Page 11 of Last Chance Love

“You,” she said, pointing toward me. “You get these set up so they’ll sync. I’m told they should be simple.”

“Why me?” I had asked, confused by the attention. Mona didn’t come into the clinic unless there was a dire need.

“Because you’re the only one here right now who knows their head from their ass,” she’d said, glancing down the hallway. Down there were two interns and Dr. Gideon, attending to someone who’d taken a fencepost through the leg. They couldn’t hear her, and from her tone, she didn’t seem to care. “Or do I need someone else to handle this?”

“I can manage,” I’d told her, smiling a little, unsure if it was because she was insulting Dr. Gideon more than the interns or complimenting me.

“Let’s hope so,” she’d said and whirled out of the room with the thump of high-heeled boots that probably invited a twisted ankle that never came.

Her faith hadn’t been misplaced, but it wasn’t quite as smooth as she’d made it out to be. The computers and tablets could be synched up smoothly, but the software they were using…not so much. It had taken me all day to get it even functioning and another week to make it work smoothly. Ever since I had been tweaking it here and there to make it work better, but you could still hear Dr. Gideon bitching occasionally about how things ‘before’ were ‘perfectly serviceable.’

“Alrighty,” I said, wiggling the mouse and bringing up the screen to type in my part of Dom’s exam notes. The physician in charge would have to sign off everything, but of the three doctors, Dr. Gideon was ironically the easiest to make that happen. The man wanted as little to do with me as possible most of the time and even less to do with the computer systems. All I had to do was slide a tablet at him, and he’d tap the box to signify he was signing off with an air of extreme annoyance and possibly something muttered under his breath.

The sheer irony was that I could do it myself if I wanted to. The old buzzard couldn’t remember his sign-in information for anything. If I waited for him to dig out the information and slowly tap away before finding where he needed to sign off, it would take an hour. It was much smoother if I logged in for him, and while he was somewhat aware it was against the rules, he seemed to agree with me on the efficiency.

A low buzz interrupted my thoughts as the door to the clinic swung open. When I saw who it was, my brow furrowed immediately. Elliot had many contrasting aspects to his appearance: charmingly boyish face but tall, broad, and covered in tattoos. What wasn’t a contrast was the look of mischief in his eyes whenever I saw him and the grin when he spotted me.

Today, there was neither.

“Uh oh,” I said, leaning back in my seat. “You’re looking pissed today.”

He looked up, his brow still bunched together so hard I wondered if muscles could freeze that way. “Yeah, well, just give me my stuff.”

His ‘stuff’ was the melatonin he took at bedtime. It was one of those things that fell into the weird gray area when it came to doling out medicine. We still had to give it to him through the clinic because it had to go on his record. But it wasn’t a controlled substance, so we didn’t have to sit around and watch him take it or take note of when.

“I’ve got you right here,” I said, leaning down to grab it from the top drawer. Since it wasn’t a controlled medicine, the drawer wasn’t locked, and the pill was in a small baggie. “I never thought to ask, why don’t you take it here?”

“Because they’re not sleeping pills,” he said with an uncharacteristically sullen shrug. “They don’t make me sleepy. They just make me realize when I’m sleepy.”

“You know, in the world where Elliot lives, I’m sure that made perfect sense. In the world where the rest of us live, however,” I said, raising a brow.

For a moment, I thought he’d snatch the bag out of my hand and leave, but instead, his face relaxed, and he snorted. “Fuck off, I’m not crazy.”

“Nope, just a little weird,” I said, dropping the pill on the counter.

“Sometimes I’m tired but don’t realize it. I fight it. Like, not consciously. Trust me, I tried to realize I was sleepy, and it didn’t work.”

“Mmm, yeah, the first thing they tell people with sleep problems is not to think too hard about it. That just makes it harder to sleep.”

“Yeah, well, it’s hard for me to sleep in general. Sleeping pills knock me out, and I feel like shit. This stuff makes it so that when I’m sleepy, it’s easier for me to realize.”

“Oh…that makes sense. Not really, but I sleep like a baby, so.”

“Bitch,” he said with a laugh. “Have a good night, Reed, and, uh, if you see Leon?—”

The name caught my attention, but I kept my eyes on the computer screen, waiting a few heartbeats before replying. “What?”

“Tell him he’s an asshole, but I know he means well,” Elliot said, leaving the clinic before I could process that.

After a moment, I scoffed at the empty air. “Wow, Elliot, tell me something I don’t already know.”

If there was one thing I was more than aware of, it was how difficult Leon Malcolm Hardy could be. Oh sure, he meant well and often had the best intentions. The problem with Leon was that all his intentions didn’t matter for shit, and his heart wasn’t always reliable. He had managed to make just as many disasters as he had relief efforts in his life.

I should know. I’d known him since we were six until he disappeared when we were nineteen. It was seven years before I saw him again, in this lobby of all places.

* * *

“Canyou handle the desk for me?” Dr. Greenway asked, looking up from the file in her hand.

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