Page 14 of We Were Something
I glance over in his direction once more and find his eyes on me, though he only holds the look for a long second before turning back to his charts.
My emotions feel like a blustery mess right now. I’m sad for Ivy and want to stick around to help her not be so…I don’t know…alone. Depressed. Exhausted?
And yet I’ve been thrown for a loop by the sudden and very unexpected presence of the man who’s had my mind tied up in knots for the past few days.
“We love you, girly,” Lennon says, kissing Ivy on the head.
“Yeah, and we’ll be back soon.”
“Promise?”
My eyes slice to Ivy’s at the sound of her verbalization. Her tiny voice is muffled from where she has her face semi-tucked into her pillow. My heart breaks at how sad and small she looks.
“Absolutely,” I say, stepping over and crouching low next to her bed, making sure she’s looking right at me, right at my mouth so she can read my lips. “You, me, and Lennon are the three musketeers,” I tell her, referencing something I’ve said to her a few times over the years. “One for all and all for one.”
“What about Hannah?” she whispers.
I glance over my shoulder at my friend then look back at Ivy. “She can be D’Artagnan.”
Ivy’s nose scrunches up, and I laugh at her young confusion.
“Next time I come visit, I’ll bring the movie with me. Then you’ll know what I’m talking about, okay?”
Ivy nods and reaches out for a hug. Once I’ve snuggled her pretty good, Hannah hugs her as well, and then the three of us head for the door.
“Good to see you, Dr. Becker,” Hannah says, giving him a wave as we head out.
“You too, Hannah.” His eyes flick to mine and he gives me a quick nod and a tiny curve of his lips. “Paige.”
Then we’re out the door and headed down the hallway, back to the elevator bank.
It isn’t until one of the cars arrives and we’re filing on that Hannah says, “Paige, I didn’t realize you’d met Dr. Becker before.”
Letting out a long sigh and a huff of laughter, I press the button to take us down to the lobby. As the doors close, I shake my head and lean back against the wall.
“About that…you guys arenevergoing to believe this.”
CHAPTER3
LOGAN
The only thing I love more than practicing medicine is sailing.
Not the kind of sailing that consists of rich oligarchs commanding a crew of fifty to sail a $400 million yacht on their behalf. I’m talking about bow to stern, mast and sails, capturing the wind, competitive sailing, though I didn’t get to experience it for the first time until I was in my late teens.
Growing up in San Diego, we didn’t have a lot of money. Single mom who got pregnant in high school and struggled to make ends meet—it’s practically a tale as old as time, though hardly as romantic.
My mom had a job working as a maid a few blocks away from one of the many harbors that dot San Diego Bay, and she used her work address to get me enrolled in a better elementary school than I could have attended in the neighborhood we lived in. From the time I was old enough to get my own bus pass, I’d walk from school to the closest stop, ride to her hotel, and race through my homework in the steamy basement laundry room that always made my papers crinkly.
After that, I spent my afternoons wandering the harbor and the long docks where hundreds of boats are moored, heading over to sit on the rock-lined edges of a small park to watch them cruise in and out of port. I spentyearswishing I knew somebody who could take me out on the water, even just for a few minutes.
But I was never so lucky.
At some point during my fifth grade year, my mom lost her job and we moved a few hours north to Hermosa Beach so we could live with her brother, my Uncle Herman. When she told me her new job—waitressing at the Hermosa Beach Yacht Club—I was ecstatic. If someone had asked me at the time, I would have sworn we were actual members with how often we were there and how many people knew my mom.
Some of them even knewmyname.
It wasn’t until junior high that I began to realize we were different than the people sitting in the dining room and taking their boats out on the water. Maybe it was naivete, maybe willful ignorance, but I just never understood the idea that anyone believed they were better than us.
