Page 113 of Fly with Me

Olive reached down to pet behind his floppy ears, and he licked her nose. “Hey, buddy.”

“My dad wanted to know if I could bring Gus over again today after my lessons.”

Stella had shocked Olive by letting Gus decorate the back of her car with dog fur. Olive had covered the seats in an old sheet, but they were still furry just from the one car ride yesterday. Stella didn’t seem to mind, but she did mention investing in a shop vac at one point.

“Always. You’re going to spoil him with all this attention during the day. He’s used to just having the dog walkers come.”

Stella kneeled beside the dog, who immediately rolled onto his back to demand tummy rubs. If her hand stopped moving, he nudged her with his nose. “How can I resist this sweet face?”

The look on Gus’s face was sloppy adoration.

“You still want to come over tonight?”

“Yep.” Stella nodded. “You get home by eight?”

Olive yawned. “Uh-huh.” She took a few more gulps of the coffee while locked in a stare with the beautiful woman in front of her.

“Shouldn’t you be…?”

“Yeah. Leaving. Right.”

“You okay?” Stella stroked a finger across Olive’s forehead, as if to ask about the thoughts swirling there.

“Just tired.”

“It’s amazing to me that you get up this early for work and you aren’t a morning person.”

Olive nodded with half-asleep eyes. “Me too.” Olive touched Stella’s cheek and guided her into a kiss. “Thank you for walking Gus.”

“Anytime.” Stella grinned.

An alarm went off on Olive’s phone, and she grabbed her travel mug of coffee and headed out the door.

When she arrived, Derek was already there, since he was the charge nurse today.

Their department’s scary director was nosing around the unit. Olive moved all the nurses’ water bottles and coffee mugs to the break room, since this particular director tended to pick out a nurse and yell at them over something petty when she was in a foul mood. Olive used to love working nights because she never had to deal with management, but after everything with Jake and adopting Gus, she’d moved to days. At least she got to work with Derek more.

The less-experienced nurses knew the drill by now. Hide from Mrs. Crawley and always find something to do that would allow you to look busy.

Olive had come out of a patient room when Mrs. Crawley cornered her. “Hello, Ms. Murphy. Haven’t gotten the pleasure of seeing you for a while.”

Olive avoided saying that it was because it was a universally acknowledged truth that Mrs. Crawley was afraid of both patients and germs; thus she found the emergency department deeply unsettling. No one knew how she’d gotten her job. Rumors abounded on that particular subject.

“Uh—yeah, nice to see you too.” Olive was, of course, holding a handful of blood specimen tubes in a biohazard bag.

Mrs. Crawley’s mane of tightly permed auburn curls didn’t move as she angled her head, nose creasing in disgust. “Why don’t you get rid of those, and we can chat. And please wash your hands as well.”

Olive was glad her face was hidden behind a mask, so it would hide her sarcastic scowl. “All righty.”

She slid the bag into the pneumatic tube transport system with gritted teeth. She washed her hands because, of course, she was going to wash her hands. She washed her hands several million times a day. All nurses did.

Olive headed back to the nurses’ station. Mrs. Crawley looked incredibly odd sitting in a swivel chair. She was better suited to the large leather monstrosities used in movies whenever an evil businessperson is canceling Christmas.

“The executive board wanted me to come say thank you.”

“Thank you?”

“For being so positive about the hospital in the People magazine article and on the TODAY show.”