Summer Swing (6 page)

I had to pause for a few seconds.
Man, he’s a tough one
, I thought.
But I relented and said,
“Okay, come on.”

I led him back into the ER, fully expecting him
to
change his mind and tell me he was just kidding, but he didn’t say a word as I awkwardly stepped up to the receptionist’s desk. I looked at Gage one last time and he still didn’t say anything, so when lovely Linda inquired what I needed, I said, “Uh, I have a question for Dr.
Farrell
if he’s not busy.”

She eyed me suspiciously and then nodded her head. “Sure, just let me check.”

While she went to the back, Gage said, “I’m gonna sit down for a minute.
I feel
kind of
tired
.”

I
watched him sink into a chair, and I
was going to tell him he was full of crap, but Dr.
Farrell
suddenly appeared, looking at me with a surprised smile. I don’t even think he saw Gage, and I instantly felt like a fool.

“
Hello
,
it’s
Ellie, right?” he asked.

“Um, yes. Uh…”

“Did you have a question for me? Or was there a personal reason you wanted to see me,” he added.
His smugness
was a little much, and I was instantly put off.

“And what personal reason would that be?” I asked, feigning somewhat of a blank stare.

He paused for a few seconds and then softly cleared his throat.
“
What can I do for you?”

I had no idea what I was supposed to say. It seemed a little arrogant of
me
to be approaching this doctor to
settle a silly disagreement
. I really didn’t care, so I wasn’t sure what I was trying to accomplish.

“Uh, never mind,” I finally said.

I realized how completely humiliated I looked when Dr.
Farrell
smiled at me again. It wasn’t a kind, friendly, professional smile; it was an “I know why you’re really here” kind of smile. He assumed that I was interested in him.

I was about to leave when he softly put a hand on my wrist and said, “Wait.”

When I turned around he slightly leaned down to gaze in my eyes, a tactic I’m sure got him in a lot of doors.

“I get off of work in about an hour,” he told me quietly. “Maybe we could meet for a drink.”

“Hmm, probably not,” I replied
right away
.

He seemed caught off guard when he said, “Oh?” He paused for a few seconds and then asked, “
If drinks don’t interest y
ou, then maybe something else?”

I had to smile, but at the same time I knew that Gage hadn’t been pulling my leg. Just the arrogance of this guy was seeping all over the place.

“Well for one, I’m not even twenty-one,” I replied.

Again he was surprised, but with a smirk he quietly asked, “You are over eighteen though, right?”

I raised my eyebrows at him. “Wow, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever been asked that. Which brings me to my other point… I’m not interested.”

“
Oh. I
s
that
why you
didn’t
come back in here to talk to me?
”

“
Um…a
ctually I was going to ask you about getting a doctor’s clearance for Gage. You know, in case his coach wants one or something. Might as well just get it now.”

Dr.
Farrell
studied me for a few seconds and then slowly nodded his head. “Sure.” He pulled out a
note
pad from his pocket and quickly jotted something down. He handed it to me with a smile and said, “That should be all you need.”

I glanced at what he’d written:
Okay to play
, and then saw a phone number below it.

“So his coach can call you if he has any questions?” I asked.

“No, but
you
can,
”
he
smiled.
“Have a
pleasant
night, Ellie,”
he added,
and
then he
left me standing there.

I kind of groaned to myself, feeling disappointed that I’d wasted another
ten
minutes of my night in the emergency room. But there was no way to get that time back, so I decided I needed to get Gage to Wyatt’s house and go from there.

I kind
of chuckled as I approached him because he was sound asleep in the chair he was sitting in
.
I sat next to him and studied his face while I could without him knowing.
After a couple of minutes I gently nudged him. He didn’t even move, so I nudged him again.

“Gage,” I said,
that time
squeezing his leg.

“
Hm
?” He opened his eyes and looked around for a few seconds.

“Do you want to go home? I mean back to Wyatt’s. I think you should go to bed.”

“I don’t want to go to bed,” he replied, sitting up straighter to stretch. “Let’s get out of here, though.”

“Are you okay to walk?” I asked as he stood. He seemed to do it cautiously.

“Sure, I’m fine. Unless you’re planning to carry me,” he smiled. “I could deal with that.”

When we were finally
back
at Wyatt’s house, I made Gage
rest
on the couch while I cleaned up the broken mirror. It was kind of cute how he was so
worried for me to be careful. B
ut then again, why would he want to spend another
two hours
in the emergency room?

Gage
hadn’t
let me stop for the prescription Dr.
Farrell
had written for him—he said he didn’t want it—so we grabbed Chinese food instead and planned on just watching movies at the house.

“I’m sorry for the way things turned out,”
he
later apologized. We’d eaten dinner and watched a movie,
and
now we were eating ice cream and
were
about to watch
a second
movie.

“What’s wrong with the way things turned out?” I asked him. “It’s actually nice to just be able to talk to you in person for once.
It doesn’t matter where we are. Just not the ER again,
”
I added quickly.

He laughed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. But I can’t help but feel that you’re really grossed out by this.” He held up his arm that was bandaged to cover
the
stitches.

“Um, well no, I don’t really want to look at it or anything, but at least it’s not a wide open gash anymore.”

“So that’s not why you won’t sit closer to me?”

I paused where I was, putting the second DVD into the player. “Uh, no,
that’s not why,
” I kind of smiled. Yes I was embarrassed, but I didn’t know what else to say.
Mostly we’d just sat on the couch kind of facing each other so we could talk during the movie.

“Okay, I just wanted to make sure it didn’t bother you or anything.”

I busied myself with starting the movie until I could think of a response. Was that his invitation to
be
closer to him? I was never one to make the first move, but maybe I had at the hospital, when I’d held his hand. If that was the case, then why didn’t
he
move closer to
me
on the couch?

I hated this part of
dating
, but I concluded that I really did like Gage, so why should I hold back how I feel about him?

“Well
your
injury
doesn’t bother me as long as I don’t think about it,” I
finally
told him.

Then
was the awkward part, when I return
ed
to the couch to sit down. I decided to just do it I guess, and I sat down right next to him. I turned toward him slightly and he put his good arm on the couch behind me. “Is it starting to hurt?” I asked, taking his left arm by the wrist. I knew I only asked to detract from how nervous I was,
because
being so close to him made my heart pound even harder.

“I thought you
didn’t want to think about it
.
”

“Uh, no, I don’t,” I kind
of
mumbled, unable to look right at him.

I was basically staring down at his leg because
I was too spineless to look into his eyes. I hated feeling so shy, but there was no way I could sit so close to him for an entire movie and actually focus on something other than kissing him. I knew Gage was trying to be respectful, but I wished that he would just kiss me.

You dummy, how can he if you won’t even look at him?
I told myself.

I had two choices. I could settle next to him and watch a movie I wouldn’t even be able to focus on, or I could just turn my head to look at him. Not that hard, right? I wanted to kiss him, so it was the obvious choice to finally look at him. When our eyes locked it was kind of all it took, and with another partial smile, he took his hand and softly ran it through my hair
and along my neck
.

“I’m not going to ruin a
nything here, am I?” he softly asked
.

“Only if you’re still medicated.”

He smiled bigger. “No, that wore off over an hour ago. My
entire
arm hurts like hell.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I can make life-altering decisions right now.”

“That’s all I needed to know.”

He slightly nodded, and then leaned forward to kiss me. It was kind of like all the flirting and talking on the phone had finally come together to establish something real, something tangible
. I liked how he kissed me, and I scooted
even
closer
to enjoy it
more
.

Chapter Four

“This doesn’t feel complete,
Ellie,
” Doug told me, appearing at my cubicle. He was holding papers in his hand so I took them from him.

“How did you get this? This isn’t even what I’m working on for this week.”

“It was on your desk so I thought it’s what you had for me. I asked for it yesterday and got tired of waiting.”

“I gave you the new review yes
terday, remember? It was on health spas
.”

He thought for a second. “Oh, yeah, I do remember reading that. So what’s that one?” he asked, pointing to the papers that I’d just slid into a folder.

“That’s one I’m working on for
next month, when July hits
.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Oh, yeah? You start them that early?”

“Yes, that way I can make sure I’ve got all my bases covered. And if there’s any type of follow up I need to do, I still have the time.”

He slowly nodded his head. “
Hm
,” was all he
said.

He left without saying anything further, and I let out a breath of air.
The new
producer
at the station was sometimes a little abrupt, and
after two months,
I was still trying to get used to him.

A minute later he returned. “Ellie, how would you feel about doing the reviews on air, starting next week? The morning show is having a
great response from listeners about your written reviews on the website, and we’d like to try adding you as a voice. Just to see how it goes at first,” he added. What he meant to say was, “If you suck at it, you’re fired.”

“Well I would really love that,” I replied. “What are we looking at? Still weekly?”

“Mm, not sure yet. I guess it depends on how we go about this. You’re out of school so you can change your hours to
weekday
mornings, right?”

“Yes, I can do that.”

“Okay,” he said, glancing at his watch, “I’m meeting w
ith Ken
in ten minutes. Will you join us?”

“Yep, I’ll be there.”

“My office,” he said over his shoulder as he left.

I sat for a moment, elation beginning to brew. On air! I was so excited. I enjoyed doing what I already did, but I was looking forward to something more. I knew it was only going to be a
two
-minute blip, but I didn’t care. It was a start.