No Attachments - By Tiffany King Page 0,77

light jacket.

"Do you think it's wise to leave her for a day so you can go off fishing?"

"Boy, this fishing trip isn't for me. I guess you haven't looked in a mirror lately, but trust me when I say you look like hell."

"How's Wilma?" I asked, ignoring his observation as we exited the restaurant together.

"She misses Ashton, but otherwise she still acts like she owns the place."

"Sounds like a typical cat," I said. "I'll see you Sunday as long as you think it's okay to leave her for a day."

"By Sunday she'll be ready to cut off my head if I don't give her a break," he said before crossing the street.

I watched his retreating back for a few seconds as he disappeared through the hospital doors. My steps were noticeably lighter as I rounded the corner to the hospital's parking garage. The last few days had been the worst of my life and had given me a better insight to why Ashton had tried to keep me away. I now knew she was trying to spare me the heartache, but she underestimated my feelings for her. Even after a two-month absence, she still dominated my thoughts. She was my first thought in the morning and the last at night. The note she had left me was nothing but a tattered mess from the countless times I had read it and still, I waited.

I fed Fred when I arrived home before stumbling to my bed and crashing. Four days of sleepless nights had finally caught up to me. I slept through the rest of the day and all that night.

Waking up refreshed the next morning, I placed a call to the hospital and cajoled the nurse into giving me an update on Ashton's status. Pleased to hear that she was on the road to recovery, I got back to my everyday responsibilities, even though the task of trying to take my mind off of her was impossible. The rest of the week followed the same routine: wake up, call the hospital, pretend I was a normal human. The only deviations from my schedule were the days I allowed myself to camp out at the diner to work. I was happier on those days. Being close at hand though, I was beginning to feel like a crazy stalker.

I was working at the diner the following week, sucking down coffee that the waitresses kept filled to the brim, when in a moment of weakness, I had confessed my real reason for constantly being there. The response was immediate. I was no longer the customer they tried to pawn of on one another. Instead, every waitress fought over who would serve me after that.

"Today's when she's being released, right?" Cathy, one of the older waitresses, asked, joining me at the booth they designated as mine. It was a prime location due to the fact that it butted up to the big plate glass window that faced the hospital.

"Yeah," I said, taking a sip of the coffee she'd just topped off. "Charles doesn't know when though."

"Are you going to talk to her?" she asked, resting the coffee pot on the table.

"No, I'm going to respect her wishes."

"That girl doesn't realize how good she has it. I wish I had a man pining after me. You come look me up if you ever get tired of waiting for her," she joked. I knew she wasn't serious. Our story was common knowledge now and all of them were rooting for us.

The day seemed to pass in slow motion as I waited to catch a glimpse of Ashton as she left the hospital. I kept my phone on the table so Charles could reach me if something had changed. By the time the sun started to set, it became obvious that they had decided not to release her today. Dropping a couple bills on the table, I headed out of the restaurant decisively. I was sick of waiting for Charles to contact me. I would find out for myself what was going on. Fear was of course clouding my head. What if she'd had a relapse and that was the culprit for the silence?

I was halfway across the street, standing on the median, waiting for traffic to let up, when the hospital doors slid open just as the complimentary valet service pulled an ivory-colored Towncar up to the curb. My eyes found those of the frail woman who held my heart in her hands. I saw her