Touch And Go - Aiden Bates Page 0,9
I wasn’t bodybuilder buff, but I could hold my own.
Braxton grumbled and pulled out a chair opposite me, and another beside him. With a snap of his fingers, he had Uno sitting up beside him, panting happily at the table.
“Really?” I raised my eyebrows as the German Shepherd eyed my meal.
“She’s a good girl.” He gave her a scratch, and she licked his cheek.
“Hey, she’s a working dog, don’t teach her bad habits.” Eli pointed at Braxton with a spatula from behind the stove where he was cooking more eggs for the youngest brother.
“What’s bad about sitting at the table like a person? Looks sophisticated to me.” Brax gave Uno another stroke behind her ears then shot me a wink.
“I don’t want her getting any ideas about being part of high society or some shit. We don’t have dining tables where we stay near the woods, and what if she starts refusing to eat out of her dish?” Eli spoke with authority but also joy. He loved his dog, his job and his brothers. Probably in that order.
I focused on my meal and tried to drown out their prattle until Eli slid a plate in front of Brax, and another beside my first.
“More? For me?” He had the best instincts.
“You look like you need it.” He sat down beside me and pulled his long brown hair into a bun at the nape of his neck. “What’ve I missed while I’ve been gone?”
“This is about it. Work, sleep, and putting up with these idiots.”
“Work… Family… What about love?” He drew the word out, an exaggerated thought.
I almost choked on the bite I’d just taken, and then raised my eyebrows at him while I took a sip of juice. “Something you want to tell me about?”
“Why are you being evasive?” He cocked his head, and I couldn’t tell if he was hinting or prying.
“Why are you being evasive?” I went with hinting.
“Is he seeing someone?” Eli asked Braxton.
“Derek? C’mon, man. You haven’t been gone that long. He’s a player. For as long as we all shall live. Four months won’t change that shit.”
“Hey, I’m not a player.” Except, I kind of was. Relationships were time consuming. And exhausting. And I had brother and a job to tick off those particular boxes. So, check and check.
Braxton laughed. “Fact: in all the time I’ve known you, you have never gone on a second date. Fact: that makes you a player.”
My ethos in life didn’t fit with commitment. Nothing ever managed to last. The only constant in life was change, so why would I try to stick a pin in something that was meant to ebb and flow? As far as I could see, that was a sure-fire path to heartache and disappointment. But I wasn’t going to get into the truth of it with them over breakfast at the end of an arduous shift. “Maybe I’d get a second date if I wasn’t so busy taking care of you horde, fixing up your boo-boos and healing your broken hearts.”
“Hey, don’t blame us for your commitment issues!” Braxton slapped the table.
They cracked up while I rolled my eyes and finished the last bite of my meal. I wiped my mouth with a napkin then chucked it at Braxton. Uno edged toward the plate and lapped up the crumbs as I stood and headed toward the bathroom.
Eli booed, and Braxton laughed. “Aw, c’mon! We’re only teasing! Where are you going?”
“Got to shower and get some sleep so I can save some more people tomorrow. That’s what we do, isn’t it?”
“Amen!” Eli called, and Brax groaned.
“Addicts.”
Maybe Brax was right. Maybe I was addicted. Nothing made me more present and alert than the sound of gurney wheels clattering through the emergency doors, like they did at seven the next morning as I rushed into the bay.
“Guess that wish didn’t last all the way through to today, huh?” I rushed with Shae to meet the EMT straddling a guy’s body to perform chest compressions. It was near the end of my shift, another long twelve hours of repeated trauma cases.
“Didn’t you say some shit about making your own luck?” Shae hissed at me, her stethoscope swinging as she jogged by my side.
“Guess I need more practice.” I met the swift pace of the medic who rushed the gurney toward a cardiac room. “Details?”
“Male, twenties.” The medic veered the cart left and we careened down a corridor, more nurses joining us as we went. “Plucked out of the Potomac River