Wake for Me (Life or Death Series) (11 page)

Turning suddenly, Sam walked a few more steps and led the way into Viola’s room, where she immediately looked up at him and smiled. He tried not to let it get to him, that way she had of looking like she’d been waiting for him and no one else. It was all in his head, he told himself. She didn’t see him as anything but the guy she thought had saved her life. And boy, was she wrong on that score.

“Hi Viola,” he said, with a quick, tight smile. “You have a visitor.”

Aiden sidestepped past him into Viola’s room, bumping Sam’s knee with his stupid guitar as he did.

“Whoops. Sorry mate.” He laughed, then rushed to Viola’s side. “Oh, love, it’s so good to see you awake. I’ve been visiting you so much, and praying for the day when you’d finally wake up and look back at me.”

Sam nearly choked on a ‘what the fuck?’ He reigned himself in, realizing that calling Aiden out on the blatant lie would only hurt Viola and make Sam look like a weirdo nark. So instead, he fixed Aiden with a warning smile, as he addressed his patient:

“Viola, I’ll be back in about half an hour to do some reflex tests, okay?”

Smiling sweetly, she nodded. Her gestures seemed to be getting sharper, more controlled, by the minute. “Thank…you…Sam.”

“Wow, look at my girl go!” Aiden laughed, leaning forward to press a kiss to Viola’s temple. “Isn’t she amazing, doctor?”

“Yes, she is,” Sam said. “I’ll leave you two to catch up.”

After leaving the room, he grabbed the first unoccupied tech he could find who had no chance of giving in to any goo-goo-eyed, rock star-struck tendencies: Manny, a middle-aged father of three from Argentina.

“Manny, could you do me a favor? Keep an eye on my patient in 714? I want to make sure her visitor keeps his hands to himself, and doesn’t overtire her, okay?”

“Sure thing, Dr. Philips,” Manny smiled, with a knowing expression.

Manny’s oldest daughter had just turned sixteen, and he’d once confessed to Sam that he waited up for every single one of her dates with an aluminum bat in his hand, just in case a young man tried to get fresh at the door. He was the perfect guardian for Sam’s purposes.

“Thanks Manny,” Sam said. “I’ll be down in the cafeteria. Page me if anything happens.”

When Sam passed by Viola’s room on his way back to the elevators, he had to wade through a small horde of giggling nurses who were clustered around the door, listening to Aiden loudly serenade his girlfriend as he played the guitar. After he broke through, Sam practically sprinted the rest of the way, anxious to get out of the ward before he did something truly embarrassing, like punch a hole in the wall. Or smash the makeup-wearing poser’s guitar over his head in a hallway full of witnesses.

In the cafeteria, Sam forced his raging jealousy to calm down as he waited in line for a sandwich and a coffee. He found an empty table in the corner of the busy room and sat down, pulling out his phone and inserting headphones into the top. He blasted The Used as he chewed, letting his repressed anger bleed into the angry percussion and angst-filled lyrics.

Before long, his anger turned inward. Was he really going to stand by and watch while his patient—whatever else she was to him—got duped by her lying sack of a boyfriend? If Aiden was willing to lie about visiting her, Sam thought, what else was he lying about? Pulling up the YouTube app on his phone, he typed in ‘Aiden Faux Wake for Me.’ The video that came up did indeed have several hundred-thousand hits. He frowned.

As much as he knew it was going to suck, Sam couldn’t help his curiosity. He pressed play on the video, and immediately scowled at the first image of Aiden, sitting alone on a dirty, unmade bed in an abandoned building, staring out the window with a tortured expression on his face. It was almost exactly the way he’d described it, which only made it seem that much more bogus.

Then the music started, and it got even worse. The melody was a blatant rip-off of at least five other mediocre hit songs. And the lyrics,
oh God, the lyrics.

“You're flying, I'm falling…You're dreaming, I'm crawling… Through the days, through the nights…in painted halls, with acid lights. I never realized how beautiful, your eyes. Open up for me, love. Let me see you smile, love.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sam muttered, stopping the video and dropping the phone on his tray. He shook his head and downed the rest of his coffee. He’d need to start drinking something a lot stronger before he had any hope of ridding his brain of that sugar-coated filth.

How could someone as no-nonsense as Viola fall for a guy like that? It was bullshit. There was no sense in this world.

Just as Sam was getting ready to toss his coffee cup and go back upstairs, Brady plunked into the chair next to him, looking dejected.

Sam pulled his headphones out. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, nothing,” Brady said, poking at a bowl full of chili like it had wronged him in the recent past. “Just watching the last of my workplace prospects circle the drain.” He looked over at Sam’s phone, which was still paused on the image of Aiden Faux’s most tortured emo expression. “I hate that guy.”

“You too?” Sam said, without thinking. He cleared his throat. “I mean, why?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Brady gestured at the cafeteria, which was admittedly light on good-looking young nurses at the moment. “From the moment he showed his face, all I’ve been hearing from the ladies is, ‘Ooh, Aiden Faux, he’s so dreamy. Ooh, I love his voice.’ Dude is like an Irish John Mayer or something.” His frown deepened as he considered something. “Damn, I bet he gets so much un-landscaped p—“

“Do not,” Sam interrupted, “finish that thought.”

The thought that Aiden might have been unfaithful to Viola hadn’t crossed Sam’s mind, but now that he thought about it, it was entirely possible. Was it terrible of him to hope that it was true, and that someone would soon document it on the news, where Viola could see it? Yeah, probably. Plus, he really didn’t want to see her get her heart broken.

“You’re right.” Brady looked from side to side. “HR could have spies anywhere. Good call, buddy.”

Sam nodded absentmindedly. Realistically, how many rock stars took their girlfriends on tour? Very few, he was guessing. And now that things had changed for Viola physically, who knew if she’d even be able to join Aiden on tour? Her doctors, that was who. And from Sam’s perspective, the prognosis of tour-going wasn’t looking good at all. Not until Viola had enough strength to slap the shit out of her boyfriend, when the occasion inevitably called for it.

“Well, I’ll see you at evening rounds.” Turning off his phone, Sam wrapped his headphones around it and stowed it in his pocket. He stood up, moving toward the trash can.

“Whoa there, buddy,” Brady jogged after him, stopping Sam with a hand on his arm. “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”

“To Aiden Faux?” Sam glared at his friend, incredulous. “No way!”

“No,” Brady said, as he slam-dunked his still half-full bowl of chili into the trash can. “I meant Viola. I still haven’t officially met her. And since I’m not assigned to her case, I thought it might be weird if I went in and was all like ‘Hey, bebbeh, I’ve been watching you when you were all unconscious and shit.’ You know?”

Sam shook his head, sliding the food debris off his tray as he tried to think of a good excuse not to add yet another man with ulterior motives to Viola’s life.

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” he said carefully. “She’s really fragile right now, and with Aiden around…she might be feeling a little bit…over-stimulated.”

Brady opened his mouth, undoubtedly on the verge of making a joke involving stimulation of a different kind. But then Sam had an idea.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ll introduce you to her, but you have to promise not to make her feel uncomfortable. And, you’ve got to do something for me in exchange.”

“Okay,” Brady said. “I’m listening.”

Five minutes later, Sam walked into Viola’s room with Brady on his heels. He steeled himself against the sight of Aiden, draped across Viola’s bed, one leg hooked over hers as he showed her something on his phone. The muted strains of “Wake for Me” whined through the room as poor Viola was subjected to the same cheesy video Sam had just watched. Jesus, and just when he’d finally started to get the tune out of his head.

“Excuse me,” Sam said, clenching his jaw and smiling in spite of his murderous jealousy. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have a few tests I need to run.”

“Oh, really?” Aiden looked up at Sam, then back to Viola. “I guess we want to make sure you’re getting well, don’t we, love? Is it alright if I stay here with you during the tests, as long as I don’t bother these nice doctors?”

Viola hesitated for a split second, but then nodded. “Oh…kay.”

Aiden climbed off the bed, managing to tangle himself in Viola’s IV in the process. Sam winced. He opened his mouth to say something, but Brady beat him to it.

“Please be careful,” his friend said, in his best Dr. Bel-Air voice. “That tubing is vital, man!”

Sam bit the inside of his cheek, as Brady channeled his father’s character from the popular TV show,
Borderline Doctors
.

“You know what,” he said, waving his hand in the air with a dramatic flourish. “Get out, just get out. You’re upsetting the entire rehabilitative process.”

Eyebrows raised, Aiden held up his hands. Nobody messed with Dr. Bel-Air. Not on the show, and not in real life.

“Alright, man. I’ll come back later. Wouldn’t want to upset the process.” He bent down and dropped another kiss on Viola’s lips, which were tilted into a crooked, knowing smile. “I’ll see you during evening hours, love, alright?”

“Later…see you…Aiden.”

When Aiden was gone, Brady went over and shut the door.

Unsure how to proceed after his colleague’s blatant over-achieving of the mission to ‘get rid of Aiden,’ Sam decided just to pretend as if nothing weird had happened.

“Viola,” he said. “I want you to meet Dr. Brady. He’s one of the other interns working under Dr. Chakrabarti.”

Raising her hand a few inches off her lap, Viola waved jerkily from side to side.

Brady came forward, his expression flirtatious. He reached for Viola’s outstretched hand and shook it. “Conrad Brady,” he told her. “Of the Los Angeles Bradys.”

Viola raised one eyebrow, very slowly and deliberately. She was still smiling, which Brady apparently took as a sign to amp up the charm.

“Can I just say,” he continued. “As pretty as you were in a diminished state of consciousness, you’re even more gorgeous when fully upright.”

Viola laughed, and Sam yanked Brady backward by his coat.

“And that,” he interjected, “is a great example of something a physician would never say to his patient, unless he was trying to get sued for sexual harassment.” He glared back at Brady, who looked fully unrepentant. “Thanks for that demonstration, Dr. Brady.”

Viola, on the other hand, was still chuckling softly to herself.

“Can’t…sue,” she said, in her very clear, but stilted way of speaking. “Nothing…I…want.”

As Brady looked baffled, Sam laughed.

“I don’t get it.”

“That,” Sam told him, “was you getting schooled in Viola-speak.”

“Oh.” Brady frowned for a second, then rallied, reaching over to give Viola a low-five. “Nice one.”

“Thank…you…Brady,” Viola said, moving her eyes pointedly to the door.

Sam smiled. Even with her speech impediment, she had a way of making ‘Thank you’ sound more like ‘You’re dismissed,’ than ‘I genuinely appreciate your help.’

“Brady,” Sam said. “Aren’t you late for something?”

“No.” He looked at Sam, who gave him a less-than-subtle head jerk. “I mean, yes.”

With that, Brady left, leaving the door wide open behind him.

Sam moved to the side of the bed that Brady had just vacated. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I’m sure you get really tired of all these different people coming into your room, without being invited.”

Viola shook her head. “No…kind of…divert….” She frowned, looking off into space. “Enter…entertaining.”

Sam smiled. “You know, it’s really impressive how much progress you’re making. I’m sure you’ll be back to normal in no time.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his reflex hammer. “Do you feel up do letting me do a few tests?”

She nodded. “As long as…you stop…being…condom.” Her eyes widened, and she blushed. “Not…condom. Condor…damn…condescending. I’m…not…stupid.”

Sam bit his lip to keep from grinning like an idiot. He was starting to think that maybe the first time they spoke wasn’t just Viola having a bad night. She was pretty much a ball buster, which was actually kind of perfect for someone in her current situation. If she’d been any less feisty, he doubted she would’ve survived, or be fighting so hard to recover.

And he definitely wouldn’t admire her as much as he did. Not just from a personal standpoint, but also now—ironically—from a professional one. As he held her hand and ran through the steps of the pin-prick test, he smiled at how well she was doing, feeling proud on her behalf.

When she smiled back, smugly satisfied with her own progress, his heart skipped a beat.

There was no doubt about it. He was in so much trouble.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts.” –Sigmund Freud

“Oh, look at the flowers, Étienne!”

Giggling happily like a little girl, my mother tugs at my father’s sleeve, pointing out the window at the passing landscape. I look where she’s pointing, and all I can see is gravestones for miles. We’re passing an old cemetery, and there isn’t a single flower in sight.

“Yes, dear, I see them.”

“No, you’re not looking. Not really. You never look when I tell you to look!”

Rising to my knees, I pull myself forward on the seat and try to bring my head level with my mother’s, as if changing the angle of my perspective will help me see things the same way she does. But to me, the world outside remains a gray and frightening place. I don’t mind it, though. I’m riding in the back of my father’s beloved Rolls-Royce, on the way to our favorite spot on the other side of Seneca Lake. When we get there, we’ll have a picnic.