My Only - Alex & Jamie (8 page)

“I know, Katie and I have been fielding phone calls, getting accosted at the supermarket...I even had one girl basically try to bribe me by saying that she would babysit every Friday night for a year - for free - if she could get into see him.” Chelle shook her head as she rubbed her belly. “Yeah right, like I would leave baby Mya with the mayor of crazy-town.”

“When are you due?” For some reason Jamie really wanted to direct the conversation away from Alex’s many, many admirers.

“Four more weeks. I’m so ready. I can’t even tie my own shoes anymore. Poor Riley has to do it for me.”

“From the way he looked at you the other night, I don’t think he minds.”

Chelle nodded as she smiled bigger than Jamie had ever seen anyone smile before. It actually caused Jamie herself to feel happier just seeing it. “I’m a lucky girl. He takes good care of me. Speaking of taking care of, have you been in to see Alex today?”

Chelle’s attempt at nonchalance was so not working. Jamie knew what she was after. She wanted the dirt.

Jamie smiled as she shook her head, “Nice segue.”

“Hey, I’m eight months pregnant and just finished a twelve hour shift, it was the best I could come up with on the spot,” Chelle said light-heartedly.

Jamie liked her, a lot, and she could actually use a sounding board. But unfortunately, Chelle was Alex’s sister-in-law and she worked at the hospital. Her instincts told her she could trust Chelle. But the risk was much too high to go off of those instincts alone.

“Yes, I did. Jason and Katie are in with him now.” She stayed within the ‘safe-zone’ of information.

“Alright, confession time,” Chelle said sitting in the seat beside Jamie, “I already knew that. Katie texted me as soon as you left the room and told me to come up and try and get the scoop while they were in there keeping him company.”

Jamie had to laugh at that. “Are you serious?”

“Afraid so. Look, Heather - bitchy as she may be - was right about one thing. This is a small-town. We have to get our entertainment where we can find it.”

“I see,” Jamie said, feeling more and more relaxed and at ease the longer she spoke with Chelle.

“And to be honest,
none
of us have ever seen Alex be the way he was with you the other night, we thought it might be the drugs…”

“Thanks!” Jamie said in mock-offense.

“But,” Chelle continued, her eyes lit with enthusiasm, “Katie said that when she and Jason walked in today, Alex seemed even more enamored with you then he did when he was all hopped up on pain medication.”

It shouldn’t make any difference to Jamie if what Chelle was saying was true or not. Still, the thought that Alex was genuinely interested in her (even though nothing could come of it) did make Jamie want to get up out of her chair and do a happy dance. She couldn’t contain the huge grin that her face was betraying her with.

“And from the look on your face it seems you may be slightly taken with him.” Chelle leaned forward, “So are you single?”

Jamie hesitated for a moment before deciding what to say, “Yes, but…”

“There you are.” They both looked as Riley came down the hall carrying a woman’s jacket. “You left your jacket at home and I don’t want you going outside without it.”

Jamie had to stop herself from swooning. She honestly had no idea guys like him really existed.

“Thanks, baby.” Chelle stood and made her way around the counter lifting up on her tippy toes to give her husband a kiss.

When she dropped back on her heels, she looked at Jamie and winked, “We’ll finish this talk later.”

“Or not,” Jamie teased.

“Hey, Jamie, nice to see you again.” Riley motioned towards Alex’s door, “How’s he doing?”

“Good, I think. I’ve seen him only briefly today.”

“Well according to Heather, it was 'thirty-five' minutes,” Chelle made air quotes with her hands as she spoke.

Both the girls laughed and Riley looked at them strangely. Shaking his head, smiling at Chelle, he asked, “You ready?”

Chelle nodded her head then turned to Jamie and ‘innocently’ asked, “We’re gonna stop in to see the patient before we head home, you want come in with us?”

Jamie knew exactly what she was trying to do. “No, thanks.”

“You sure?”

“Yep.”

“Party pooper,” Chelle shot back before heading into Alex’s room with Riley.

As the door shut, Jamie felt an odd wave of loneliness wash over her. She had to remind herself she wasn’t alone. She had someone. She had Joey.

Over the last three days Alex had been happy that his family had been at the hospital visiting him on an almost constant basis. He had probably not spent more than an hour or two each day without one or more of them coming by. And that had been great. He had really appreciated it.

But today, not so much. Since he knew that if no one was in the room with him Jamie would be on ‘groupie duty’ - as Vickey so had so aptly named it - he just wished they would leave.

“So did we interrupt wedding plans?” Jason asked as he sat in the light brown recliner chair and pulled Katie onto his lap.

“Jas, stop,” Katie tried to hold in a laugh as she gave his brother a playful swat on his arm.

“Did I really propose?” Alex pretty much already knew the answer to that, but he asked anyway. Jason may be giving him a hard time but he would never say something like that, even joking around, if it wasn’t true.

“You sure did,” His brother happily confirmed.

Alex dropped his head back against the pillows. He lifted his right hand (his good hand) to his head and raked his fingers through his hair.

“And I really told her I loved her.” It was a statement, not a question. Alex just needed to hear himself say it out loud to believe it.

“I know you probably won’t think so,” Katie said with a grin of delight, “but it was pretty romantic.”

“Somehow I doubt Jamie sees it that way.” Alex rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index finger. How was he gonna dig himself out of this hole, he thought.

“I don’t know about that,” Katie sing-songed, “She did say yes.”

His eyes flew open, “What?”

“Yep! It was so amazing,” Katie’s arms flew up as she animatedly explained, “She had just finished checking all your vitals and had been asking you questions to see if you knew where you were, what year it was, your name – the basics. She was walking away and you called her name. She turned back. You tugged her down so that she was really close to you. Then you looked straight into her eyes and asked her if you could ask her a question. She said yes. You asked, 'Will you marry me?' Without hesitating she whispered, 'Yes.' Then you smiled and said, 'good,' and passed out cold.”

Katie’s eyes were dancing with excitement.

“Yeah, and then Grace thanked her for humoring you,” Jason added.

Katie ignored Jason’s contribution to her retelling of events. “I’m telling you Alex. I had a front row seat, and that girl was swept up in the moment. I mean, as soon as you knocked out, she did look a tad horrified, but I’m sure that was just because she realized what had just slipped out of her mouth.”

“Or she was just horrified at the thought of marrying you,” Jason offered.

“It wasn’t that.” Katie shot his brother a look that clearly communicated she was not amused by his comments.

Jason just smiled at her. Apparently the saying - even negative attention is still attention - was true in his brother’s case.

“Seriously, it was…” She turned her attention back to Alex and paused, seeming to be searching for the right word, “It was so…sweet. I’ll never forget it.”

“Now that I know about it, I wish I could,” Alex grumbled.

“You really like her, don’t you?” Katie asked, tilting her head in curiosity.

“I don’t even know her,” Alex stated.

He wanted to, though, so he wished they would leave and then maybe he would be able to get to know her.

“I know, but, normally you wouldn’t take any of this seriously. You would joke about it, laugh it off,” she said eyes narrowed. Then as if she had some sort of epiphany, her face lit up. “But it bothers you because you like her.” A big smile spread across her face, “You like her, like her!”

Before he had a chance to respond, the door opened and Riley and Chelle came in.

Great, he thought, more visitors. That’s exactly what I need.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” Riley asked, worry written all over his face.

“Better. I’m ready to get out of here.” As soon as he said the words that had basically been his mantra for the last two days he realized that they weren’t exactly true anymore. He wasn’t in such a big hurry to get home now that Jamie was here.

“Have they said when they think that might happen?” Riley asked.

“Dr. Corbin said it would be a couple of days. But he’s been saying that for the last two days, so I’m pretty sure that’s just way of stringing me along,” Alex replied.

“I overheard him tell Vickey this morning that they wanted to run another MRI to make sure that there's no swelling around the brain,” Chelle offered. “The results will most likely determine when you get released, since the burns are healing nicely and you’re not letting your cracked ribs slow you down.”

“Do you need anything?” Riley asked.

“Not really. I just wish I could take a shower but they don’t want me to get the dressing on my back wet.”

“I thought it was a little ripe in here,” Jason ribbed his brother.

They all laughed.

“Ha ha, real funny, Jas. I’ve been washing up, but it’s not the same.” Alex just wanted to stand and let the spray of the shower wash over him. That sounded like heaven right about now.

“Hey, maybe you can ask Jamie to give you a sponge bath,” Jason teasingly suggested.

A sound of something metal clinking caused them all to turn to the door. Jamie was in the doorway bending down to pick up what looked like a fork, while balancing his dinner tray on her other hand. It was an impressive display of dexterity.

“Here’s your dinner,” she announced brightly as she stood.

He noticed she was blushing.

After quickly setting the tray on his swiveling bedside table, she added, “Let me just go and grab you a new fork.”

“It’s okay…” he tried to stop her. He wanted to let her know he wasn’t even hungry, but she flew out the door before he got a chance.

“Thanks, Jas.” Alex shook his head in irritation.

His brother hadn’t really done anything wrong. He was just being Jason, joking around.

It was just that, between the proposal, the ‘I love you’, and now her walking into his brother suggesting she give him a sponge bath, Alex was pretty sure that the poor girl would be running for the hills if he didn’t do something.

He had to fix all of this. And he needed to do it fast.

--- ~ ---

Jamie stood in the hall outside Alex’s room, fork clutched to her chest, trying to come up with the best plan of action to slip in and out unnoticed. The last thing in the world that she wanted was for anyone in there to know the things that had gone through her head when Jason had jokingly suggested that she give Alex a sponge bath. Oh Lord, the mental images that had flashed in her mind had almost caused her to drop the tray. She had good reflexes, so luckily the only victim was a fork.

Well, she decided, it was a long shot but if she just went in head-down-no-eye-contact, then maybe - just
maybe
- she would be able to drop off the utensil and no one would be the wiser. Yeah, and if she believed that then she was sure someone had some ocean front property in Arizona she could purchase.

Oh, well, might as well get this over with.

She opened the door quietly and stepped inside. When she heard the door click closed behind her, she noticed it was completely silent in the room. No one was talking. This realization caused her to abandon her head-down-no-eye-contact plan and she lifted her head. No one was there, except for Alex. She froze.

Dread filled her. “You’re alone. I just ran down the hall to grab the fork. I didn’t know they were leaving…” She gestured to where his brothers and their wives had just been.

“I told them all to go home.”

His gravelly tone caused goosebumps to rise all over her body. She swallowed…hard. The way he was looking at her was, well, hot.

“Did anyone sneak in and bother you?” She hoped not.

“No.”

“Oh, good.” She forced her feet to start moving and she set the fork down on the tray. Turning quickly, she said, “I’ll just be over here if you need me.”

Before she could make it to her post in the far corner he asked, “Do you mind keeping me company while I eat?”

“Sure,” she squeaked.

She pulled a chair over and sat down next to his bed.

He picked up the bread roll and broke off a piece.

Wow, he had big hands. How had she not noticed that before? That meant he probably had a big… No, she reprimanded herself, stop. She had to stop that.