When I got to work it was chaos. Injured partyers from the night before abounded. There was a horrific home-construction accident involving a chain saw and a missing hand; a cop rushed in that had been involved in a domestic dispute with a couple and got a knife in the gut for his effort; a toddler had gotten into the bathroom cleaner under the sink; and two women in labor: one was breech, the other was having premature contractions. I didn't have time to think about anything else or worry about the curious looks Sunny was giving me whenever we were in the same room or pa.s.sed each other in the hall. I was dragging majorly by the time my actual shift in the late afternoon started and was in the break room guzzling coffee like it was lifeblood when my tiny little boss finally cornered me.

"Soooo?"

I jolted and sloshed the hot liquid over my fingers. I gave her a dirty look and found a paper towel to clean up the mess.

"So what?"

She rolled her eyes at me and poked me in the arm. "So how was the date with the doctor? You sounded exhausted this morning when I called, so I a.s.sume it went well. I bet you made a beautiful pair."

I tried to keep my face impa.s.sive but I couldn't keep looking her in the eye. Not when I had ditched the awful doctor and spent the rest of the night being thoroughly debauched by Nash.

"I ended the date early."

Her eyes got big and she wrinkled her nose up at me. "You had him take you home early?"

I sighed and tossed my paper cup of now-lukewarm coffee into the trash.

"He was a jerk and so full of himself. His friends were appalling and the party was really just a group of people standing around trying to outdo each other. I was uncomfortable and bored, so I called a friend and left early. Dr. Bennet and I are really not compatible."

She gave me a considering look.

"The guy with the nose ring?"

"What about him?"

"Is that the friend you called?"

I refused to feel bad about it or ashamed. There was nothing wrong with Nash. In fact there was so much right with him I was having a hard time remembering why I needed to watch my tender heart and fragile feelings around him in the first place.

"Yes."

She made a noise and followed me out of the room. One of the medical a.s.sistants handed me a new file and told me there was a patient waiting in one of the rooms for me.

"I know based on first glance you wouldn't think he was a really nice guy, but really he is."

She shrugged and started walking the other direction from me. "What I think really doesn't matter, I guess. Do you even realize that you've been grinning all day? I've never seen you do that. You always look so serious and intent, but today"-she took her index fingers and tugged up the corners of her own mouth-"you are just one big ball of cheer. That makes me happy for you. I don't care who put the smile there, Saint, I just care that it stays."

I was smiling, I hadn't really thought about it. I was also sore and tired, had a hickey on my collarbone, and my favorite pair of black underwear was in the trash. I would also never be able to rock my knee-high boots again without having X-rated recollections of last night. I still wasn't a hundred percent sold on the fact I could get involved with a guy who had disappointed me so much in the past, that I could trust all these things he was making me feel about him and about myself, but there was no denying I felt lighter, more normal than I ever had with a guy before.

He was the only one I had managed to have a normal, s.e.xy, and sensual time with and I wanted that, wanted more than that really, if he was willing to offer it up. Not only did I desire this Nash, I think I actually liked him and had to admit that I cared about him. We were so entangled in this entire th.o.r.n.y mess I wasn't sure how either one of us could get out of it without drawing some kind of blood and suffering p.r.i.c.ks of irritation.

I didn't have the luxury of turning it over in my head to the point of exhaustion. My second shift was just as busy as my first, and by the time I crawled home, I was too tired to function, let alone contemplate what I was going to do about Nash or about us. I worked the next two days in a row, and though I wanted to text Nash or give him a call to let him know I was at least thinking about him, I couldn't seem to find the right words. On the third day I decided to do something out of the box. I sent him flowers to the tattoo shop, a pretty bouquet of roses in red, yellow, and orange that matched the fire tattooed all over him. The colors were fitting in another way as well. Red meant romance and maybe even love, yellow was kindness and friendship, and the orange pa.s.sion and enthusiasm ... we had those last two covered for sure. I did it partly because the idea of sending a big, tattooed brute of a guy flowers made me laugh, and partly because I wanted to show him that he was on my mind.

I didn't stop to think if he would think it was dumb, didn't get insecure or worry about how he would take it. I just did it and sent along a card that simply said: Thanks. I was thankful for the ride, thankful for the night in my bed, and mostly thankful for him just being him. I hoped he would understand all of it.

By the end of the day, I got a picture text message of the giant bouquet sitting in the center of the desk in the very masculine shop. No one was in the picture, but several pairs of tattooed hands were in the background throwing up the devil horns in approval. It made me laugh. Nash's response was short and sweet: Never got flowers before ... They are as pretty as you are.

Thank you.

I didn't know what to say to that, but it made me feel like everything I thought I knew about myself was wrong. I sent him back a smiley face and went back to work. Work was always my go-to when I had things in my life that I couldn't seem to get a handle on.

When I got home that night I was going to call him finally but was waylaid by an emergency phone call from Faith. Apparently my mom had run into Dad's new girlfriend at the grocery store and an ugly scene had ensued. Things had been broken, property had been damaged, and my mom ended up with a.s.sault charges leveled at her. Faith had begged Dad to convince his girlfriend not to press charges, knowing Mom would pay for the things in the store she had destroyed, but he was zero help. He wanted Mom to get help, to get over it, and I couldn't say I totally disagreed with him. The whole situation sounded ridiculous and completely out of control. My mom had gone too far, and my words about not wanting to bail her out of jail were coming back to haunt me.

It was either have Faith load all the kids up in the car and drive her pregnant self to Brookside in order to bail Mom out, or bite the bullet and do it myself. Of course that was the only option even though it was absolutely something I didn't want to do. So I left work, drove up to the mountain, and went and bailed my mother out of the slammer. It was ludicrous and like something off a cheesy reality-TV show, and it made me really wish I had managed to find the time to touch base with Nash because for some reason, talking to him always made me feel better.

My mother was less than thrilled to see me. Maybe because she was embarra.s.sed. Maybe because she was covered in some kind of unidentified sticky substance and was sporting smudged makeup and an unmistakable black eye. Or maybe it was because she was led into the waiting room of the tiny precinct by a police officer younger than me still wearing handcuffs and looking pitiful. Or maybe it was because he was calmly telling her not to miss her court date and that she might want to consider starting anger management cla.s.ses because the judge was sure to require them for her.

She caught sight of me and her head dropped a little. I took her arm and guided her out the front door and into my car. She didn't say a word to me, but I could see that she was crying silently. I was torn between the urge to hug her and the urge to throttle her, but my frustration at her, the situation, and the state of the family had reached its breaking point.

I huffed out a sigh and looked at her out of the corner of my eye.

"Okay, Mom. I need to know what the plan here is. Are you just going to keep chasing every kind of pill you can get prescribed to you with a gallon of wine every day and use that as an excuse for all your behavior? Are you going to cross the line and actually hurt someone, maybe even yourself? Are you so lost in hurt and anger that you're going to miss being a part of your daughter's pregnancy because she is scared of what you might do? I hate to break the news to you, Mom, but no one ... I mean NO ONE ... is going to be willing to ride to your rescue anymore if you keep this up. At some point accountability needs to come into play."

She didn't respond, just continued to sit quietly crying in the pa.s.senger seat while ignoring me. I didn't know what else to say to her. This had gotten so far out of hand too long ago and I wasn't sure how to pull it all back in. When we got to her house I pulled into the driveway and turned to look at her. She sniffled a little and looked at me out of red-rimmed eyes.

"Your dad was my high school sweetheart. We dated all through college and I sacrificed everything so he could go to dental school. I gave him a beautiful family, and I thought we were happy. It hurts so much worse when I think about the idea that he just fell out of love with me than the fact that he moved on. How can someone's feelings for another person just go away, Saint? After everything?"

My heart twisted for her.

"I don't know, Mom, and I can't pretend to understand how badly Dad hurt you, but I do know what you're doing isn't making you or anyone else feel better about it. Dad might have fallen out of love, but you still have two daughters who love you and grandkids who miss having a happy and healthy grandma to spend time with. We matter, too, Mom, and all of us hate to see what you're doing to yourself."

"I just want him to hurt as badly as he made me hurt."

"Well, that isn't going to happen."

"It isn't fair."

I shook my head. "No, it really isn't, but trust me, getting divorced and having to start over is the least in life that isn't fair. I had to watch the parents of a way too young girl realize that their daughter died for no other reason than people can't figure out how to be nice to each other. It isn't that hard, just be nice and people might not have to suffer needlessly, but that isn't the world we live in, so young girls die. That isn't fair, Mom. People falling out of love is vicious and it sucks, but there are far worse things you could be going through. I know that sounds harsh but it's very true."

Something moved across her gaze and she looked away from me.

"I forget what a remarkable life you've made for yourself, Saint. The strength you have to have to do what you do is admirable and I very well may have lost sight of that in all of this. I hope you know that beyond everything else, I am very proud of you."

Wow. I hadn't been expecting that.

"Thanks, Mom."

"Now put some makeup on and maybe a push-up bra and land one of those doctors you work with and I'll be over the moon."

And there she was ... that sounded more like my mom.

"Stay out of trouble, Mom, and maybe quit the pills." I tried to keep it light but I made sure she could see the concern I had for her in my gaze. I wanted better for her but realized she was going to have to take some steps herself in order to get it.

She shut the door and headed up to the front door. I waited until she went inside and pulled out my phone. I didn't think about it, I just found his name in my phone book and pushed the b.u.t.ton to call him. He answered on the second ring.

"Hey."

"Hey." My voice dropped a little huskier against my will.

"What's up?"

"Are you busy?"

"Yeah, right now I have a client and one more after. Why, what's up?"

I chewed on my bottom lip and tapped my fingers nervously on my knee.

"Nothing really. I just had a really weird day and thought maybe hanging out with you would make it a little better."

He was quiet for a long minute and I thought he was going to tell me I had missed my window or that maybe if I had bothered to call him sooner we could've made plans. This is why I sucked so hard at the boy-girl thing. It was rude to just a.s.sume he would drop everything and make time for me. I knew his life was busy and he had a lot of friends and people clamoring for his attention and time. Who was I to ask him to be available for me when I finally forced myself to make the time for something other than my job?

"Yeah, we can hang out. Do you care if it's later? I want to swing by Phil's. He wasn't looking very good yesterday when I checked in on him, and I won't be out of here until after eight, so like around ten or so?"

I was off tomorrow, so he could show up at midnight for all I cared, just as long as he showed up.

"That's fine. Do you want me to feed you?"

He chuckled and I heard him say something to someone in the background.

"No. Let's go do something fun. Wear something you don't mind getting dirty."

That was intriguing and had me curious, which was bizarre because I hated surprises.

"What does your idea of fun look like, Nash?"

"You'll have to wait and see. Later, Saint."

He hung up and I was left staring at my phone in wonderment. I didn't know what I was doing, didn't know what he was doing to me, but there was no doubt he made my day better by simply being. I shuffled through my music and landed on the Vines and headed back to the city.

I called Faith and filled her in on the situation with our mom. She sounded so stressed out and so sad, I felt bad for her, but Mom was an adult and had to make her own choices and suffer her own consequences. There wasn't much we could do. We talked for most of the drive home. She couldn't believe I had bailed out on the doctor. I hadn't exactly told her who my rescuer had been. I knew she wouldn't like it. Not after the way my younger self had broken at the hands of Nash's thoughtless actions and words, directed at me or not.

I still didn't fully believe that he hadn't been talking about me, that he was just running his mouth. The vehemence in his tone, the anger in his eyes, made me want to believe him, but I just didn't know. Frankly, even if he was talking about someone else back then, the words were still cruel and awful. If I let go of that memory, admitted that there was a distinct possibility that my own shattered sense of self, my own broken self-confidence, had fabricated what I wanted to hear, what I just expected to hear about myself back then, then it followed that I had to admit that everything I had done, all the roadblocks I faced in my interpersonal relationships up to this point, fell on me. That was a tough pill to swallow.

I cleaned up the apartment a little, took a shower, and braided my long hair, made myself a bowl of cereal for dinner because my stomach was turning up and down, and dug around in my closet for something that was okay to get dirty but didn't make me look like a bag lady. I settled on a pair of yoga pants and a b.u.t.ton-up flannel shirt over a tank top. It wasn't going to win me any prizes on Project Runway, but I doubted it would send Nash running for the hills. It took me a second to recognize that I wasn't freaking out at him seeing me like this. Maybe because he had seen me so often in my scrubs at the hospital and sans makeup while I was working. Or maybe it was because there wasn't a part of me he hadn't had his hands or his mouth on and he didn't seem to have any complaints. Had I been anyone else, I think his nonverbal appreciation of my naked form would have been a huge stroke to my ego, but being as I was a weirdo, I was just glad he kept his actual thoughts on the subject-good or bad-to himself.

He showed up a few minutes after ten, gave me a quick once-over, pulled me into a kiss that had me panting and winded, and hauled me outside to the car. He was dressed in what I a.s.sumed he wore to work and I could see that he had dark shadows under each eye and a scruff on his normally clean-shaven chin. He looked drawn and worn out. I struggled a little with feeling guilty for asking him to give me some of his time.

I asked him shyly, "Long week?"

He opened the door for me and ushered me into the car. The interior was still warm and he had the t.o.s.s.e.rs playing on the radio. Every time I was in this monster of a car, Celtic punk rock was coming out of the speakers.

When he got back behind the wheel, he looked over at me and gave me a lopsided grin.

"Well, hearing from you was a highlight of it for sure ... and the flowers. You had the shop rolling. I'm never going to hear the end of it. But Phil isn't doing so great and I keep asking him about how I managed to go my whole life without knowing that he was really my dad and he keeps telling me to talk to my mom. I would rather eat gla.s.s. Plus now that Rule is back from his honeymoon, we have to start figuring out what we want to do about the new shop. It's all just kind of piling up."

"I'm sorry about Phil and I can totally relate to the mom thing. I had to go get mine out of jail today."

He barked out a laugh and looked at me. "You're joking?"

"Nope." I proceeded to tell him all about it, which meant I was the one carrying on the conversation for a full fifteen minutes as he wound back across the city to the warehouse district out past Coors Field.

He asked questions along the way, but never interrupted, and I couldn't believe how seamlessly I was engaging with him. That never happened to me. He stopped in front of a huge garage and poked the code in a big metal gate and drove through. I had no idea what we were doing in this part of the city or at this location, so I looked at him questioningly.

"How is car repair fun?"

He tsked at me and pulled the Charger up to one of the closed bay doors.

"I rebuilt this entire beast from the ground up. It was my saving grace back in the day. This car and Phil were pretty much the only things that kept me out of jail. It was how I figured out there were more productive ways to spend my time than getting in trouble and trying to get a reaction out of my mom. Phil told me that I needed a cla.s.sic, something that would last the test of time. He told me if I took care of it, babied it, loved it, that it would do the same for me. I realize now he was trying to teach me about more than cars. He helped me pull it out of a junkyard and we spent years making it into the beast it is now."

He got out of the car and punched in another code on another electric keypad, and the big bay door started to roll up. The garage was dark and intimidating at first glance, but as he pulled the car in, the headlights danced across a bunch of old cars in various stages of repair. It clearly wasn't just a garage but a custom car shop.

"My buddy Wheeler owns this place. He helps me out with the Charger when I need him to and we trade out work. He lets me use the paint shop occasionally."

I couldn't help but lift an eyebrow. "A car guy named Wheeler? Really?"

He laughed and got out of the car. He reached behind the seat and pulled out a black bag and a roll of something I hadn't noticed earlier.

"His first name is Hudsen, and who are you to talk? You're a nurse named Saint."

He handed me the rolled-up bundle and I noticed that it was paper. I had no idea what we were doing and told him as much.

He just took my other hand and we navigated the cars and toolboxes to the back of the shop, where there was a sealed-off room. He turned on more lights and smirked at me. His eyes were glittering with violet threads of merriment. I bit back a sigh. Really I could just stare at him all day and be happy.

"Back in the day I used to take a bunch of spray paint out and go tag a bunch of stuff to blow off steam. I thought it was cool to break the law, to leave my mark all over the city, until I got busted and Phil had to pay a huge-a.s.s fine to keep me out of jail. That was how I got into art, into design. Really I think I wanted to get busted doing something illegal so my mom would have to deal with me, but that's neither here nor there anymore and it's still fun to paint with cans."

We went into the room that was all white, had a crazy ventilation system, and had ventilators for breathing hanging on the wall and a bunch of stuff that was obviously used to paint cars in it. Nash tossed the bag on the floor and now I could hear the cans of paint inside it roll around together. He took the paper out of my hands and walked over to one of the walls that had a wire hanging from it and a bunch of metal clips.

"I can't go out and paint walls, buildings, or trains anymore, at least not unless I'm getting paid to do it, but graffiti is fun. It's bright and wild, there are no rules, and after tattooing stuff for other people all day, sometimes I need a change of pace. It's nice just to get out and do my own thing, remember my own style. Wheeler lets me set up in here. No mess, no vandalism charges, and it's always pretty fun."

I watched as he hung up two pieces of paper that were almost as tall as me and about as wide as a door. He crouched down to start taking the mult.i.tude of paint cans in all the colors in the rainbow out of the bag. I had never had someone let me in on one of their own little rituals before, never was close enough to anyone for that. There was the pull he had on me acting up again.

"I can't even draw a stick figure, Nash." He was a professional artist, for goodness' sake, how was I supposed to be comfortable even playing around with that kind of skill level and talent judging me?

He grumbled something under his breath and crammed a black baseball hat that was in the bag on his head backward. It was a good look for him.

"Saint, not everything is win or lose. We aren't in compet.i.tion with each other, we're here to have fun and spend some time together without a bunch of noise and the outside bugging us. Just relax and let go."

I took his word for it. I didn't have a choice. I had missed him this week and wanted this time with him. I felt like he was giving me a peek inside the inner workings of his head. We stood side by side and considered the giant canvases. He started on his first, and before I even picked up one can of paint he had the entire background filled with swirling, primary colors that were bold and eye-catching. I couldn't tell what he was doing, but it was fascinating and engaging to watch.

I bit the tip of my tongue and started Bob Rossing some happy little trees and clouds. Before I knew it, I forgot all about Nash, forgot I was in an auto body shop, and just started actually having fun. It was a lot easier than I ever remembered painting being. I added a rainbow, and then I needed a pot of gold. Of course, since I had a lopsided and runny pot of gold, I needed a leprechaun to go with it. By the time I was done, I was laughing so hard I had to hold my sides, but the paper was covered in a sloppy, drippy mess that no one would want, but it was hysterical to me, and when Nash looked over my shoulder at it and just tilted his head and squinted his eyes to try and make it out, it only made me laugh harder. This is why people kept telling me I needed to get out more. I couldn't ever remember giggling so hard and unrestrained.

I stepped around him to look at the creation he had been working on and my laughter got trapped in my lungs. My jaw dropped open and I turned to him with gigantic eyes.

"Is that me?" I sounded like I was being strangled.

"Really? You have to ask?" His tone was humorous, but there was something else underlying it.

The picture he had created was a cartoon character, exaggerated and outrageous. The colors seemed to pop off the paper. It was a nurse in an outrageously s.e.xy outfit, the kind girls wore for Halloween when they were on the prowl. She had wild red hair and was holding a cartoon syringe in one hand and a heart in the other. Despite the exaggerated proportions and obvious enhancements to make her shockingly s.e.xy, she was me. The hair, the eyes, the face ... all of it was me. How on earth had he done that in the twenty minutes we had been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around?