Page 15 of Love or Leave (Mapleton #4)

twelve

" R ough morning, eh?"

He'd finally gotten a new place—a small victory in what had been an endless shift.

He glanced up at his colleague, Ramit, smiling as he walked behind the nurses station in crisp scrubs with a tray of coffee in one hand. He pulled out a cup and handed it to Antonio.

"One of my worst nights," Antonio said, his voice hoarse from hours of barking orders.

He accepted a cup of coffee gratefully, the warmth seeping through his tired fingers as he tried to push away the image of the teenager they’d rushed in after the deadly crash.

Collapsed lung, five broken ribs, significant blood loss—the kid would probably make it, which was more than he could say for the drunk driver who’d hit him.

"I heard about the pile up last night,” Ramit said, settling against the nurses’ station counter. “I kept expecting to get called in.”

Antonio nodded, flagging the apartment email to reply to later, then rolled his aching neck. "We managed. Thanks for the coffee."

"No problem," Ramit said.

"And thanks for covering for me this weekend."

Another nod. "Where are you off to?"

"Montreal for a bachelor party." The words felt strange in his mouth—when was the last time he’d done something that wasn’t related to work?

Ramit’s eyebrows jumped. "Wow. What's it like having a life?"

Antonio laughed. "Unusual. What's it like having a newborn?"

Ramit paused, considering. "Remember the sleep deprivation during residency?"

"Yeah."

"Like that, but worse. But also the best thing ever, somehow… It's complicated.” He straightened up as a nurse approached with a clipboard. “You ready to brief me?"

Antonio smiled, pocketing his phone. "Almost. I just have one more patient to see first." He grabbed a file the nurse handed him, the familiar weight of responsibility settling back on his shoulders.

"Sounds good."

Antonio gulped more coffee before taking the file and turning toward the patient’s curtained off area. He glanced through the triage notes. Seemed like this guy had a gnarly rash on his butt.

Great.

He pulled back the curtain as he looked at the file. Thirty-six-year-old male, allergic to penicillin—that might be a problem—believes he'd been in contact with poison ivy. Weird for tail end of November.

"Hi, there—"

Every thought died in his brain as he looked up and saw Fran.

And Blake.

He blinked a couple times, convinced the fatigue was creating apparitions.

"Hey!" Blake said from the bed with a big smile. "We know you."

"Hi, Tonio," Fran said, a sheepish look on her face. "I didn't know you were in."

"Hi," he said as a sudden coldness seeped into his gut.

He tried to make his overtired brain process everything. How had he not noticed Blake's name?

He inspected the file, then looked up. "Elliot Beebe?"

Fran frowned, then whipped her head toward Blake, who'd lounged back on the bed and laughed.

"Yeah, that's me."

"What?" Fran asked.

Blake nodded. "Well, it's actually Elliot Beebe the third , which is why I never officially changed it to Blake Hunter when I started in show business."

Show business.

Antonio held in a laugh as Fran stared in wide-eyed horror at her… boyfriend?

He shook off the sick feeling that the word “boyfriend” brought and tried to act like a professional.

"So, Elliot," Antonio started. "What brings you in?"

"Well, I was in the woods for a segment on winter survival for preppers, and I had to take a shit. So I popped a squat off the trail and ever since, my ass has been on fire."

Antonio nodded as he set the file down on the table and took a pair of gloves off the wall. "When was this?"

"Three days ago. It's brutal."

"Has it been getting worse?"

"Oh, yeah," he said with a wince as he shifted his weight from one hip to the other.

"Let's take a look."

Fran turned up her nose as she twisted in her seat and rested her elbows on her knees. Then she dropped her head in her hands. Maybe she'd just realized she wasn't cut out to be a survivalist’s girlfriend.

Blake unzipped his pants as he rolled over, then pulled his pants and underwear down in one shot, revealing the worst poison ivy rash Antonion had ever seen.

It was all over his butt, between his cheeks, and spreading toward his scrotum. Luckily, it didn't look infected.

At least not yet.

"This is embarrassing," Blake muttered, his voice muffled by the paper-covered pillow.

"I've seen worse," Antonio lied, feeling a little bad for the guy. He was in an incredibly vulnerable position. And in a lot of pain.

"I heard you killed a wolverine. What was that like?" Antonio tried to distract Blake as he spread his butt cheeks apart to see if the rash was blistering where there was friction.

"It was such a fucking thrill. And it tasted incredible."

Antonio shuddered. "I can't imagine that's true."

Blake laughed. "Yeah, well, I hadn't eaten for three days. Bear shit would have tasted incredible at that point."

Antonio laughed. The guy actually seemed kind of cool—as much as it pained him to admit.

"Okay, we're done." Antonio removed the gloves and tossed them in the wastebasket by the sink. "It's definitely poison ivy. And it looks pretty bad where it's rubbing."

"I didn't know you could get poison ivy in the winter."

Antonio nodded. "All parts of the plant, even the roots, will cause a reaction."

"It hurts like a bitch."

"I'm not surprised. I'll write you a prescription for cream. Apply it twice a day and try not to wear any clothing."

Blake snorted. "Guess I'll be lounging around the house naked," he said. "Sorry, Fran."

Around the house?

Antonio stopped dead in his tracks before slowly turning toward Fran. Her features were all contorted and pinched.

Our house?

He wanted to ask it, but he already knew the answer.

"Sorry," Blake said, his smile gone as he glanced between the two of them. "I thought… Fran said you were okay with it. Sorry, man…"

Antonio broke his cold stare and silently shook his head as he ripped the prescription paper from the pad. He didn't know how to even start processing that Fran had moved a guy into their house.

His house.

Antonio’s whole body stayed rigid as he backed up, trying to put as much space between them as possible.

"I don't live there permanently," Blake said, his tone more serious than Antonio would have expected. "I don't want to be the asshole here. We just—"

"It's fine," Antonio said, cutting him off. He worked to unclench his jaw. "If the rash gets worse, come back. It won't take much for it to become infected, especially in that area."

He turned and walked away without another word, heading for the front desk—until he remembered Blake and Fran would have to pass by on their way out. Instead, he veered off to the small office in the back. Unfortunately, Fran knew about the hidden room from all the times she’d visited him at work.

Seconds later, she appeared in the doorway.

"Tonio?" she asked in the sweet voice he used to love. There was a time he would have happily listened to that voice until he took his dying breath.

Now it set his teeth on edge.

"I'm busy," he said over the ringing in his ears.

"He only stays over sometimes. He doesn't live there."

Antonio squeezed his eyes shut, unsure how to process the situation. On the one hand, he was devastated that he'd been replaced. On the other hand, he felt as if the final straw hit his back and finally broke it.

His mouth opened and words poured out, unfiltered.

"My nonno gave me the down payment for that house as a wedding present."

Fran dropped her head. "You said you didn't want to sell it," she began.

Yeah, because I wanted to move back into it.

"And you said you didn't want to buy out my half, either," she continued.

Right, because I didn't want to live there without you.

"I have no clue how to move on," she admitted.

I didn't want you to.

"It's like you engineered this divorce so I couldn't move on."

Antonio’s shoulders slumped and forced himself to turn in his seat to face her. "I never wanted any of this."

"No," she bit back. "You were happy being completely miserable."

"Completely miserable isn't fair," he said. "We could have solved all our problems."

She looked away from him, down at the floor, then back up. "Is that what you want?"

He stared at her for a moment, at a loss. Did he want that?

He finally seemed to wrap his mind around moving on after his parents' party. He'd made plans to move out of that studio and into a more permanent apartment, and he was even ready to admit to everyone in his life that his marriage had indeed failed, and he was officially getting a divorce.

He needed to move forward with his life, not backwards.

Right?

Or did he just come to that decision because he believed Fran had totally moved on?

Or maybe he never would have been able to move on until she did, and now that she had, he could finally see a way out for himself.

"Is that why your mom invited me to the anniversary party?" Fran asked, pulling his attention back to her.

It had only been a couple weeks since that party, but it felt like years ago. So much had changed since then.

"That was why," he said.

He had changed his mind since, though. Right?

He was better off letting go of Fran and moving on. Right?

Fran searched his eyes. "What about the girl you brought?"

Antonio shook his head, trying to push Cara from his thoughts. He'd promised himself that he wouldn't let Cara enter his mind, for her sake and Max's, and he intended to keep that promise—no matter how impossible it seemed.

"She's… nobody. Just a girl I know. I only brought her after I found out you were bringing Elliot."

Fran's long eyelashes fluttered closed. "Please don't call him that," she said as she turned away. "I have to go."

Antonio smirked at her cringing embarrassment and wanted to feel bad about it but couldn't. The only thing he was certain of in that moment was his spiteful happiness that Fran was about to be miserable.

"Make sure you cover the whole rash. In and around his anus, too."

A shudder worked over her as she spun and left, her heeled boots clicking along the linoleum floor to meet up with Blake.

Antonio smiled to himself as she went. It was childish, but he couldn't help it. He could picture her gagging as she rubbed prescription cream all over Elliot's butt hole.

He stood from the desk and gathered his things. The dense fog covering his life seemed to lift, albeit fractionally, and a touch of dim light shone through.

He took a swig of coffee and set off in search of Ramit, feeling lighter on his feet than he had in a long time. The sooner he briefed him, the sooner he could get out of there and pack for his weekend away with his friends.