will most definitely be back for round three.”
“You don’t know that,” I protest.
She arches a brow. “So, you can come out with us tonight? You don’t have any other man-shaped plans?”
I slump down in my chair, totally read. I should have thought of that before I opened my mouth.
A delivery man showing up to the nurses’ station halfway through my shift with a giant vase filled with flowers only reinforces Sierra’s bad habit of answering on my behalf.
“Yes, this is her, sir.” Sierra points her acrylic-covered index fingers at me dramatically, sawing one horizontally and the other vertically right around my head. “Right here. She is the recipient of the flowers.”
I couldn’t have read that card in private if I tried. Sierra and the other nurses gathered in a tight arc around me as I pulled it out of its tiny white envelope.
“It’s from Dr. America!” Sierra announces to the group before I can—loud enough that even the nurses tending to patients in the cubicles look up to see what’s going on.
“It says, ‘I’m sorry, can we try again?’” she lets everyone know before releasing a gleeful cackle. “Ooh, he is worried. If you were trying to make him jealous, this was the exact move, sis. The exact right move.”
She squeezes both my shoulders and gives me a little congratulatory shake. Like I’m winning a game only women can see.
“I’m not trying to make him jealous,” I tell Sierra and all the other staff members who aren’t even pretending to not be listening in on our conversation. “I’m not trying to play any games with anyone. Please stop.”
Sierra must sense I’m serious about this. She backs down and tells the rest of the nurses to scatter, like they’re pigeons, and she’s all out of food.
I almost find a measure of peace during the last half of my shift, but then Jonathan himself appears at the nurse’s station right before I’m scheduled to leave.
I can almost hear Sierra cheering another point for womankind behind the fake smile she gives him when she says, “Hi, Dr. Kershaw.”
“Hello,” Jonathan says in that vaguely warm tone doctors use when they don’t remember your name.
He looks at me. “Did you get my flowers?”
Sierra points an acrylic at the corner of the nurses’ station where I set the vase of flowers so they’d be out of the way. “They are right there. Mimi wanted all the patients to enjoy them. She’s so nice, isn’t she?”
Sadness flits across Jonathan’s usually confident gaze. “Yes, she truly is.”
He gives me a somewhat pleading look. “Can we talk? Please?”
I hesitate, Waylon’s last command echoing in my ears. Come straight home to me.
But I never agreed to that. And I don’t want to give Sierra anything else for the mental recording she’s making for the play-by-play I’m sure she’ll give the other nurses as soon as Jonathan’s out of earshot.
“Sure,” I answer.
We end up walking to the diner where he broke up with me. But before we reach the door, I say, “I’m not hungry. I just didn’t want to do this at the hospital where everyone can see.”
Jonathan’s expression tightens. “So it’s true. You’ve moved on?”
“No, I….” The only explanation I can come up with is, “I need more time to think.”
“More time to think while you date some other guy?” Jonathan says, his tone bitter. “Is it one of your brother’s associates?”
His guess hits so close, I don’t have time to mask my surprise.
“I knew it!” Jonathan shakes his head, his tone laced with judgment. “You’re one of those women I’ve heard about—the kind who passes over the good guy for the bad boy criminal!”
I jerk my head back. “You’re the one who said you wanted to hit pause.”
“And you said you wanted to get married and make a home with someone…have kids.” Jonathan thins his lips. “I guess we both lied.”
“I didn’t lie. I…” I once again try and fail to come up with a way to describe this thing with Waylon.
In the end, I tell him, “I understand if you don’t want to give me more time.”
For a moment, Jonathan’s eyes fry with anger. But then he quickly smooths over his expression. “No, you’re right. I’m the one who asked for the pause. The honorable thing is to give you as much time as you need for this dalliance to run its course. I’ll be here when you come to your senses.”