My Only - Alex & Jamie (10 page)

Oh boy, Alex thought to himself, that was it. He was a goner.

“No, we’re not engaged,” Jamie insisted for about the hundredth time that day.

Not that it mattered. It seemed that somehow the entire town had heard about Alex’s “proposal” and it was all anybody could talk about.

“Are you guys just trying to keep it private for now?” Nina asked.

Jamie liked Nina, she really did. She thought she was a sweet girl who obviously had a pretty bad crush on Alex and - unlike some of the other servers at The Grill - Nina had seemed genuinely concerned every time she had asked Jamie about him.

“Nina, I promise you, Alex and I are not engaged. We are not together. We are not anything.” She spoke the words slowly, hoping that the meaning would sink in that way.

Jamie was so tired of having the same conversation over and over again. Between her fellow servers and almost every table in her section asking her about it, she had probably spent at least three hours and forty-five minutes out of her four hour shift denying the rumor. And the most frustrating part was that no one believed her when she tried to set the record straight! What was the point?

She could not wrap her head around the amount of interest this one rumor had generated. She knew that in small towns, gossip spread quickly and once people heard something, they took it as gospel. But even taking that into consideration, this level of interest seemed ridiculous.

Her drinks came up and Jamie gladly set them on her tray and left the bar.

After dropping the drinks off at the one table she in her section where the diners seemed to have
no
interest whatsoever in her and Alex’s non-engagement, she quickly checked on the rest of her tables before heading into the employee break room for a five minute reprieve.

As soon as the door shut, she sat at the small round table, resting her elbows on the surface as she let her head fall into her hands. How had this whole thing gotten so out of hand?

She had thought that when she moved to Harper’s Crossing it would be a fresh start, that she could fly under the radar. She just wanted to mind her own business and let everyone else do the same. She thought a quaint little town like this would be perfect for that purpose.

Well, obviously, predicting the future was not one of her strong suits!

She just wanted this all to go away. All the questions, all the dirty looks, all the thinly veiled threats. Why was this happening? Why her?

Voices interrupted her pity party. She lifted her head thinking that they were coming in, but they seemed to have stopped in the hallway just outside the door.

“It’s okay, don’t worry, you know how Alex is. There is no way this will last,” Jamie heard a female voice she did not recognize say.

“Do you really think so?” another girl asked, sniffing as though she had been crying.

She could hear them both clearly through the paper-thin door. She felt bad for eaves dropping, but it’s not like she had a lot of control over that. She could walk out and alert them to her presence but she didn’t think that that would make the situation any better.

“Of course I do,” the first voice assured the crying voice, “Can you name one, just one,
             
relationship he’s had?”

“No,” the crying girl answered.

“Exactly. Alex Sloan does not
do
relationships. Whatever is going on between him and ‘Nurse Chick’…”

'Nurse Chick'? Jamie repeated in her head.

“…will not last. Just wait till he gets out of the hospital. She’s the flavor of the week. Nothing more. Of course he likes her now, she’s the only girl other than his family that’s allowed to see him. He’s probably just bored, so he’s flirting with her. That’s all it is. Come on, let’s go do some shots.”

Jamie heard footsteps as their voices faded.

She had heard a lot about Alex’s reputation as a ladies’ man over the last week. She knew that he never really settled down, he just had ‘friends.’ The thing that blew her mind was that all of these women seemed to know about each other. So, with that being the case, Jamie didn’t understand why they all seemed to be so fixated on her and what her relationship (which was non-existent) with him was.

She supposed it was probably because she was new to town. The outsider. That was probably the reason they seemed so threatened by her. She tried to put their minds at ease, but they didn’t listen to her. It seemed their overactive imaginations held more weight than anything she had to say.

Part of her wished that she could just let all of it roll off of her back, not letting it get under her skin. But she had this niggling feeling that part of the reason all of their questions, opinions, and accusations bothered her so much was because she was starting to have real feelings for Alex. Which, although she had told herself over and over again was unacceptable, she had not been able to stop from occurring.

When the doctor had come in to examine Alex right after he had asked her out on a date, she had taken the time to come up with a new keep-it-strictly-professional strategy. Which, in a nutshell, had just been not to talk about anything personal with Alex. Her thinking was that if she directed the conversation to neutral, generic, platonic topics then she may be able to stop thinking the outrageously inappropriate thoughts that she had been having.

She had been temporarily derailed when Alex had immediately picked up where they had left off before Dr. Corbin had walked in, asking her if Friday was a good night for their date. But she had easily been able to get things right back on the strictly-professional tracks. Almost too easily in fact. For a moment she had thought Alex was going to call her out on her behavior. She was sure he was going to ask her why she wouldn’t date, or mention the fact that she kept blushing around him (which she knew he noticed). But to her great surprise, and relief, he had just asked her to play cards.

So, she and Alex had played cards for about three hours. It had been so much fun! Well, she had had fun, at any rate. They’d laughed and talked, all while staying well within the guidelines of safe, non-personal topics - only discussing things like TV, movies, food and sports. He had been pretty stoked that she was a White Sox fan.

He had drifted off to sleep around two a.m. So, for the last three hours of her shift, while she was guarding the door so no uninvited visitors could sneak in, she had been left with a lot of quiet time to think. In her reflection, she’d realized that during their card game she had let her guard down around him, and in doing so, she had inadvertently developed even scarier feelings for him than the uncontrollable lust she had been so worried about.

That revelation had been haunting her all day. She just couldn’t seem to shake it, and she also couldn’t seem to stop counting the hours until her next shift at the hospital. She glanced down at her watch. Four hours and seventeen minutes until she saw Alex again. Great, she thought, so I guess I'm counting the minutes too. Perfect. That’s just perfect.

“How was your day, dear?” Alex asked Jamie, who had just come into the room after his Dad and Uncle Pete had gone home.

Her shift had started two hours ago and he had been trying to subtly (and at times not-so-subtly) get them both to leave so she would come in to be on ‘groupie duty.’ At this point, he really didn’t think he needed anyone standing guard. He was more than capable of fending off unwanted visitors, but he wasn’t about to tell anyone that. No way. Not when it meant that he got to spend so much time with Jamie.

She was so different than anyone else he had ever met. He knew that he had barely scratched the surface of getting to know her. But it was so odd, even though he knew virtually nothing about her childhood, her dreams, her family, her past...or her present, for that matter...he still felt like he knew
her
.

He knew she was kind and caring. He knew she had a great sense of humor and was exceptionally smart. He knew she bit her lip when she was nervous and she scrunched up her nose when she was concentrating. He knew that she had a terrible poker face and was only ‘good’ at cards because she was lucky. He also knew the more he got to know about her, the more he
wanted
to know about her.

“My day was alright, how are you feeling?” she asked, picking up his chart.

“Better now that you’re here.” He knew that sounded like a line but it was the God’s honest truth.

When Jamie was around, he was in less pain. He figured it must be psychosomatic, but that didn’t change the fact that when she was in the room, he felt better.

She smiled up at him, “Your color does look better today.”

“Thank you,” he grinned, “Is that your medical way of flirting with me?”

“No,” she blushed, “It was merely an observation.”

“Ah, well, then can I make an observation?”

She bit her lip and looked to be battling with indecision before finally saying, “Sure.”

“You look…”

The door abruptly opened and his brother Bobby, sister-in-law Sophie, and friend Amber walked in.

Seriously, he couldn’t catch a break!

Jamie set the chart down and greeted them all.

“I knew it was you,” Amber said as she walked over and gave Jamie a quick hug.

“Knew what was me?” Jamie asked.

“The ‘nurse’ everyone is talking about. I knew it had to be you,” Amber said, sounding proud of herself, as if she had figured out some great mystery.

“Do you guys know each other?” Alex asked.

“Jamie and Joey moved into the other side of my duplex a couple of weeks ago,” Amber said, “ and they're the best neighbors ever!”

‘Who the hell is Joey?’ Alex thought to himself.

“Jamie made homemade bread and brownies. She dropped them off, as a ‘hello to the neighborhood,’ the day after they moved in. And it wasn't just an it's-the-thought-that-counts kind of a thing, either. They were to
die
for.” Amber turned to Jamie, “Oh my gosh, and did I tell you that Joey’s been bringing up my paper when he gets yours every morning? He's such a sweetie! You are so lucky.”

“Yeah he is, I think I’ll keep him,” Jamie beamed. “Well, I’ll let you guys visit. I’ll be at the desk if you need anything.”

As soon as the door shut, Alex asked, “Who the hell is Joey?”

All three of his visitors looked at him like he was crazy.

“What?” he asked, not in the mood to deal with their jokes or whatever was making them look like that.

“Nothing, you just sounded…” Amber looked at Sophie and Bobby as if searching for the right word, “you sounded…”

“Jealous,” his brother piped up.

Alex didn’t care what he sounded like. He growled, “Well, who is he?”

A large smile appeared on Amber’s face, “He is a gorgeous, brown eyed, blonde haired…” she paused and Alex knew exactly what she was doing, but didn’t call her on it because he really wanted her to finish her thought. “…little boy.”

They all sat down, chuckling at Alex’s expense. He knew he had suffered a brain injury so he may not be as sharp as he usually was but...what?

Possibly seeing the confusion on Alex’s face, Amber clarified further, “Joey is Jamie’s son.”

Alex heard himself exhale in relief. Her son, thank God! He had thought that Joey was, well...not her son.

“How old is he?” Alex was still trying to wrap his head around the news.

“I think five. He’s in kindergarten,” Amber said slowly. She, Sophie and Bobby all looked at Alex strangely.

“What?” he asked them all, sounding harsher than he had meant to.

“I’ve just never seen you like this about anyone,” Bobby said.

“I like her,” Alex stated.

“Yeah, we got that impression,” Bobby replied.

“I really like her,” Alex repeated, mainly to himself.

“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” Amber said, shaking her head and smiling ear to ear.

“Okay, smartass, just wait. Your time will come,” Alex said. He knew that one day someone would come in and sweep her off her feet. Amber was gorgeous, talented, successful, and funny.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you,” Amber said.

Alex heard a little sadness in her tone and was going to ask if she was okay, but before he had the chance, his cousins Haley, Becca, Krista, and Jessie came in.

As they were saying their hellos he was trying to process the fact that Jamie had a son. Where was the dad? Was he still in the picture?

He had a lot he needed to find out about Jamie Miller. Now he just needed his family to leave so he could.

--- ~ ---

Jamie had expected Bobby, Sophie and Amber to stay a lot longer than they did. Especially when Alex’s cousins had shown up. But fifteen minutes after arriving they were all exiting his room.

She stood and came around the desk. “You guys leaving so soon?” She asked the group.

They all spoke at the same time. Some claiming that they were tired, others claiming they forgot they had something to do, all quickly making their exit.