I jumped with fright when I felt a hand pressed against my back, and lightly tap away, helping me get the water up and regain my composure. I looked back to my left as Ryder retracted his hand away from me, without looking away from the screen of his phone.
I stared at him blankly, blindly.
I wasn’t sure what to make of his kind gesture, which was terribly sad. He was my fiancé and I was beyond surprised that he touched me. He never touched me anymore. Not if he could help it anyway.
“Thank you,” I said lowly to him.
He didn’t look at me as he said, “Don’t mention it.”
Silence settled over us again, and my sadness returned.
I hated feeling so down.
I looked away from him and glanced around the room, my eyes landing on Aideen as Bronagh and Keela moved away from her, smirks in place on both of their pretty faces.
What were they up to now?
I lightly smiled to myself, and shook my head.
I looked down to my leg when it vibrated. I reached into my pocket and took out my phone, smiling when my co-workers name flashed across the screen.
Ash Wade.
He joined our crew at the hospital about ten weeks ago. He was a twenty-eight year old English man who moved over from London when he was twenty years old and loved it so much that he never went back home.
Ash was a hoot. He made me laugh on days that I thought I could do nothing but cry. He talked to me, and he listened to me talk. A lot. He became quite a good friend of mine, and I was very thankful to have met him at a point in my life when I need a pick-me-up.
Ash was pure light; he would brighten up anyone’s day.
I slid my finger across the green blob on the screen, then brought the phone to my ear.
“What do you want?” I asked, grinning.
Ash snorted through the receiver. “It’s a good thing I didn’t misdial a hotline number and ask for phone sex when you fired that loaded question my way.”
I joyfully laughed, the sound surprising me and others around me. I looked forward when I felt many sets of eyes on me, but only one set that caused me to tense up.
His eyes.
We had grown apart, but I could never seem to shake the sensation that came over me when he looked at me. The moment his eyes locked onto my body, I became hyper aware of every movement I made.
“Branna?” Ash’s voice called out. “You there, Angel?”
I couldn’t help but playfully roll my eyes.
Ash decided to label me with the nickname Angel when the grandfather of one of our patients a few weeks back kept calling me it when he addressed me. I asked him to drop it, but he hasn’t, and it had seemed to stick.
“I’m here,” I replied. “Sorry, just zoned out for a second.”
“No worries,” Ash chirped then lowered his voice. “You won’t believe what happened on the ward today after you went home.”
Ash worked the delivery suite with me, and bar a few extra hours here and there, we had an identical roster.
“If you tell me the patient in suite four that screamed bloody murder all day randomly stopped when I walked off the ward, then I’m goin’ to curse her.”
Ash’s deep laughter filled my ear, and it warmed my hurt heart.
“No, she was still screaming when I left … even though she got her epidural and was numb from the waist down.”
I giggled. “There’s always one who goes overboard.”
Ash grunted. “You’re telling me.”
I chortled. “What happened?”
“The lady in suite one, you know, the hot redhead with massive tits?”
Ash was brilliant, but he was still such a man.
I good-naturedly shook my head. “Yeah, what about her?”
“She shit herself as she pushed. Her husband freaked out not knowing what was happening and fainted, knocked into the bed and caused shit to literally fly everywhere.”
I fell onto the arm of the sofa as laughter erupted out of me.
“I swear,” Ash laughed with me. “It’s both hilarious and disgusting.”
I wiped under my eyes with my free hand when tears of laughter fell.
“Did she deliver fine?” I asked, automatically switching to midwife mode. “And the husband, is he okay?”
“Both are fine. She had a boy, but I doubt the husband will step foot inside the delivery ward ever again. He made his wife swear to bring her mother in with her in the future.”
I continued to laugh. “I bet you all had a right laugh about that.”
“We did,” Ash confirmed. “Sally almost wet herself from laughing after she got the baby cleaned up.”
Sally was the fifty-seven year old ‘mother’ of the delivery suite. I wasn’t on shift with her very often, but when I was, she cracked me up with tales from her younger days.
I shook my head, smiling joyfully. “I can’t say I’m sorry I missed it. I’ve fifty-three deliveries running with nothing other than regular bodily fluids and a baby poppin’ out. Thank God.”
“You know your first patient on shift tomorrow will shit just for that comment?”
“Bite me!” I quipped.
Ash gleefully laughed. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
He picked me up on our way to work since I sold my car last year and Ryder always needed his Rover.
“Yep, I’ll see you then.”
I pocketed my phone and yawned before looking to Ryder who was still busy with his phone.
“Do you plan on being here long?” I asked, not looking at his hands.
He glanced at me and shook his head. “You wanna leave now?”
I nodded. “I’m on shift at eight in the mornin’ and want to go to sleep early.”
Ryder nodded his head. “I’ll see if Damien wants a ride back.”
I absentmindedly smiled as I thought about my boy. He helped bring some life back into me when he came home and moved back into the house. He made it feel less empty.
I blinked when Ryder stood up from the chair. He offered me his hand and, for a moment, I was hesitant about putting my hand in his. I shook it off and slid my hand into his large calloused one.
I licked my lips when he pulled me to my feet, but frowned when he released my hand and move passed me, heading towards his brothers. I tried not to let it get me down, but I couldn’t help it. I missed him. I missed being close to him. I missed sex with him.
I couldn’t remember the last time we were intimate, and I hated it.
I said goodbye to the girls, the brothers, and winked at Kane as he brought Jax into his room to put him to bed. I congratulated my sister and Dominic on finding out the gender of their baby once more, and followed Ryder out of Aideen’s apartment, down the hallway and into the elevator.
“Dame will be home later,” Ryder said as he hit the button for the ground floor.
The doors closed shut, encasing us together. I felt him look at me, so I kept my eyes dead ahead, making sure my body was tensed and non-moving, too.
“Who were you talking to on the phone?” he asked me, his voice so low I barely heard him.
I was a little annoyed that he asked me an invasive question when he never answered any of mine. I wanted to counter with multiple questions of my own, asking where he went every night when he thought I was asleep and why he was on his phone all the time, but I had no energy for a fight.
He wouldn’t answer me if I asked anyway; he never did.
“Just Ash who works the delivery suite with me.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ryder nod. He had never met Ash, so I had no idea what was going through his mind with my response.
“Are you okay?” he randomly asked.
I was so surprised at the question that I looked at him with raised eyebrows and said, “Yes, why wouldn’t I be?”
He shrugged, staring down at me, his eyes non-blinking. “You barely cracked a smile when Bronagh was announcing she was having a girl.”
Because I did my happy dance back at the hospital when she found out.
I looked forward. “I had a long day at work, I’m just tired.”
“Too tired to be happy for your sister?”
How dare he!
“I am happy for her. I don’t need to be all up in her face to be happy for her, Ryder.”
Silence.
“It seems to me like you’re a little bit …”
“A little bit what?” I pressed.
The door of the elevator opened just as Ryder said, “Jealous.”
I stepped out of the elevator, politely nodded to the security man that manned the lobby desk, and quickly walked in the direction of the main entrance.
“Branna?” Ryder groaned. “Look, wait a second.”
I didn’t. I picked up my pace and almost sprinted out of the apartment complex. When I got outside, I nodded to the security guards at the doors and headed straight for Ryder’s Land Rover that was parked in-between Dominic and Alec’s cars.
I rushed to the passenger door and stared at the handle until I heard Ryder sigh and press on the car key, unlocking the doors. I gripped the handle, pulled the door open and got up into the car, slamming the door shut behind me.
“Damn it, Branna,” Ryder complained when he got into the driver’s seat. “Don’t take your bad mood out on my car.”
Fuck you and your stupid car.
“I wouldn’t be in a bad mood had you not said somethin’ so …”
“So what?”
“Insensitive!” I finished.
“Insensitive,” Ryder repeated and turned his body to face me. “How is me saying you’re jealous of Bronagh having a girl insensitive?”