A Nurse to Claim His Heart
Autor:in
Juliette Hyland
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CHAPTER ONE
CROSSING HIS ARMS, Dr. Benedict Denbar played the “can I get comfortable in the small metro seat?” game. He considered standing, but it was early in the morning, and he was going to be on his feet all day while working at Wald Children’s Hospital. At least the uncomfortable plastic let him avoid the crush of people pressed into the metro car. It wasn’t much in the way of quiet time before his shift started, but it let him clear his head before starting the day as the attending physician in the level four neonatal intensive care unit.
The NICU was quiet. In fact the doctors and nurses did their best to keep the noise level below forty-five decibels as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics to protect the tiny babies in the unit. But the quiet wasn’t restorative and the stress of the environment, where patients shifted from stable to critical in hours, sometimes minutes, wore on many of his colleagues. He’d seen dozens of doctors and nurses seek different specialties.
And he didn’t blame them. But the NICU was his calling. His place to make a difference. His place to make amends.
He closed his eyes as his thoughts wandered to Olivia. They’d traveled there so often lately, as his dream of a high-risk maternity unit in the children’s hospital was finally becoming a reality. Assuming Wald’s Children’s Hospital could fund the multimillion-dollar investment.
He’d been on the committee suggesting fundraising ideas, and there were several high-profile fundraisers planned. But was it enough?
He blew out a breath. This was his dream. Benedict needed the unit funded. Needed to find a way to support the mothers of the babies in his unit.
Medical care for NICU patients had come a long way since he’d stood over Olivia’s incubator, not knowing that the heated crib was actually called an isolette. But too many mothers were separated from their children while they received care and their children were treated in the high-risk nursery.
If only she’d been born a few weeks later...a few days even. If the world were fair, he’d be helping plan her eighteenth birthday now. But life wasn’t fair.
And if she’d lived, he wouldn’t be sitting on an uncomfortable chair in DC. Hell, he probably wouldn’t have become a physician...at least not a pediatrician specializing in neonatal care. His life would look completely different.
All sacrifices he’d have gladly made to raise Isiah’s daughter. His brother had been gone for nineteen years this month. Nineteen years... A lifetime.
He’d now lived more of his life without his baby brother than with him, but Benedict still found himself searching for him. Still longed to call him at the end of the day. It was a funny feeling to miss part of yourself.
Benedict shook himself and straightened in his seat. He’d thought of Isiah a lot over the last few months. And Olivia, and her mother, Amber—his wife.
At least his wife according to legal documents. A connection bonded by a vow he’d made to Isiah, but never even sealed with a kiss. A vow that shouldn’t have been necessary, if Isiah had only listened to Benedict’s arguments about his shift from certified drag racing to illegal street racing for cash.
Amber had arrived at his door less than two weeks after Isiah’s funeral. Tears streaking across her face as she protectively cradled her belly. He’d known her predicament and that her mother would disown her for getting pregnant at eighteen. An unwed mother would not be welcome in her home. It might have been the twenty-first century, but that didn’t matter.
Isiah had planned to use the winnings of his last illegal street race to run away with her. If only he’d told Benedict, they’d have found a different way.
There was almost always a different way. Something else you could try. But that was a lesson that came with age and experience. And blinded by love, his brother hadn’t been able to think clearly.
His phone dinged, and he pulled it from his pocket. His mother’s face with a new ring held in front of her face and giant smile with a guy he did not recognize flashed on his screen. He couldn’t stop his eyes from rolling to the ceiling. If she made it to the altar, this would be her sixth husband, and he’d lost count of the number of fiancé’s she’d dumped or been dumped by. Yet, with each new relationship, she sent him a text...that he never answered.
Love.
Benedict scoffed and ignored the stare from the elderly woman sitting next to him. He hadn’t meant to let noise out, but love or the feeling that people claimed was love really was too fallible to be trusted. It either turned to hate or destroyed.
Responsibility, friendship, even honor, last longer than love. Which was why he’d stepped in where his brother could not. Accepting a platonic union as they’d helped each other mourn the loss of his brother and then the loss of Olivia when she was born too early.
So tiny.
And with that, his connection to Amber should have ended, and in many ways it had. They’d married when he was nineteen, and separated three days before he’d turned twenty-one, just after he’d enrolled at Oregon State University, determined to help babies like Olivia.
But Amber hadn’t wanted the shame of a divorce. Her family, difficult though they were, were all she had left now that Isiah and Olivia were gone. She’d asked him to stay married, at least on paper. And he’d agreed, after all he’d promised till death, and Benedict hadn’t wanted to follow down his parents’ path of broken vows. He’d meant the words when he said them—vows were not to be made lightly no matter what his mother and father thought of their promises.
So they’d stayed married. Amber got to keep the illusion that she was married for her mother and Benedict got to do right by the woman his brother had loved. It wasn’t as though he’d ever planned to marry for love anyway. He’d seen how dangerous that was, so what did it matter if he remained married to Amber for duty’s sake?
A young couple entered the metro with a newborn. The young man wrapped his arms around the mother. They looked exhausted, but most parents at that stage wore exhaustion well, almost basked in it as they loved on their baby. The woman laid her head against her partner’s shoulder while cradling the infant wrapped against her chest. It was picture perfect, but one never knew what went on in other people’s homes.
He deleted the text from his mother, then looked at the message he’d sent Amber yesterday about starting their divorce procedures. She’d left it on Read. He shook his head as he added following up with her to his mental to-do list. A few weeks ago, she’d asked to wait a bit longer while she dealt with her mother’s illness.
But how long?
The metro slowed, and Benedict leaned forward as the door to the Foggy Bottom Station opened. Penelope Greene, Penny, stepped onto the train. She met his gaze, nodded and quickly shuffled to the other side of the car.
He tried not to let that hurt.
He and Penny were colleagues. Nothing more. Though seven years ago, they’d been as close as work colleagues could be. Coffee breaks, laughter and support as she found her way as a junior nurse, and he navigated the last days of his residency. He’d been attracted to her, desperately so. Their friendship nested on the edge of so much more. He’d dreamed of kissing her more often than he cared to remember.
But Penny had made no secret of the fact that she wanted a family. A re-creation of the happy home that she and her little sister, Alice, had grown up in.
For a brief second all those years ago, Benedict had wished he could give her those things. Wished that he believed a happily-ever-after was possible. Wished he were free to promise things that no one could really promise. Life shifted too unpredictably for anyone to truly promise for better or worse and forever.
And love eventually faded...if you were lucky. If you weren’t, it destroyed you, body and soul.
And Penny was an unfortunate exhibit in that truth. She’d been engaged when she left Wald Children’s Hospital three years ago. He’d tried to be happy for her. Tried to ignore the tingle of jealousy that crested through him. And he’d tried not to be happy when she’d returned last year.
She’d moved back in with her sister, another nurse in the NICU. The fancy ring on her left hand gone, though the tan line had been visible through most of the winter. She didn’t smile as much as she had before. There were no flirtatious jokes or coffee runs anymore. But it wasn’t Benedict’s place to ask what had happened.
It was selfish to wish they could go back to their friendly talks. Selfish to be glad she was back...without a wedding band. But he was glad, so glad.
The metro car jerked and halted as the lights turned off. A few cries of alarm echoed in the car before the emergency lights flipped on.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” The words of the passenger next to him floated into the metro car, and Benedict involuntarily nodded.
The DC metro usually ran without a hitch. But with over six hundred thousand daily commuters and tourists, when slowdowns occurred they affected nearly every sector of the city, from government and military employees to private-sector employees and medical providers to the tourists who crammed in each day to see the National Mall and free museums.
“No!” the young mother he’d seen earlier shouted as she gripped her baby. “Is there a doctor, please?”
Benedict stood and moved toward the couple, and he saw Penny start toward them too.
“What’s wrong?” Benedict couldn’t see anything immediately wrong with the child, but the lighting wasn’t great.
Penny grabbed her cell phone and turned on the flashlight function.
Benedict nodded to her and redirected his attention to the mother. “I’m Dr. Denbar, a neonatal pediatrician, and this is Penny Greene, one of the finest NICU nurses you will ever meet. What is going on?”
“My brother has seizures.” She choked out as her partner patted her knee. “Last night Cole jerked forward. I remember my brother doing that. But it was over so quick. I thought. But just now he stiffened again. Our pediatrician recommended we go to Wald Children’s this morning, to be evaluated in the ER.”
“Can we get a little more light in here, please?” Penny called as she looked to the four closest riders. “You can stay where you are, but if you have a cell phone and could turn on the flashlight, that would be helpful.”
A few passengers followed her instructions, but he saw several others hold up their cells without adding their flashlight. No doubt filming the encounter.
Why was everything a social media post?
“Does anybody have a towel?” Benedict asked, not really expecting an answer. The Blue Line that they were on was usually trafficked by commuters at this hour. When no one immediately volunteered, Benedict racked his brain, trying to think of something the train full of commuters would have.
“Can I please have your BDU shirt?” Penny’s question sounded more like an order as she addressed the military member to her right. “It will provide the baby some safety as we evaluate him. The floor here is the definition of unsanitary.”
The military sergeant quickly unbuttoned the outer layer of his battle uniform and handed it to Penny. She handed him her phone, and he stood with the light over the area. She was a commanding presence in the NICU and out.
Laying the uniform on the floor, she looked at the mom. “Can we take a look at your son?”
The mother carefully unwrapped the child and gingerly handed him to Benedict. The baby looked to be about six weeks old. Given the size of the newborns Benedict routinely worked with, this guy was hefty—which was perfect.
Until the left side of his body tightened. He saw Penny look to the watch on her wrist as she timed the muscle group tensing. It was classic myoclonic seizure presentation in an infant. Something most parents wouldn’t recognize, unless they had a family member that experienced seizures.
“Forty-three seconds,” Penny stated as the muscles released.
“Call the train operator. Then alert the NICU that we have a patient inbound and ask to have the neurologist on call notified.”
Penny nodded as she moved toward the call station behind him.
“You were right to head to Wald Children’s this morning. And I think your son is having myoclonic seizures.”
The boy’s limbs seized again, and Benedict felt his insides twist. So little and three seizures in less than five minutes. Seizure clusters were not uncommon, but he wanted this little guy somewhere where he had access to medical equipment.
“The cars separated behind us. The metro may be stuck for at least an hour—”
“We can’t wait that long. He seized again while you were talking to the conductor.” Benedict felt bad for interrupting, but at least an hour likely meant at least three to get them back on their way. And there were still three additional stops before they reached theirs, then Wald’s was another ten-minute walk. A very pleasant commute, when you didn’t have an ill child.
“I know.” Penny turned her attention to the parents. “I already worked out with the conductor for Dr. Denbar and I, and one of you to walk along the emergency route back to Foggy Bottom Station. An ambulance will meet us there to transport us to Wald’s.”
Of course she’d worked it out. Penny and her sister, Alice, had grown up all over the place as their parents, both active duty military, had moved around the world. The girls were two of the most resourceful women he’d ever met. And bound tightly together after a childhood of picking up and leaving everything but family behind.
Alice still kept her distance from him. She was professional in the hospital but reserved. If he’d had more than a workplace friendship with Penny, he might have suspected Alice hated him for breaking her sister’s heart. But their connection hadn’t been that deep—though it had felt like it could be. So easily.
Shifts where one or both Greene sisters were on duty ran smoother than any he’d ever experienced.
“It has to be me.” The mom pursed her lips as she looked at her partner. “I’m breastfeeding and...”
“I know.” Her partner leaned his head against hers before kissing it. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Promise.” Then he met Benedict’s gaze. “My heart and soul are going with you. Take care of them.”
“Of course,” Benedict answered, trying to ignore the push of emotions deep in his soul. Emotions that he’d been able to ignore until recently.
Until Penny returned, if he were honest.
The look of love between the two sent a pang of jealousy through him. No one had ever looked at him that way, and he never expected anyone to. But a tiny ache in his heart pressed against him.
“I think it will be best if you wrap him next to you again. The emergency evacuation route is tight.” Penny gently bent to pick up Cole. She cradled him while his mother readjusted the wrap, then smiled as she handed him over. “Such a handsome little man.”
“He is.” Her voice shook a little as she kissed the top of her baby’s head and stood.
“Ready?” Benedict asked as he stood by the door. He’d never pulled the emergency exit on a metro car, never seen it pulled. It was not an experience he’d craved. Particularly with a sick baby.
“Ready or not, we’re going.” Penny’s gaze wandered past his to Cole’s mom. “I’ll lead, you and Cole in the middle and Benedict... Dr. Denbar in the back. Okay?”
Benedict waited for Cole’s mother to acknowledge the plan, then he pulled the emergency release button and pushed open the door. “I’m glad you were on my train this morning, Penny.” The words weren’t meant to come out, but he couldn’t draw them back in now.
And he didn’t want to. Benedict didn’t know what to do with those thoughts, so he let them slide away as he watched Penny step into the dark tunnel.
A small boy started clapping as they left and soon the whole metro car was clapping. It was a weird and unique way to start his morning shift. One he hoped he never had to repeat.
Though he didn’t mind starting the morning with Penny... He let that thought slide away too as he gripped the edge of the railing of the evacuation path. The tunnel was barely lit, not completely dark but close. He was thirty-eight years old and being afraid of the dark was ridiculous, but he’d never been able to banish the fear instilled by his parents’ long punishments. The shadows pressing along the side sent worries draping through him. His feet shook as he made his way on the tight path. So he turned his gaze to the leader of their small pack.
Penny’s shoulders were straight, her dark hair pulled into a ponytail. So in control of the uncontrollable. It sent a wave of calm through him. He couldn’t put words to that either, but he didn’t push the thought away this time. Penny was here and he was happy about it. That was enough for now. He’d figure out the emotions later, find a way to categorize them and move past them.
“Your actions today made the news.” Alice flipped her laptop around on the kitchen counter with a grin as she held up her glass of wine and winked. “A spokesman for the hospital used it as an opportunity to raise the issues of fundraising for the new wing, since they couldn’t comment on the child’s condition and you and Dr. Denbar were unavailable for comment.”
Penny rolled her eyes as she grabbed a frozen dinner from the freezer and popped it into the microwave. No one had asked them to give a statement, though she would have declined to comment. So it was probably for the best.
They’d been granted a reprieve, for now. But with the fundraising push for the expanded wing so they could offer maternal health support for high-risk pregnancies, she suspected she and Benedict would be trotted out to help with the public relations for the multimillion-dollar project.
Benedict likely wouldn’t mind. The maternity wing was his brainchild.
She mentally wished she’d used her day off to meal prep, so she would have had a stash of leftovers in the fridge, as she watched the frozen meal spin in the microwave. But she’d spent the day out at the park, drawing and reading trivia books.
And trying not to think about today.
A year ago today, she’d sold her wedding dress. Sold it on the day she’d expected to tie the knot. Not that she should have expected to walk down the aisle. It had been the third date she and Mitchel had set.
Third date!
Who set three wedding dates? She hated how accommodating she’d been for the first two setbacks. How she’d bought each of his lies, let him smooth away all her worries.
Of course she wanted his mom, whom she’d never met because she was living abroad, to be at the wedding.
If she had a conflict, then rescheduling was the right move.
Her parents were willing to move mountains to be there for their daughters’ special events. But not every parent put their child’s needs and desires first. Mitchel had said it really mattered to him that she be there. So Penny had called the vendors and moved the date back.
The fact that she’d never met any of his family, even after offering to video call, bothered her. But she’d accepted his statements that his family wasn’t close, but he hoped their family would be. The seemingly romantic statement was designed to placate her, and she’d swallowed it every time she’d worried something was off.
The second date had come and gone because he was starting a new job. As a business management consultant, he traveled all over, sometimes gone for three weeks a month. He claimed this new job would give him more time with her, and she’d fallen for that lie too.
Once again, Penny had waved away the sinking feelings in her stomach that something was wrong. She’d ignored the tiny voice screaming that something was off. She’d quieted her fear that he had cold feet. If only it had been so easy.
The third, and final, time she’d canceled everything was because his wife had sent her copies of their marriage certificate and pictures of their two little girls. She’d told her that she was welcome to the cheating bastard. Penny could still feel the embarrassment and shame from those angry missives.
So far from the fairy-tale ending she’d hoped for.
Not that she could blame the woman. Whether Penny had realized it or not, she’d been the other woman. The catalyst for a family breaking down. Objectively she knew Mitchel was completely to blame, but she’d overlooked so many red flags. She’d let him charm away all her worries because she wanted a family. Wanted to replicate the happy home life she and Alice had grown up in, but without having to pack up and leave every few years like when the US Army transferred her parents.
She’d agreed to move to Ohio for Mitchel, but she’d made him promise that it was the only move they’d make, if they could help it. She’d spent her childhood packing her things, never getting too comfortable with friends because she’d have to leave.
She’d wanted a different life for her children. Wanted them to have friends from grade school that they still chatted with as adults. Wanted them to have the roots to a place they’d grown up in. And he’d agreed with her. Let her plan her dreams on his promises...promises that hadn’t been worth anything. At least he’d suggested renting a townhome until they could find the perfect place—which of course never appeared.
It had made it easy-ish for her to move back to DC, to pick back up the life she’d had before. And none of her colleagues had pressed her about her return, or why her ring finger no longer held the fancy bauble Mitchel had purchased.
Fancy. She scoffed as the frozen dinner popped in the microwave. The brilliant diamond she’d showed off to all her friends had been a hunk of cubic zirconia. The pawnshop owner where she’d taken the last evidence of Mitchel’s fraud took pity on her sob story and offered her sixty bucks.
And she’d taken it. Not because she needed the money, but because that was all she was going to get from the years of falsehoods she’d been fed. When she started dating again, she wasn’t settling for less a second time. She’d get the fairy tale, or she’d move on. No more settling for Penny Greene.
“I’m not surprised people were filming, but it wasn’t overly dramatic.” Penny shrugged as she pulled the hot veggie lasagna from the microwave. “The baby is being evaluated for epilepsy. Given the family history, and the seizures Benedict and I witnessed today, I suspect that the diagnosis will come from neurology in a day or two. Hopefully they can find an anti-seizure med that helps.”
“Benedict. Don’t you mean Dr. Denbar?” Alice’s tone rippled with a disgust that Penny didn’t understand.
“We were friendly colleagues seven years ago, Alice.” Penny lifted her wine glass, enjoying the light tang of citrus as it coated her tongue. Maybe cheap wine and a frozen dinner weren’t the hallmark of the family life she’d thought she’d have by her thirties, but they did hit the spot after a long day.
“Friendly colleagues. Please, you had a huge crush on him, and he led you on, then jumped into bed with the next willing nurse or doctor to catch his eye.” Her sister shook her head as she crossed her arms. “Playboy Denbar should come with a warning sign.”
Penny raised her eyebrow as she met her sister’s gaze. That nickname had not been assigned to Benedict when she’d met him, and she didn’t think it appropriate now. Yes, the man dated a lot. But that was hardly a crime. He was young, intelligent and hot.
So hot! Just thinking of his soft dark eyes, full lips and toned body was enough to make her knees weak even now. The man was gorgeous. She’d wondered more than once if the world disappeared when he kissed you. Her fingers involuntarily touched her lips, but her sister didn’t seem to notice.
Benedict was thoughtful, but a closed book. They’d had a great time at work, but Penny hadn’t found out much about his past. Benedict had skirted around the standard “get to know you” questions. But she hadn’t minded because they’d talked about everything else. Current affairs, movies, books, the never-ending traffic around DC and their favorite museums, over coffee and night shifts.
The friendship had never progressed outside the hospital, but she’d looked forward to seeing him each shift. Still looked forward to it, if she were honest. Though the woman that had returned to DC was a very different person than the one he’d joked with during their downtime.
Maybe he dated most of the eligible women in the hospital, but he wasn’t cruel. And he didn’t love them and leave them. No, Benedict was up front. That was one thing he’d made sure everyone understood. He liked his solitary life—or claimed to.
On their late-night shifts, he’d seemed to waver in that belief. Or maybe that was just her heart forcing her brain to remember differently. Wishing that the man she’d seemed to have so much in common with also wanted the life she craved. But he hadn’t...and time moved on. Even if her stomach still flipped every once in a while when she saw him.
Maybe she knew he always rode the third train on the Blue subway line when he was on shift at Wald Children’s. And yes, it was a little upsetting that she was always a tad crestfallen on the days when the seat where he normally sat was empty. And maybe she’d considered asking if the seat next to him was taken this morning before chickening out...but only because they’d been friends once.
“We were close colleagues, or as close as closed-book Denbar gets, but he didn’t want love, marriage and a family, and I do. He was honest and that is a quality severely lacking in some.”
Her sister frowned, and Penny hated the look. It was Alice’s fixing look. Not that anything in Penny’s life needed fixing, but her sister on a mission was a force to be reckoned with. And Penny did not want to be her next project.
Alice was a little less than two years younger than her. They’d been best friends since Alice had learned to toddle after her. Bound together as their family had picked up and moved across the world.
“Say what you want but you pouted around this townhome for months, hoping he might ask you out.” Alice huffed as she took a bite of her sandwich.
“I did not pout. At some point, the two of us really need to look into weekly meal planning so we aren’t eating such pathetic dinners all the time.” Penny stuck out her tongue before grabbing another bite of her frozen lasagna.
“Don’t try to change the subject. And I am fine with my dinner. Thank you very much!” Alice took another bite of her sandwich and made sounds best suited to an over-the-top children’s cartoon character pretending to enjoy a badly burned dinner his friend had cooked.
She swallowed, then looked directly at Penny, her blue eyes holding hers. “I know what today was supposed to be.”
“It’s a day like any other day.” Penny shrugged, wishing it were the truth.
“So you don’t miss Mitchel, the cheating scumbag who should rot for all eternity?”
Penny grinned. Her sister never just called her ex Mitchel, or her ex-fiancé. She always invented some provocative nickname that really got across just how much she hated the man. And if it didn’t come out strong enough, Alice just kept adding until she felt there were enough derogatory terms to get her point across.
“No. I do not miss Mitchel.” Penny took another sip of wine. She did not miss her ex, but she missed the idea of him. The idea of what their life together had seemed. She missed the life path she’d thought she’d been walking. And she hated how much she’d let Mitchel steal from her.
Not her money, though he’d taken plenty of that, always promising to pay his half for things like the move and household expenses. Then coming up short, claiming to have a bad sales month.
Must have been expensive to keep two homes.
Penny hated the bitter thought as it floated through her mind.
It wasn’t the man she missed, but the woman she’d been, full of hope and trust. Of course that woman had gotten taken for a ride, so maybe it was a good thing she wasn’t her anymore. She knew what she wanted, and she wouldn’t settle for less. Her parents had found true love, and she could too. She just had to look and accept the warning signs if she saw them.
“I think you need a rebound.” Alice opened the dating app on her phone, flipped it toward Penny and started scrolling through the images of eligible singles...or people claiming to be single.
Would she ever fully trust someone again? She wanted to. She really did.
Her heart flipped as her brain waffled. Her bed was lonely, and on nights when her shift in the NICU was overwhelming, she wished she had someone besides her sister to comfort her. To cradle her to sleep. Intimacy was so much more than a physical connection...though she missed that too.
“I’m not interested in a rebound, Alice.” She laughed as an image of a man wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt, holding up a large fish with the caption I’m Your Catch, crossed her sister’s phone’s screen. “Does that image really work for picking up single woman?”
“We could ask?” Alice wiggled her finger toward the phone.
“Or we could swipe left!”
“Spoilsport.” Alice playfully glared at her as she swiped left and held up the next potential match.
He was cute. The profile said he was a broker and into hiking. She looked over the profile, then shook her head. “Nope. He’s not a dog person. Who doesn’t like dogs?”
Alice looked at the picture, then shook her head. “He’s adorable and it doesn’t say he doesn’t like dogs, just that he prefers cats. You can’t look for perfect. Sometimes Mr. Right Now can become Mr. Right...assuming you aren’t looking for a real Prince Charming. The secret prince only exists in those cheesy holiday movies we gobble up between Thanksgiving and Christmas every year.”
Maybe fairy tales were rare, but they existed—she refused to give up that belief. But she didn’t feel like arguing with her sister tonight.
“If you’re so interested in the men on that app, maybe we should pick out your date for next Friday.” Penny giggled, moving her finger toward the screen as her sister pulled the phone away.
“My dating life is quite healthy, thank you very much. But yours has been dismal since you moved back. You work, read trivia books, watch trivia shows, draw and go to bed. The repetition is even getting to me.”
“I wasn’t aware my love of trivia bothered you—or maybe it’s that I always beat you.” Penny chuckled as she held her wine glass in a mock toast to her sister.
“Stop changing the subject.” She showed off another eligible bachelor. “The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else, you know.” Alice winked as she held her phone up for Penny’s inspection, but far enough away that she couldn’t actually touch the screen. “He’s cute.”
The man on the screen was cute. Well built, with a deep smile and eyes that looked kind. But images were easy to fake. Still, as she looked at the smiling man, part of her yearned for a connection. Not with a stranger on a phone app, but a real connection.
Except people formed lasting connections via phone apps these days.
Her heart argued as the walls her brain had raised following Mitchel’s betrayal wavered. She was lonely. A date that went wrong wouldn’t be the end of the world.
But her confidence had been shattered. And she didn’t know how to fix that. Why wasn’t there a way for her to practice date? To get her feet wet, so to speak, without worrying about feelings getting tangled.
Ugh! her brain screamed. Pretend dating wasn’t an option. She should just pick someone attractive and give it a whirl. So why was she hesitating?
She didn’t have to make any choices tonight. “I think we should be discussing the movie we want to watch, not which men are hottest on your app.”
“We can do both.” Alice swiped right, then left as the images popped up on her phone. “It’s fun.”
“Alice!” she said before her lonely heart could force her walls down even further.
“Fine,” her sister huffed in an indignation that only Alice could manage. “But if you don’t want to spend every evening trying to convince Sooty to cuddle, you’ll have to jump back in the dating pool at some point.”
“At some point,” Penny repeated. “But your cat is a good cuddle buddy. He might love me more than you now.” Penny chuckled as the black cat slinked across the counter, nudged her wine glass, then glared at her as she pulled it out of the feline terror’s reach. Sooty loved Alice, but the cat didn’t care for anyone else, and he would never willingly cuddle with Penny.
No, her bed was solitary. But it didn’t have to be... She could just swipe right on one of the apps she’d downloaded and never used. She glanced at her phone, pulled up a profile. A handsome man, her age, who claimed to be looking for real love. A Lasting Connection was the title of his profile. Her fingers hovered, then she swiped left.
Coward!
