Page 77 of The Love Bus

NOAH

“M ore ‘ workflow optimization ,’ Dr. Grady?”

Abby—one of the lifers, twenty-something years at Beacon Hill—caught my eye as I stepped off the elevator. She had that same look the nurses had been giving me all week.

Ever since the buyout, they knew.

We all did.

“Unfortunately.” I could only shake my head.

Today’s department meeting had been wall-to-wall corporate buzzwords: streamlining, optimizing, transitioning to a leaner model…

Translation: fewer people doing more work, with less support.

Apparently, patient care took a back seat the moment insurance conglomerates took the wheel.

And damned if it didn’t feel like the end of something that used to matter.

“Well,” Abby said with a shrug that didn’t quite reach her smile, “nothing to do but adjust.” She turned away, adding over her shoulder, “Have a good weekend, Dr. Grady.”

“You too, Abs.”

Adjust. Pivot. Bend.

However, it was becoming increasingly difficult to mold myself into the shape this job required. Harder to pretend I didn’t already have one foot out the door.

I drove home feeling almost robotic, walked into my apartment, and then stripped off my scrubs as I headed straight for the shower. Not sure how long I stood under the water, maybe thinking I could scrub the hospital off my skin, not just the germs, but the decisions being made in that place.

It didn’t work.

When the water finally ran cold, I shut it off, toweled dry, and pulled on a T-shirt and my favorite pair of sweats. My hand slid into one of the pockets, but when the memory teased me, I froze.

Durango. That hotel room. Me standing there, wondering whether to bring a condom next door.

But then, just as quickly, I shook it off and headed for the kitchen. I fed Plink and Jumbo and would have pulled out some food for Pippa if she wasn’t next door again.

Instead, I grabbed a bottle of beer, cracked it open, and took a long pull.

This weekend, I would update my resume. Actively start looking for something new, something I should have done weeks ago.

Apply at some smaller hospitals, maybe buy into a private practice.

Somewhere I could actually do the work without needing to translate it into metrics.

Hell, even my condo felt hollow. The place smelled faintly of disinfectant—Friday’s signature from the maid service.

Clean, technically.

But it didn’t feel like home. Not even close.

I’d felt more at home in those hotel rooms out west. Impersonal rooms, with bleached comforters and mass-produced artwork.

But I knew why I’d felt comfortable there, and it had nothing to do with the décor.

No, it was because, for a little while at least, I hadn’t been alone in them.

A spunky, stubborn, curly-haired woman had snuggled up beside me in those rooms, stealing the covers, laughing in her sleep.

She'd made those generic walls and scratchy sheets feel like home.

I took a long pull from the bottle and watched Jumbo go to town on the food. As usual, Plink just hovered nearby, chewing once every thirty seconds like he’d forgotten how to eat.

“Seriously?” I muttered. “Dude. Show some initiative.”

For the thousandth time, I thought about putting them in separate tanks.

For the thousandth time, I didn’t.

The condo was quiet, except for the occasional thunk from upstairs and the muffled sound of teenagers tossing a ball around outside.

I grabbed a second beer, dropped onto the couch, and reached for the remote, but even after I found something decent to watch on ESPN, my mind drifted back to that last fucked-up day in Vegas.

Just a few hours in Sin City, and everything changed.

One minute, I was halfway convinced that whatever was building between Luna and me—might actually have a future. I’d been hopeful, maybe even a little reckless with it, letting myself imagine what came next.

But then? It all unraveled.

I’d ducked out to find a pharmacy—Mom had forgotten one of her prescriptions at the hotel the night before—and when I came back, Tay was waiting. Furious.

“Why the hell would you do that to Luna?” she’d asked, and I remember the confusion hitting first. The way my stomach dropped when I realized something had happened.

Luna had gone upstairs to find Courtney in our hotel room. In nothing but a towel.

Because my mother—God help me—had invited her. And not just invited her. She’d made Courtney believe there was still a chance. That I wanted to talk. That I missed her.

It was bullshit, and by the time I understood what had happened, Luna was already gone.

And Courtney…she had no idea what she’d walked into.

I’d had to sit her down and tell her—kindly, but clearly—that whatever my mother said, it wasn’t true. That I wasn’t coming back, that I hadn’t been holding a torch. And I could see it in her face, the quiet humiliation of realizing she’d been used too. Another casualty in my mom’s manipulations.

But that wasn’t even the worst of it.

And Luna was gone.

By the time I talked to her on the phone, her walls had gone up. Had I wanted to plead with her to stay? To wait for me? Damn straight. But I’d also remembered how badly she’d wanted to make her own choices.

It wasn’t my place to come in and complicate things further.

No matter how badly I’d wanted to.

So I didn’t chase her. Didn’t make any big declarations or grand gestures.

And so, here I sat, six weeks and two days later, alone.

Fuck Las Vegas.

I reached for my laptop and opened my email.

The top message was a reminder from hospital admin—something about new documentation requirements for ER intakes, effective immediately. No context, just a PDF attachment and a bunch of acronyms I didn’t care enough to decipher.

The next was a follow-up about trauma room staffing, sent by someone who hadn’t stepped inside Trauma 3 since before the pandemic.

And then…more of the same.

I let out a breath and clicked out of the tab and over to YouTube.

And clicked on her channel.

It had a new name: Cooking with Color . Simple and earthy. Luna. A banner that looked like driftwood with her name in block letters, a grainy photo of teenage Luna and her grandmother, kneading dough together.

There was a new upload.

Welcome to the Cottage.

I clicked mute on the TV before playing it. Because…

Just because.

“I wasn’t going to post anything yet,” she said, laughing as the camera bumped slightly. It wasn’t polished—just Luna holding her phone, walking backward through a cozy living room with light floors and a row of windows framing the beach behind her.

Her coffee-colored curls were a little messy, like she’d just pushed them out of her face, and her eyes—God, her eyes—still had that spark. Like she knew something you didn’t. Like you’d be lucky if she let you in on it.

She looked good. Really good.

And yeah, maybe part of me was a little jealous—how did she manage to look so damn alive while I was up here trying not to drown in red tape and my own indecision?

But mostly, I was just glad to see her.

Even like this, on a screen, it was like getting a hit of something warm—a transfusion. God, I missed her.

She moved into the kitchen, and my heart squeezed.

A part of me had half-expected to forget her. We had, after all, made that ridiculous agreement to limit our relationship to a fling.

It didn’t feel like a fling then, and it still didn’t, now that it was over.

“New floors, updated appliances, some paint in the kitchen. And this massive island. I am so excited to get cooking in here!”

She opened a sky-blue cabinet door with delicate little flowers painted around the handle.

“Soft-close. I feel so adult,” she joked.

“Anyway, for those of you who are new here—hi, welcome. You might know me from Instagram or TikTok. If you’re one of those people who followed me after that video , thanks for coming. ”

I smiled.

“I’ll be posting my first official video later this week.

Starting with a simple recipe, so good and of course there is a story behind it!

It’s gonna knock your socks off, I promise!

After that, I’ll be posting regularly, full recipes, long-form content, maybe some tutorials.

But mostly, because this is a calling for me, there’s comfort food.

The stuff you grew up on. The go-to, feel-good favorites that taste like home. ”

She paused, brushing a curl from her cheek with the back of her hand, her smile softening.

“But then…there are the dishes that surprise you. The ones you weren’t sure about—maybe a little spicy, a little different. The ones that challenge your palate and end up changing the way you think about what you like. Sometimes, trying something new is the best way to find out who you are.”

She leaned a little closer to the camera, voice dropping just enough to feel like a secret. “And hey, if the people you love end up loving it too? That’s just icing on the cake.”

Luna grinned, then winked.

“Until next time… Subscribe. Catch me live, and if you’re willing to share, email me your favorite recipes!”

The video ended. The screen faded to her channel’s homepage again, that old photo of her and her gran still visible.

I sat there staring at it, my hand wrapped around the sweating bottle of beer.

She was doing it. On her own terms. Bright. Brave. Beautiful.

And happy.

I was proud of her.

Almost as much as I missed her.

When she’d walked away from me in Vegas, I didn’t stop her. I’d told myself it was the right thing. She needed time. Space.

But the truth of the matter was…I had let her go because I couldn’t stand the thought of being someone she’d resent. Another man who made her choose him over herself.

Not because I didn’t want her.

Not because I didn’t love her.

But because I did.

And seeing her now in that video…that smile, the way she lit up just talking about food, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so damn happy for someone.

She was doing it. Not for me. For herself.