~*~
“How did you say you got this injury again?” Dr. Morgana asked as he finished the last stitch in Erva’s shoulder. They were in a small curtained off part of the emergency department. Everything was a cloying pink color, and the effervescent lights made the color radiate into something psychotic. The only relief for Erva’s eyes was the white floor and Dr. Morgana’s blue scrubs.
She sighed and looked at the clean-as-a-plate shiny tiles under the doctor’s rolling stool. “Just moving things around my apartment. I guess I’m klutzy.”
The thirty-something, hunky-as-hell doctor lifted one dark eyebrow. “You don’t strike me as a klutz. You have an athletic build.” He cleared his throat. “I mean, as a doctor I noticed your build. Of course. I’m not trying to come on to you or anything.” He rolled slightly away from her as a pink color rose up his neck. “Unless you want me to come on to you. Of course not. How unprofessional of me.” But he smiled at her unapologetically.
Less than a week ago that would have done it for Erva. She would have grinned back and coyly tried to see what the doctor wanted. But not now.
She did smile though. A little. “Thanks, doc. But—”
“I should have known a girl like you was taken. Sorry.”
She shrugged, then winced. “Ouch. Jeez, that seriously hurts. Are you sure you stitched this right?”
He silently chuckled. “Just because I stitched your supposedly klutzy wound, doesn’t mean the pain lessens. In fact, it’s often much worse. That’s why I recommended numbing it.”
“With a needle. Come on. That’s crazy.”
He shook his head with a smile. “Are you trying to ask for pain killers? Because if you are, I have to ask you a ton of questions about your behavior.”
“They’re really cracking down on addicts, huh?”
He tried to hide his smile, but didn’t do a very good job. “Uh, actually, it’s a good way to be nosey and find out if the man in your life, whoever he is, is worth you.”
She blinked, not sure if she should think the doctor was a wee bit stalker-ish, or a wee bit sweet.
He pushed his stool over to a countertop and started writing on a notepad. “I do have a prescription here for some antibiotics. You were current with your Tetanus shot, which utterly surprises me, considering your aversion to needles. I want you to take the antibiotics because your wound was pretty dirty when you came in. And I am prescribing you a couple Percocets if the pain is bad. Or for a good time. Your choice. And” —he wheeled closer and looked at her stitches, dabbed at it a little with an iodine swab, then a clear cotton one— “I left my personal phone number on the last ‘script. If your guy is an ass, you can call me. Or” —he looked down into her eyes with a sheepish smile— “you can call for whatever.”
Just then the psychedelic pink curtain flew back. Ben stood absolutely still as he looked her over then the doctor too. Blond and chiseled, he looked more like a bootcamp sergeant than the often happy, silly man Erva knew. After a heartbeat, he lurched for Erva.
“What happened to you?” He wrapped his powerful arms around her, careful of her right arm. Then he lifted her off the emergency room’s bed and settled both their bodies where she had been. “Some nurse with a weird Mediterranean accent called and said you were shot.”
“Shot?” Dr. Morgana asked.
Erva didn’t pull away from Ben. It felt too good to be in his arms. Again, she started crying, while clutching at him with all the might her left arm had. God, she’d missed him, her best friend, and the most creative creature she’d ever met.
“Miss Ferguson told me she was rearranging her furniture,” Dr. Morgana said.
Ben, as if he knew Erva’s heartbreak, cradled her even closer. “You were rearranging that shrine to your mother? I’m so proud of you, honey.”
She grinned, but the tears never stopped. “I need your help. I need to get rid of all of it.”
Ben stared at Dr. Morgana. “What pills did you give her?”
She smiled again. “I’m serious.”
Ben beamed down at her, his handsome face cheery but perplexed. He nodded. “Honey, seriously, what happened to you?”
“Well, I can see you’re in good hands,” Dr. Morgana said, rising from his stool. He looked at Erva with a small smile. “Get better soon, Miss Ferguson.” Then he left the small curtained room.
Ben leaned his head close to hers. “That doc has the hots for you.”
She sniffed.
“He thinks I’m your boyfriend. Want me to go tell him I’m gay? Bill’s coming in anyway. He’s trying to find a parking space.”
“Bill loves you.” Erva smiled at her best friend. “He loves you so much.” For the first time in years, she no longer felt the prickle of envy when she thought of Ben and Bill together. She’d wanted what they had, and now that she’d had it...the barb no longer stung. But tears did roll down her cheeks. She leaned her head away from Ben and made sure to look him in the eye. “I’m so happy you found Bill. He’s a good man. No, he’s a great man. I’m sorry if I haven’t said that sooner, but I will from now on, because I love that you found love.”
Ben smiled and wiped at her tears. “Thanks, sweetie, but you’re freaking me out now. What’s going on? I get a call that you’ve been shot, but you were actually moving your mom’s crap, and now all this sentimental stuff?”
“Hey, I can be sentimental. And that is so weird someone called you to tell you I was shot.”
“Yeah, it was. But...” He never finished. He looked down at her t-shirt. “Are you wearing a Metallica shirt? You haven’t worn that since high school, when you’d sneak it out of your mom’s house and just wear it around me.”
She leaned in and kissed Ben’s cheek. “I love you, you know that?”
“Love you too, but—”
“It’s time for a big change, Ben, and I need your help. Yours and Bill’s. I need everything in my apartment gone. All new furnishings. I’m cracking open my savings for this. And don’t you dare give me a friend discount. I’m paying you what your clients pay. And we can spend all my savings if we need to. I just...I really need this.”
Ben blinked, then his eyes got wide. “You’d let me design for you?”
“It’s about time you did, huh?”
“Anything I want?”
“Anything goes.”
“What about hair and makeup? New clothes?” a voice asked from a few feet away.
Erva looked up and smiled at Bill. His blond hair was a shade lighter than Ben’s, closer to hers, and she wondered if they looked like siblings. Well, to her they were her family. She reached out her hand to Bill who caught it and smiled down at her.
Ben had met Bill through his work, since Bill was a contractor. But it was Bill’s sister, Laura, who had been begging Erva to come into her beauty shop for a makeover.
“Definitely need new hair and makeup.” She nodded.
Bill grabbed his cell from his back pocket. “Laura will scream when I tell her. She loves how long your hair is, how light it is, perfect for what she wants to do with it. Are you really going to let her?”
If she weren’t bleeding inside, Erva thought, she just might be happy right now. The odd thing was, thanks to meeting Will, she no longer felt hopelessly lost in a world stacked up against her. She was in charge of her own life now. And that felt damned good.
She nodded to Bill, and he started to dial his sister.
As soon as Erva got her apartment in order, new hair, and kicked Dr. Peabody’s ass, she would melt into her bed and cry. Mayhap cry for the rest of her life.