me and I doubt the nurse is going to make a big deal out of a patient ditching an appointment.”
The nurse would probably just mention it to the receptionist, who would make a note of it and send her a request for a cancelation fee. They’d probably just tell Aidan that his eleven o’clock canceled and that would be the end of it.
At least, she hoped it would.
Feeling exhausted from her first real trip out in months, Melanie popped another fry in her mouth, tossed one at Rebecca, who was back to ogling her husband, and made her way to the door in the back that led to her apartment. Once she put her code in, the door unlocked with a loud click and she was making her way upstairs and praying that Mojo, the large mastiff with a slight weight problem and a love of naps that she’d adopted with Rebecca a few years ago, wasn’t waiting for her at the top of the stairs.
When she finally made it to the second floor, and she refused to think about how long it took her to walk up a flight of stairs, Melanie opened the door, made sure that there weren’t any large puddles of dog drool waiting for her, and went into her apartment.
Her sad, lonely apartment…
Sighing, Melanie tossed her bag aside, grabbed a small bottle of apple juice from the refrigerator and walked towards her bedroom, forgoing her comfortable couch and settled for the bed that she was sick of looking at. It was only for a little while longer, she reminded herself, hating that she was going to have to move soon, but what choice did she have? Renovations were set to begin on the Fire & Brimstone soon, she had a baby on the way, she could barely make it up the two flights of stairs now, and she really wasn’t sure how she was going to manage it with a baby in her arms, but most importantly, she couldn’t afford the rent by herself anymore.
Grabbing her iPad, Melanie sat on the bed, picked up where she left off with the two-gallon sized Ziploc bag of peanut butter M&Ms that she kept for nights like this, and settled in for another night of trying to find a first-floor apartment with two bedrooms, a garden tub, a gourmet kitchen, a huge backyard with a hot tub, and a landlord who was willing to rent it to her for a thousand dollars a month or less.
Preferably less, Melanie mused with a handful of M&Ms and a wistful sigh
A lot less.
Chapter 2
“I’m dying,” Aidan announced dramatically to the large bedroom filled with unpacked boxes, dirty clothes, and empty junk food wrappers that should fill the medical professional in him with shame, but sadly, it didn’t.
After a few minutes of staring aimlessly at the stack of boxes that he’d been meaning to unpack, Aidan finally found the motivation to move. With a small sigh, he managed to roll over onto his side so that he could stare at the alarm clock blinking three p.m., reminding him that he still needed to set the time. Groaning, Aidan reached over and grabbed his phone, or at least, tried to.
Instead, he ended up knocking over several empty energy cans, discarded junk food bags, and a half-eaten burger that had somehow escaped his notice, onto the floor. When he finally managed to grab his phone, he released another sigh and tossed the phone over his shoulder.
He was running late, again.
It was six-thirty in the morning and he was already running thirty minutes behind, which meant that he was going to have to choose between taking a shower or grabbing something to eat on his way to work. Since he’d spent last night helping his cousin Trevor gut a house that he was planning on flipping, skipping a shower wasn’t really an option this morning.
He was going to have to forgo his usual stop at Dixon’s bakery for a “Bradford Breakfast,” and get his ass to work on time or be forced to skip lunch and spend the rest of the day trying to catch up with patients. Pretending that his muscles weren’t screaming in agony, Aidan got up and decided to move his ass.
He headed towards the small bathroom that he’d been meaning to renovate and rolled his shoulders, trying to work the stiffness out of his muscles. He needed to stop pushing himself, but he knew that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.