Dark Moon (8 page)

I didn’t wake up
until my alarm went off on Tuesday morning.

“What time is it?”
Michael asked groggily.

“Just past six,” I
answered.

“Time for me to
get up, too.” Michael leaned over to kiss me on the forehead. “I’m afraid
Tuesdays are my late nights at work. I offer after-hours appointments for the
patients who can’t get there during the day. And I have to stop by the hospital
afterwards. I probably won’t be home until after ten,” he said apologetically.

“That’s okay.” I
tried, unsuccessfully, to keep the disappointment out of my voice.

“You could still
come over,” he suggested. “I could swing by and pick you up after I leave the
hospital.”

“Yeah, but your
office is in the opposite direction from school,” I reminded him. “You really
want to take me all the way back to campus in the morning?” I asked.

“Well, no.”
Michael laughed. “But I want to see you, and that trumps everything else in the
entire world.”

“I want to see you
too,” I whispered, “but I should probably do some schoolwork tomorrow. I’m getting
behind,” I admitted. “And if I start spending every night here, Maryanne might
disown me.”

Michael gave me a
sexy pout. “I
suppose
I can live without you for one night,” he said.
“So when do I get to meet Maryanne?”

“I told her she
should come out with us to dinner one night, but she complained about being a
third wheel. You could bring a guy friend of yours, maybe? I haven’t met any of
your
friends, either,” I pointed out.

“That’s because I
don’t have any worth meeting,” he said.

“I find that hard
to believe!”

“I had a good
friend once, but that’s another story, for another time,” Michael said lightly.

“Alright, you win,
for now.
But I want to know every detail of your life, Michael Reynolds,
no matter how boring,” I teased.

Michael
intertwined his hands with mine. “We have plenty of time for that,” he said
softly. He leaned forward to kiss me, but I turned my head.

“Let me brush my
teeth first!” I exclaimed, jumping out of bed and running to the bathroom. I
had forgotten to do it last night, and Thai food morning breath didn’t sound
very appealing.

“Mind if I do the
same?” Michael was standing at the doorway. The bathroom was spacious, with
double sinks.

“Of course not,” I
tried to reply around the toothbrush and mounds of frothy paste.

“You’re cute in
the morning.” He grinned.

When we had both
finished brushing, Michael pulled me towards him for a long kiss. “You taste
like mint.”

“Better than
yesterday’s Thai food,” I shot back.

“Hey,” Michael
said, “since I won’t see you tonight, why don’t you join me in the shower?”

“Okay,” I
whispered. Whether it was sex in his bed, on a counter and now in a shower, I
always felt the same nervous anticipation.

The shower had a
sliding glass frosted door instead of a curtain, and the walls and floor were a
bumpy, rocky surface.

“It’s so you don’t
slip,” Michael explained. “Apparently it’s all the rage at spas now. Also, they
say if you walk on the rocks it massages your feet. There are a lot of nerve
endings in the feet. I’ll have to show you some time,” he said in a flirty
voice.

We didn’t have
long. Michael pushed me against the wall, and pressed his body against mine.
The combination of his skin and the water cascading down us sent shivers up my
spine.

“Are you cold,
baby? I’ll warm you up.” I moaned in pleasure as Michael kissed me, my hands
caressing first his shredded body, then moving downwards…

“I wish that we
had more time,” he whispered. Michael slid himself inside of me.  With
each movement, I pressed my hips into him, trying to bring him deeper inside me.
It was delicious, sexy, and I would have been happy to spend all day doing
this, but we both had responsibilities.

After we had
finished and washed off from our ‘shower,’ Michael echoed my thought. “If only
we could play hooky today...” His voice trailed off. “But the problem is a day’s
not a enough. No amount of time is enough.” He paused. “We should take a trip.
Next school break you have. Can you imagine: four, five days with no care in
the world? Doing whatever the fuck we want to do,” he said suggestively.

“That would be so
amazing,” I agreed.

He groaned. “I
hate to leave you but I’ve really got to get going.”

“Call me tonight
when you get home?” I asked.

“Promise.”

We walked out of
his apartment, kissed goodbye and got into our cars.
Is this the feeling
people mean when they say they are walking on cloud nine?
Why had I been so
negative about love? Why had I thought, foolishly, that I was locked into my
destiny? How come I’d never considered free will?

Of course, when I
was thinking those things, high on Michael, high on my life, I had no idea that
my world was going to come crashing down around me.

The downward
spiral didn’t start right away. And so I continued on, blissfully unaware.

Knowing I wouldn’t
see Michael that night, the day was even more boring than usual. When I got
home that evening and opened my books, I realized that I had
a lot
of
work to do. I’d planned to catch up last weekend, but ended up blowing off
everything to spend it with Michael (which I didn’t regret) but now I had two
additional days of assignments, plus the reading I was supposed to do for next
week. I wanted to scream.

“Why are you so
frazzled?” Maryanne asked me.

“Because I’m never
going to catch up,” I said morosely.

“Just do what I
do. You figure out the bare minimum of work you can turn in and still keep a C
average. Then you cram for the tests and hopefully bring that C up to a B. If
not, you beg the teacher to let you do extra credit, promise you’ll try harder,
be more serious, blah, blah, blah. You wouldn’t believe how many times it
works.” Maryanne rolled her eyes. “I’ve even talked my way from a D to a B.”

“And was that with
a
male
teacher, perhaps?” I asked wryly.

“Perhaps.” She
mimicked my tone and stuck her tongue out.

“I’m not sure
that’s my style, but you’ve at least given me an idea of how to tackle this
mound of work. I know which teachers will let me have an extension, and which
won’t,” I said.

“Now you get it.”
Maryanne nodded approvingly. “Are you spending the night with Dr. Sexy
tomorrow?” she asked.

“I don’t know;
he’s supposed to call me when he gets home. But, truthfully, I have way too
much work to do.” I groaned. “I’d better get to it,” I said, shooting Maryanne
an apologetic expression.

I grabbed my
headphones, put them on, and forced myself to focus.

###

Wednesday morning
I was feeling slightly better, after having stayed up until nearly three
o’clock to make a dent in my schoolwork. Even though I stopped to talk to
Michael for an hour when he got home, I’d still managed to catch up on all the
written assignments, and even read ahead for next week.

But towards the
end I could barely keep my eyes open. The second time I woke up with my head
slumped in my hands and drool coming out of the side of my mouth, I knew it was
time to call it a night.

I had slept in for
longer than normal, since I was already at my own place and I really didn’t
give a shit about dressing up or making any effort to look good. I put my hair
in a loose ponytail, grabbed the first pair of jeans I could see that were
(hopefully) clean and pulled on my worn out Nine Inch Nails 2009 tour t-shirt.

Classes dragged,
and I soon found out that drinking cup after cup of coffee wasn’t exactly a
substitute for sleep. By the time I got to the hospital, my heart was racing
like crazy from all the caffeine. Not that good I’m-about-to-touch-Michael
racing heart, more like the oh-shit-what-if-I-have-a-heart-attack kind.

Nurse Evie looked
surprised when she saw me. “Late night?” she asked, raising her eyebrows
suggestively.

“Yeah, but it’s
not what you think,” I said. “I had a shitload of work to do.”

Nurse Evie frowned.
“What’s with that shirt? Not very professional.”

“Oh, I didn’t
realize. They told me I could wear whatever I wanted.”

“Yeah, jeans are
alright, but some ragged old band t-shirt isn’t. You might as well have come
here in your pajamas,” she scolded.

I blushed. “It
won’t happen again. I can go home and change?” I offered.

“No.” Evie shook
her head. “I have an extra pair of scrubs I keep in my locker. You can borrow
the shirt.”

She retreated to
the employee lounge and came back a minute later with a drab green top. I
dutifully pulled it over my head.

“Much better,” she
said. “So, how was your date Monday night?”

“Great,” I said
distractedly. I really wasn’t in the mood for small talk. I wished she would
just tell me what I needed to do.

“Well, where did
you go?” Evie pressed. “Anywhere exciting?”

“We ordered Thai
food and watched a movie,” I replied.
Why did I tell her I have a boyfriend?
My motto has always been that the less people know about you, the better.
Being with Michael shouldn’t change that.

“Interesting.”
Evie’s eyes had lit up, a strange expression on her face.

“What?” I
muttered, annoyed. What could she possibly be about to ask? Did he eat it off
my body, like it was all the rage to eat sushi off of naked women circa early
2000s? The thought made me even more annoyed. Who would want to eat
anything
of off anyone’s bare body?

“Oh, I just find
it interesting” – there was that word again – “because yesterday
Dr. Reynolds brought all this Thai food up here and told everyone to help
themselves.”

Fuck.
I
instantly wanted to kick myself. I willed my face to remain expressionless.
“Weird,” I said. “I guess we’ve got the same taste in food.”

“Hmm.” Evie was
studying my face, which, shockingly, did not go red. I returned her gaze
coolly.

“You’d better get
to work,” Nurse Evie snipped, turning back to her computer.

I can’t until
you tell me where to go, you stupid cow.

“Nurse Evie, I
still need an assignment for today.” I forced a laugh.

Evie paused for a
moment, then a smile broke out on her face. “ICU has very specific visiting
hours. Many families sleep in the family waiting room until they’re allowed to
go inside. You can check if they need anything: coke, coffee, snacks…or maybe
just a shoulder to cry on.”

Evie turned her
back to me, the conversation obviously over.

“Okay,” I said in
as cheery of a voice as I could muster. She had obviously tried to think of the
worst possible job she could give me. Surrounded by grieving people, waiting
for updates from the doctors on their loved ones’ critical condition. Possibly
hearing someone get told that a family member had just passed away. I
shuddered.

So Evie didn’t
like me, but she couldn’t really know about Michael and me. Thai food was a
dumb coincidence, and even if her pea brain tried to make something of it, I
wouldn’t slip up again. She would never know the truth.

The ICU waiting
room was as bad as I had feared. There was a husband, wife and their young
daughter in one corner of the room. The woman’s eyes were bloodshot, and the
man was holding the little girl, who was probably about twelve, as she cried
into his chest.

How am I
supposed to go ask if they need anything?

I surveyed the
rest of the room. There was a man by himself, tapping away on his phone. I
walked up to him.

“Um, excuse me,
sir, could I get you anything? Something to drink? Or a snack?”

He looked up at me
blankly.

“I was just
wondering if you needed something…” my voice trailed off.

The man seemed to
snap to attention. “Oh, thanks,” he said. “Could I have a Coke, if it’s not too
much trouble?”

“Of course it’s
not.” Happy to leave that dreary room, I stepped back into the hospital
hallway. Naturally, Evie hadn’t bothered to tell me
where
to get the
stuff these people requested. If it was like the Cheer Cart, I probably needed
to go to the gift shop.

I was heading in
that direction when I jumped as a voice came over the intercom. “Lana Luna,
please report to floor three.”
What the hell?
Floor three was the new
mother and newborns floor.

I contemplated
abandoning my mission to get the sad man a Coke, but it was the least I could
do. And whatever they needed me for could wait five minutes. I picked up the
pace and was almost out of breath by the time I arrived at the gift shop. A young
man I had never met before was working there.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m
Lana Luna. I’m helping out in the ICU family waiting room and someone has
requested a Coke.”

“Sure,” he said,
going into the side room where the supplies for the Cheer Cart were kept. I
followed him. He reached into a mini fridge and handed me a cold drink. “That’s
all?”

“Yes, and I won’t
be back for anything else. I’ve been instructed to work on floor three.”

“That’s too bad,”
he said, eyeing me up and down.

I pretended not to
notice. “Gotta go!”

After I had
dropped off the drink, I finally headed to the third floor. I’d never been
there before, so at least I might be doing something different. Anything was
better than the ICU waiting room.

“Sorry it took me
so long,” I told an older lady when I reached the nurses’ station.

She gave me a warm
smile. “No worries, dear.”
Phew. Thank God she’s not a drill sergeant like
Nurse Barbara.

“My name is Lisa.
We’re short staffed today and need you to help watch over the newborns.”

Nurse Lisa started
walking and I followed her. “So how are you enjoying your volunteer work?” she
asked me.

“It’s wonderful,”
I said automatically. “Very fulfilling.”

She laughed. “That
sounded a bit rehearsed. But I understand. Being in a hospital can take a real
toll on you. But I like working in this area, and I think you will too.”

We stopped in
front of the room with all the newborns, which we were separated from by a
glass wall.

“I’m afraid it’s
against hospital policy for you to go in the room with them,” Lisa said. “But
we’re required to have eyes on the nursery at all times. It’s incredible, how
even in this age, there are still crazy people who come to the hospital to take
a child.”

“Really?” I asked
in surprise.

“Oh, yes,” she
replied. “Usually we take turns checking on the mothers and watching the
infants, but as I said, we’re short staffed today and there are quite a few new
mothers staying with us.”

I nodded. “I don’t
mind watching them,” I said honestly.

“Good. The other
nurses and I will be in and out. I’m going to introduce you to them; if you see
anyone other than us in the nursery, call security immediately.” She pointed to
the phone on the wall behind me.

“And, don’t worry,
these babies are healthy. There shouldn’t be any issues. But if you get concerned
about one of them, just grab a nurse and we’ll check on him or her.”

“Sounds good,” I
said. I sat down on the stool outside the viewing area.

At first it was
fun, watching the tiny hands and feet wriggling, marveling at just how small
the infants were, how incredible to think some of them had been born merely a
few hours ago.

But after awhile,
the novelty wore off. I found my mind drifting to Michael. He’d sounded so
tired when he called me last night. Happy to talk to me, but exhausted. He had
promised to call today, but I hadn’t heard from him yet.

What if a night
apart made him realize he doesn’t like me?
I knew I was worrying without
reason, but love makes you irrational.

My phone vibrated
and I reached into my pocket to check it. It was a text from Michael!
I
can’t go another minute without seeing you, Lana. Come straight to my apartment
after the hospital? I’ll be waiting xxx

I quickly texted
him back.
I have to go home first! I look like a mess xxx

Michael replied
that I never looked like a mess, and he had a surprise for me.

Smiling, I
returned my attention to the babies.

After my shift
ended, I dropped Evie’s top back off and signed out. “Thanks for letting me
wear this,” I said, not meaning a word of it.

I barely listened
to her response as I zoomed out the door. On the way to Michael’s apartment, I
called Maryanne, but she didn’t answer, so I left a message that I was staying
at his place tonight.

I’ll have to
set up a girls’ night with her soon,
I thought guiltily.

When I got there,
I paused before going up to the door, even though I was dying to see Michael.
I
should have gone home anyway.
My ponytail was messier than it had been when
I’d started the day, and I wasn’t wearing makeup. I felt exposed.

Suddenly Michael
was pulling my car door open, and there was no time to think. “I’ve missed you
so much,” he said, wrapping me in his arms. I hugged him back, feeling all of
the doubt and worry leave my body.

With our arms
around each other’s waists, we walked into the building and got on the elevator
to go to his tenth floor apartment. We were the only ones on the elevator, and
as soon as the doors closed Michael’s lips were on mine.

Every time I
touched him, it was the like first time all over again. I found myself trying
to pull him closer, to press our bodies into one.

“Ahem.”

We both jumped
apart guiltily. Neither of us had heard the elevator ding that it was stopping
on the fourth floor.

Face blazing, I
refused to look at the older gentleman who had gotten on with us. He pressed
the button for floor nine and right before it stopped, he turned to us.

“You know,” he
said, his eyes twinkling, “I was young once. I remember those days. You two
lovebirds enjoy yourself.”

Michael pulled me
out of the elevator and into his apartment. “God, Lana, you’re beautiful,” he
murmured as we stumbled inside.

We started kissing
again, but suddenly Michael pulled back. “What’s wrong?” I whispered.

“Everything is
right,” he said, caressing my lips. “But I bought you something. You don’t have
to wear it, if you don’t want to. But you’d look fucking amazing. And I’d love
to spend time taking it off of you. Come see.”

He stood up and we
walked into the bedroom. Michael picked up a small white bag that was sitting
by the bed. “For you.”

Tentatively, I
pushed back the tissue paper and pulled out what was inside. There were red
lacey see-through underwear and a red corset-like top with black lace trim.