Where the Heart is (Interracial with Baby) (BWWM) (3 page)

She got a ten minute break at six, and she wrapped her coat around herself and stepped gratefully out back, leaning against the worn brick of the building and lighting a cigarette.

Jamie only smoked when she was stressed out, and there was something about the holiday season that always made her blood pressure skyrocket.

Maybe it was the fact that she knew her mother wasn't going to have many Christmases left. Or maybe it had something to do with how small the celebrations were now. Back when they were kids, Simon's family had always invited her and her mother over to celebrate with them, and it had been cozy and nice, like they were an extended family.

But ever since Simon had gone away, those invitations had stopped.

Adelaide had been just as hurt as Jamie because she'd truly thought that there was more to it than just it being for the sake of the kids, but apparently that wasn't the case.

With how tired her mother was these days, Jamie wasn't hoping for more than a quick dinner and listening to carols on the radio, and she made a mental note to stop at the liquor store on her way home so she could at least drown her sorrows once her mother inevitably passed out before nine pm.

She took a long drag off her cigarette and exhaled, watching smoke curl up towards the dark sky.

Sometimes she was completely content with her life, and other times she had no idea what she was even doing. She wanted to be a writer, but there weren't a lot of opportunities for things like that in their tiny town. And though her mother was always saying that she didn't have to stay just for her, that she would be fine with her nurses and friends, Jamie didn't have it in her to leave. What if she moved away and then her mother just...

It didn't bear thinking about, and Jamie didn't understand why she was so bad at clearing her head tonight. Usually a smoke and an eight hour work shift didn't leave room for thinking about anything else, but apparently her head was too full to completely switch off.

"Just get through your shift and go be emotional at home," she muttered under her breath as she stamped out her cigarette and headed back inside, shaking the cold from her fingers as she got back to work. She could make herself a nice hot toddy and sit in the bath and drown in her sorrows then.

She snorted. She was twenty-five years old and apparently that was her idea of a good time. Where had her life gone so wrong?

But that was veering back into dangerous territory, so she shook the thought from her head.

There were six more hours left in her shift, and while she wasn't looking forward to dealing with the customers or listening to the same Christmas carols on the radio five hundred times, it was better than being alone at home for the next six hours.

A group of truckers had just come in, and she was already prepared to be hit on while she filled their orders.

As much as she hated it, that would be one more distraction that she could layer on. The sound of Sal's laughter would help, too, and she inhaled deeply as she took up her pad and pencil once again, smile back in place.

"I promise you'll be home in time for Christmas, Mrs. Hutchinson," Simon said, flashing the older woman a smile that made his dimples show. "All you have to do is take your medication like the nurse says, and you'll be out of here in no time. You're too lovely to be in this hospital bed longer than you have to."

"Oh, Doctor Blake, you're always saying that," Mrs. Hutchinson said, flapping a hand at him, but her cheeks were pink with pleasure. "I'll take the medication, I just don't like how they make me so tired."

Simon made a note on his chart. "I know, but you do need your rest. It's the only way you're going to recover fully."

She sighed and nodded. "You're right, of course. Such a good boy. You know..." She leaned in like she was going to tell him a secret. "My great niece is single. A nice boy like you ought to be thinking about settling down, don't you think?"

He kept his face fixed in his usually sunny smile. "Maybe one day, Mrs. Hutchinson, but for now, I'm pretty focused on my career. I've got a ways to go yet before I can say I've reached all my goals."

He turned her over to the care of one of the nurses and then let himself out of her room with a sigh. It was coming up on his fifteenth straight hour of being on call, and he wanted nothing more than to go home and get in the bed. Actually, at this point, he would very gladly settle for one of the couches in the break room.

But there were at least six more patients he had to see to before he could even think about going home, and when he got there it wasn't like he was going to have a chance to relax.

"Your head's in the clouds," came a gently amused voice from beside him, and he blinked and looked over to see Camilla Channing, one of his fellow 'newbies' as they were called around the hospital.

"My head is thinking about being on a pillow," he said. "So maybe in the clouds. But you don't get to make fun of me because I've been here forever and you've been here for what? Three hours?"

"Oh please," she fired back. "You get to take two weeks off for the holidays. I don't even want to hear that. I'm going to be here on Christmas Eve and New Years, and you already know the ER's gonna be full of idiots who thought they'd ring in 2015 by jumping off of something tall or lighting themselves on fire. And I'll be here dealing with it, while you're curled up with a cup of cocoa somewhere."

Simon wanted to tell her that it very much was not going to go down like that (the part about him and the cocoa, not the part about idiots at New Years because that was very likely to happen), but he didn't want to get into a whole thing about his family and their history.

It was already hard enough knowing that when his marathon shift was finally over he was going to have to go home and pack, heading back to the place where he'd grown up for the first time in almost ten years.

He'd never meant to stay away so long, but things had happened, and the longer he was gone the harder it seemed it would be to go back.

Now that he was comfortable here and had built a life for himself, going back to the tiny town where he'd grown up felt like moving backwards, and it was the last thing he wanted to do.

But he'd promised his father he'd come, and despite everything that had happened over the years, Simon Blake found it hard to break a promise.

Most of them, anyway.

"Hello, paging Dr. Blake," Camilla said, waving her hand in his face. "You were drifting again."

Simon shook himself. Despite his chosen career, he didn't do well with being sleep deprived. He usually handled the long shifts by sleeping as much as he could before and after them, but for some reason he hadn't been able to sleep at all before this one. And really, he knew exactly what that reason was.

He batted Camilla away and sighed, running a hand down his face. "I'll be fine. Tell you what, since you're so full of energy, you go check on Mr. Campbell in room six, while I take a bathroom break."

"Will do," she replied, saluting him before she made her way down the hall.

Simon slumped against the wall for a second but then continued off to the bathroom, locking himself in and leaning against the sink.

This wasn't like him.

One of the things he had always prided himself on was the ability to keep his composure under pressure, but here he was, going to pieces just because he had to go back home. Honestly, he should have known that it would happen eventually. He couldn't go seven years without seeing his family and just expect that they would be content to leave it like that.

Simon shook his head and turned the water on, washing his hands and splashing some water on his face for good measure once he'd taken his glasses off. He squinted at his reflection in the mirror and sighed.

Aside from looking exhausted, he looked like himself, and he still had to smile with pleasure at the sight of himself in the white coat that meant he was well on his way to getting what he wanted out of life. Same pale skin and hazel eyes, same high cheekbones and nose that seemed just a bit too big for his face. Same dark brown hair that he couldn't seem to bring himself to cut, held out of his face in a messy bun at the back of his head. Strands of hair had escaped and were falling into his eyes, and he swiped them back and out of the way, washing his hands once more for good measure.

It had become something of a nervous habit, although blaming it on the nature of his job was the perfect way to cover that up.

No doubt his family would comment on the fact that he'd lost weight and that he looked like he hadn't been sleeping well, and he held back a groan at the thought of it.

But this wasn't the place to go to pieces. Not when the end of his shift was close enough that if he hurried, he could be out before the sun went down. There was a new Chinese place just down the block, and he could pick up a massive order of food and let it keep him company while he tried to pack and get everything ready.

Having a plan always made him feel better, so Simon took a fortifying breath and let himself out of the bathroom, striding down the hall with purpose.

He flirted with the elderly women because it made them much more likely to do what was best for them, he charmed the children with smiles and promises that they would be well enough to play soon, and he leveled with the people his own age who just wanted answers.

One of the things that made him so popular was his bedside manner, and he knew how to change up his approach depending on who he was talking to. It put most people at ease, knowing that he was there, and he liked that a lot.

By six, he was finished for the night and for the year, actually, considering it would be after New Years when he came back to work. He took his time saying goodbye to everyone, wishing them happy holidays and accepting well wishes back. One of the nurses who clearly had a thing for him pressed a candy cane into his hand on his way out, and when Simon looked down at it, he saw that it was tied with a green ribbon that she'd written her phone number on in Sharpie.

Shaking his head, he went to his car.

Half an hour later, he was laden down with delicious smelling bags from China Palace, and he made his way to the elevator in his building, taking it to the fifth floor where he lived.

This was a far cry from the house he'd grown up in, smaller and much more modern, and it felt right to be here.

Simon still remembered the feeling of
rightness
that had washed over him as soon as he'd come to the city. Everything was big and bright, and though it was a lot to deal with for a small town boy with big dreams, he'd loved it all instantly.

His apartment was in a ten storey building with a great view of the glittering lights that had been strung up in the park across the street for the holidays.

He hummed to himself as he set down the bags in his kitchen and went to the hall closet to shed his layers.

It was a one bedroom apartment, and his bedroom was fairly tiny at that, but his living room and kitchen area made up for it, and he'd filled the place with things to make him more comfortable.

Glancing at his bedroom and the piles of clothes and things that he knew waited to be sorted and packed, he decided he had earned something of a break, so he sat down in his favorite chair and devoured his dinner, washing spicy noodles and shrimp down with a glass of wine and watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Nostalgia welled in him as he watched, though, because that had always been Jamie's favorite Christmas movie.

"It's the only one that really shows how people are. Some people are mean and jealous and they don't want other people to have things that they don't have," she explained when Simon had asked her about it some fifteen years ago. "But look, the Whos have their Christmas without all the stuff, and the Grinch just wants to be included. It's like... maybe if we just stopped excluding people from things, they'd be less mean and petty. Everyone just wants a place, you know?"

Simon chewed his last bite of food and sighed, running a hand through his hair. Out of everything from his hometown, Simon missed Jamie the most.

After his first year of college, they'd sort of stopped speaking, and he was well aware that it was mostly his fault. She knew that his parents' divorce had been hard on him. He hadn't even known that they were unhappy with each other, but as soon as he'd gone off to school, the whole thing had exploded.

Out of nowhere his mother had started accusing his father of having an affair with his secretary and lying about where he went.

Simon's father had sworn up and down that she was wrong and he would never do that, and his mother had called him all the time to tell him what she thought his father was doing.

It got so bad that Simon had blocked her number and gotten on with his life, ignoring them and their issues until his father had called and told him that they were getting a divorce.

He still didn't know how to feel about it.

Obviously it was for the best since his father was much happier now, but it had felt wrong to have his family broken up like that, and instead of trying to deal with it, he'd just cut himself off from them.

Hadn't gone home in seven years, instead spending Christmas and Thanksgiving with his roommate's family.

Even now that they weren't in school anymore, Simon still had a standing invitation to the Stannard family get together, but after spending Thanksgiving with them, he'd explained that he had to go home this year.

No matter how much he wasn't looking forward to it.

Instead of flying, he was going to make the drive. Because he would not be stuck there with no way to get around. His father had insisted that he stay for the whole two weeks he could get off, and though he'd wanted to argue, it seemed fair. Two weeks to make up for seven years.

Most of it was his father needing help to pack up the house. Their old house was much too big for just him, and so he was going to move somewhere smaller, somewhere where there were fewer memories.

Simon had suggested just selling the place, but for some reason his father seemed convinced that it would be a mistake.

"What if you want to raise a family there one day?" he'd asked, and Simon had snorted in disbelief. The chances of that happening were slim to none, and the last thing he could see himself doing was moving back there and trying to make a family work in the place where his family had fallen apart.

And anyway, wasn't the point of growing up supposed to be moving on and moving upwards?

It was going to be hard enough going back for just two weeks. He definitely didn't think he'd ever be happy living there again.

Deciding he'd put it off for long enough, Simon got up and made his way back to his bedroom and started folding clothes and finding everything he was going to need.

Though he tried to focus on his task, he couldn't keep his mind from wandering. Mostly he was thinking about Jamie. He'd heard from his father that Jamie's mother wasn't doing so good and that she was still in town helping to take care of her. Simon knew that had to be hard for her. Her mother was all she had left, and the way his father made it sound, she probably wouldn't have her for that much longer.

It made his heart ache to think of Jamie all alone, but. But she needed to get out of that town. There was nothing there for her, and he wondered if he could convince her to follow her dreams. He knew the things she wanted, and knowing Jamie, they were still the same. But she'd always had a fierce streak of loyalty. Simon knew she wouldn't leave while her mother was still alive, and there was nothing he'd be able to say to change that.

That was, if she'd even speak to him at all. It wouldn't surprise him one bit if she refused to even be in the same room with him again after everything that had happened.

He'd promised, that night when they said goodbye. He'd promised that nothing was going to change between them and then he'd broken that promise within a year.

"She probably hates me," he mumbled under his breath. And he couldn't blame her if she did. He hadn't had the heart to ask his dad for more information about Jamie, so he didn't know what she was doing or if she was dating anyone or what, and he supposed it was none of his business now.

Lord knew he'd had his share of...escapades since he'd moved here, though they had slowed down when his workload had increased. It had been a while since he'd even gone out with anyone, though if that one nurse got her way, his dry spell would be over.