Page 144 of Lovers Like Us

He shrugs again, his lips inching up. Then he glances at Jack. “Her mom has a theory that cake fixeseverything.”

Sulli lingers on Akara for a long moment, then plucks a cupcake out of the box. “Right on fuckingtime.”

Jane has already unloaded all the supplies, but I don’t see any drinks. Charlie has walked the hall a few times, so it shouldn’t be a problem for me. As long as I’mfast.

34

MAXIMOFF HALE

An ice machinerumbles in the vending enclave. I crave to run, to swim, to feelsomethingother than confined, hollowed out orempty.

I smack the side of a black-and-gold Fizzle machine that won’t spit out a FizzLife.

“Move, wolfscout.”

My pulse skips. Reminding me I’m alive. Breathing. Human. I look over myshoulder.

A six-foot-three, tattooed know-it-all comes up behind me. His brows raise and lower in awave.

I feign confusion. “Who are youagain?”

Farrow kicks the machine. A can drops. “Your boyfriend.” He collects the soda from the dispenser and tosses the silver aluminum can to me. “Want to talk aboutit?”

Yes, a million fucking times yes.The can is cold in my grip. I want to express how I feel, but I’m not used to articulating any of this out loud. My guards screamno, my heart pleadsyes.

And I end up saying, “You want adrink?”

He chews his gum slowly, our eyes not detaching. “Yeah.”

I go to take out mywallet.

“I’m buying my own,” he says casually, fishing out a couple bills from his leather wallet. “I can tell you something I’ve never shared withanyone.”

“I don’t want to forceyou—”

“I want to, Maximoff,” he says with the tilt of his head. Trying to assess myreaction.

My muscles start to unbind. “Whatabout?”

He smiles and then talks while he feeds money into the machine. “My second week of rotations in the ER. It was a bad night, understaffed, and the only attending available was an ass. At one point, there was just him, a first-year intern, two nurses, and me. And a teenage girl comes in with a stab wound to the heart.” Farrow presses the regularFizzbutton. “There was no time to rush her to the OR, and the doctor decides on an emergencythoracotomy.”

The machine dispenses a goldcan.

He grabs the soda and then faces me. “I knew the girl had a two-percent chance of living, and so I hung onto the excitement of seeing a thoracotomy. It made it easier when the attending cracked her chest open…” Farrow shifts his weight, his nose flaring. But he keeps eye contact withme.

I listen closely. He’s never talked about any hard days during rotations before. Not likethis.

He pops the tab of his soda. “The doctor sliced open the pericardial sac. It’s a thin sac around the heart. A lot of congealed blood poured out, and the first-yearbailed.”

My brows knot. “He justleft?”

“To puke,” Farrow says. “The rest of us tried to remove the blood out of the sac while the attending sewed the cut.” He pauses. “She died, and it wasn’t the first time I watched someone die in the hospital. But it was the first time an attending turned to me, saidclose her,speak to the parentsand walked away.” Farrow winces at the memory. “That son of a bitch. I hadn’t even taken the retractors out of her chest when hermom…”

His chest collapses, shaking hishead.

My stomach overturns. “That would’ve guttedme.”

His brows lift slowly. “It crushed me.” His Adam’s apple bobs. “The curse of having a photographic memory, I can’t get rid of her face or herwail.”