Page 70 of Hale Yes
I’m roused from that dirty thought before my cock can get too invested in the idea when the woman in question exits the NICU, all her protective gear now gone. She’s a few feet away, and her head pops up when she senses me, her face paling in the bright overhead light.
“He-Helix. What are you doing here?”
“I came to see Abigail’s new grandson,” I reply. Her head swivels back to the NICU, and I quickly add, “He’s fine. He’s in the regular nursery, but I decided to walk down here for a minute.”
“Oh. Okay.” Her answers are short, and no color returns to her ivory cheeks. “Guess I’ll be going now.” She takes a step and angles her body to walk around me.
“Nicolette,” I say more sternly than I mean to, and her feet stall. “Are you okay?”
She’d been trying to squeeze between me and the wall, so our bodies are close. Not touching, but close enough that I can smell the sweetness of her shampoo.Is that jasmine?
I press the subject because I can’t imagine what she’s doing here. “Is there anything you want to talk about?”
Her eyes dart everywhere before finally landing on mine with resignation. “Would you like to get a cup of coffee?”
We settle into a quiet corner of a coffee shop near the hospital. The patrons are a mishmash of exhausted medical personnel and people who are most likely family members of patients with their glazed eyes and weary spines.
Nicolette, on the other hand, is full of restless energy, her fingers fidgeting and one knee bouncing. Once the server drops off our drinks, Nicolette takes a long sip of her iced coffee. I don’t speak. I don’t push. I let her take the lead because she obviously has something of importance to say.
Finally, she stills and clasps her hands together on the table. “I volunteer in a baby cuddling program.”
That was the last thing I expected to hear. I have no clue what this program is, despite the obviousness of the name. “A… baby cuddling program?”
She nods. “I’m sure you know how crucial human contact is for newborns. Swaddling, snuggling, and hearing a person’s voice aids in their development and emotional wellbeing.”
“I agree,” I say. “And you volunteer to do this?”
Her green eyes brighten behind her glasses lenses. “I do. I know it’s to help the babies, but I think the cuddlers get just as much from it.”
In other words, it gives Nicolette something she needs. Instead of diving into that shark tank of possibilities, I ask, “And where are their families?”
“A lot of them have to go back to work after a couple months to keep their health insurance. They want to be there every single minute for their little ones, but the cost of having an infantin the NICU is crazy money that most people don’t have. They come in after work, but that leaves a gap in the other hours of the day. The nurses do their best, but they have so much on their plates already.”
Taking a sip of my black coffee from a daffodil-yellow mug, I give her a small smile. “I think that’s a wonderful thing to do, Nicolette.”
Her lips thin over her teeth. “And then there are those cases where the mother isn’t able to hold the baby.”
From her tightened up demeanor, I gather we’re getting into personal territory. “Because the mother is ill or incapacitated?”
“Yes, there’s that. Or they’re on drugs and aren’t allowed,” she adds, gripping her glass with so much force I can see the pallor of her knuckles.
Knowing we’re getting to the root of the issue, I pick around the edges of it. “When did you start doing this baby cuddling program?”
She tilts her head and looks at me, though her eyes are unfocused, like my image is not the one being projected from her retina to her brain. “I was in college.”
I stay silent and let the story unfold at her pace. “I noticed when I came home for Christmas my freshman year that Angelica had lost a lot of weight. I was concerned and asked her about it, but she told me it was none of my damn business.” Her smile holds no humor. “You’ve met her, so no big surprise, right?”
“Not at all,” I reply softly.
“Angelica was in her senior year of high school. I’m two years younger, but I had leap-frogged her because I graduated early.” Nicolette looks down into the pale-brown of her coffee and gives it a stir with the fat straw. “When I came home for the summer, she looked even worse than she had at Christmas. She’s alwaysbeen thin and willowy, that type of body men love, but she was beyond that. She was a stick.”
I disagreed about the body type statement, but this wasn’t the time to correct her, so I buttoned my lip and let her talk.
“She had started hanging out with our cousin, Zoey, who was one of those out-of-control teens. Her parents had pretty much given up on even trying to discipline her by the time she was thirteen.”
“Did you say anything to your parents?” I ask.
Nicolette’s teeth indent her lower lip, and I can see the pain flicker in the green of her eyes. “I did. I sat them down one night and told them I thought Angelica and Zoey were doing drugs. It wasn’t just the weight loss,” she rushes to say. “Zoey had these sores all over her face, and Angelica had developed a kind of facial tic.” She twitches her left eye a few times to demonstrate before she continues.
