Page 46 of Falling into Place

Chapter Thirty-Two

Brooks

If you ever find me down, check the service schedule, and if Dr. Martin’s not on, call him in. I don’t want anyone else taking care of me.

Carly closed (and locked) the door and came back to the couch. After she sat, Brooks pulled her into his side and brought her legs across his lap.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“At this point, I don’t even know.”

“Understandable.”

She laid her head against his shoulder, absentmindedly tracing a finger in zigzags across his chest.

“What other options have you considered? Job-wise?” He hated that he hadn’t been around to help her work through this in the days after she’d been fired.

“I started looking for new accounting jobs,” she said. “And I know Bailey would take me back if I asked. I left on good terms.”

He put a gentle hand across hers, flattening her palm on his chest. “If you think going back to accounting is the right call, I’ll support you. Whatever you decide. But I worry that’s not where your heart is.”

“It’s not.” She tipped her head back so she could look at him. “You know how when you were talking about how you ended up in medicine, you said it was the perfect career because it combined your talents and your passion?”

“Yes.”

“I’m good at accounting, but it doesn’t get me excited. I don’t look forward to it or think about how I might change up the way I arrange spreadsheets after I get off.”

“Really? A good spreadsheet really gets me going.”

She pinched him, and he laughed. “But the work I did at Mode? I loved every second of it. The flexibility, the creativity, the transformations. I get hyped up when I’m just scrolling on Pinterest and come across a sweater I love or a style that inspires me, and thinking about which client I could share it with.

When Sasha was talking about Backstitch just now, it was like this weirdly perfect combination of everything I’m good at and love. ”

“I thought the same thing. So why don’t you just sit with it for a day or two? It’s a lot to consider, and it’s smart to ask more questions and do some research. But if your gut reaction is positive, it’s worth exploring, right?”

Her brow furrowed, and she bit her lip. “Maybe ... but, Nashville? For six months? We literally just talked about trying this thing between us again. How can I just up and leave? What if ... I don’t know, what if we don’t survive it?”

“Hey.” He gripped her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “If you decide to do this, I won’t lie and say I won’t hate it when you’re gone, but it’s gonna take something a lot bigger than that to get rid of me, Carly Porter. I won’t make the mistake of letting you go again.”

“I was in another relationship where someone left temporarily for a job,” she pointed out. “Didn’t work out so well.”

Yeah, because Benjamin was a dumbass, he wanted to say. “It did for me.”

That earned him a tiny laugh. He’d take it.

“I’m not Benjamin. I want you to do what you need to do for your career, and if you go I’ll be thinking of you, and yes, missing you, the whole time.

I’ll text you every day and I’ll come visit when I’m not on call.

Let me show you how much I’m in this with you.

Because even if you fell in love with Nashville and didn’t want to come back, I’d find a job up there and follow you. ”

Her cheeks flushed, and God, he’d missed that. “You would?”

“In a heartbeat.” He paused. “If you’d want me to.”

“Of course I’d want you to. I love you, remember?”

He sat back and tugged her onto his lap. Framing her face with his hands, he whispered one last thing into her mouth before he kissed her, something he planned to keep doing for most of the night. “I love you more.”

Three days later, Brooks was finishing up his shift, an unusual sensation stirring beneath his ribs.

It felt like hope.

He walked through the cafeteria, searching the rows of tables and into the various hallways and connected rooms where employees and visitors could take a break. As he neared the back corner, he worried the nurse had been wrong—maybe the kid hadn’t come for something to eat.

Brooks really hoped he hadn’t left. He wanted to be the one to break the news.

Just before he was about to give up, his eye caught on a thin form hunched over a table next to the vending machines.

The kid was swiping through something on his phone and didn’t look up when Brooks approached.

“Hey. Connor, right?”

The kid looked up and blinked at Brooks, then nodded, the circles underneath his eyes darker than any seventeen-year-old’s had a right to be. His dark-blond hair was unkempt, and he wore a wrinkled T-shirt, probably from attempting sleep on the rollaway bed in the corner of his dad’s hospital room.

“I’m Brooks, one of your dad’s doctors.”

“I remember you.”

“May I sit?”

Connor shrugged, but he locked his phone, which Brooks took as a good sign.

Brooks sat across from him and put his hands on the table for a few seconds, then pulled them into his lap. He should have taken off his white coat, probably. He didn’t need to make Connor any more uncomfortable than he already was.

But he was nervous and liked to slide his hands into the oversize coat pockets and sift through the several pens he kept handy.

“How’re you doing?”

Connor just sort of stared at him with a slight frown.

Right. Well, that was fair. Brooks hadn’t exactly established himself as one of those providers who asked how his patients’ families were doing.

“I wanted to talk to you about your dad. I have some good news.”

The slightest flicker of something besides wariness flashed across Connor’s face, there and gone in an instant. Again, Brooks understood. He’d kept his guard up pretty high, too.

“Your dad’s numbers are looking good. He’s moving oxygen well, heart is staying strong, and we’ve been able to wean sedation. We’re ready to try extubating, which means we’ll take out the tube that’s helping him breathe. I’m hopeful he can do it on his own now.”

Connor had gone still, his face paling as Brooks spoke. “You ... you mean he’s going to be okay?”

“I can’t promise anything, and he still has a long road ahead of him. But things have gone very well in the past few days, and I’m optimistic. This is a step in the right direction, and I’ll do everything I can to help him. Okay?”

Connor’s throat worked as he swallowed, and as if in slow motion, his lips turned down and his lids clamped shut as he fell apart.

His arms came up to shield his face, and before Brooks knew what he was doing, he’d moved to the other side of the table and pulled the kid close.

Connor didn’t return the embrace but didn’t pull away, instead leaning into Brooks as sobs racked his thin body.

“It’s okay,” Brooks heard himself say. “You’re okay.”

“He has to get better,” Connor said, voice trembling. “First my mom ... and I just—I can’t ...” He couldn’t finish, tears stealing his breath.

“Yes, you can. I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but you’ll get through this.

” Brooks’s own voice shook as he recalled the words Coach had once said to him when he felt so out of control and out of hope.

“I lost my mom when I was young. So believe it or not, I know how you’re feeling right now. Like the whole world is ending.”

Connor nodded against his shoulder.

“Just take it one day at a time, okay? And when you feel like you can’t breathe, talk to someone. Do you have someone like that? That you trust and you can go to?”

He sniffed. “My aunt and uncle. And my cousin Brady.”

“Good. And I know you don’t know me, but you can talk to me, too, if you want. I may not know what to say, but I’ve been in your shoes. And I’ll always be honest with you. Okay?”

“Okay.”

For several minutes they remained like that, Brooks the steady presence for once. The one holding strong for someone who needed him. He kept his arm around Connor as his tears slowed and his shoulders relaxed.

“It’s okay.” Coach’s voice broke, and Brooks cried harder. “You’re okay. I’ve got you, son.”

“I hate this,” he hiccuped. “I hate it.”

“I know.”

“I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can.” Coach grabbed him by the shoulders and looked him in the eye, his own eyes red-rimmed. “I know it doesn’t feel like it now. But you can do this. You will.”

And he had. He’d made it through somehow, and Connor would, too.

Eventually, Connor’s uncle had called, looking for him, and Brooks made his way back to the ICU. He claimed a free computer at one of the nursing stations and worked on a few patient charts, unaware of the time until a familiar voice floated over him.

“Hey, Dr. Martin.”

He looked up and smiled. “Hey, Nikki. How’s it going?”

She laughed. “I’m surviving.”

“It only gets worse from here,” he joked. “But you knew what you were getting into.”

“I did,” she said with a laugh. “I’m glad I saw you, actually. I’ve been hoping to run into you.”

“Oh? Is there something I can help you with, for the program or something?”

“No, nothing like that. Everything’s great. It’s, um, it’s about you, actually. Remember last month when I told you what I’d heard about you?”

That he was unemotional and detached? He wasn’t likely to forget that anytime soon. “I do.”

Her eye twitched, almost like a wince. “I just ... I wanted to say I think I asked the wrong person. Because even though I’ve only been here a month, that’s not what I see at all.

I watch people a lot, and I pay attention.

And when it comes to you, I see a physician who’s so invested in his patients, he comes in to check on them when he doesn’t have to.

Who has slept in the on-call room with the fellows because he knows sometimes laying eyes on the patient can tell you more than a number in the chart.

Who triple- and quadruple-checks blood gases and pressor drips to make sure everything is as it should be and maybe .

.. maybe hoping to see things moving in the right direction.

I know it doesn’t matter what I think—or what any fellows think, for that matter.

But that’s a physician who cares an awful lot about his patients, and .

.. I don’t know, I guess I just wanted you to know that. ”

Brooks just blinked at her, stunned into silence.

Nikki’s phone chirped, and she glanced at the screen.

“Shoot, I’m late. Schwartz Rounds starts in ten, and I hate sitting in the back.

” She looked up at him cautiously, almost like she regretted what she’d just said.

“I hope I didn’t overstep just now. But I’d better get going. See you around, Dr. Martin.”

It wasn’t until she was almost out of sight that he jolted into action. “Hey, Nikki?”

She stopped in the hallway and turned back. “Yeah?”

“I’ve got something to finish up here real quick, but I think I might head that way, too. Save me a seat?”