Page 29 of Trusting Trey
I squeezed his hand and frowned. “I know you can, because you’re that good, Trey. Look at the drop foot braces you made me for my legs. When I’m wearing them I can stand at physical therapy, which is a big feat. When did she become an amputee?” I asked.
“I shouldn’t be telling you this, since it’s a patient, but I’ll say about a month ago. She’s hurting emotionally and physically still. She has a broken arm, too. She’s barely eighteen and emotionally distraught. I don’t know what to do.”
I cleared the papers from his lap and transferred onto it. He immediately wrapped his arms around me and kissed my temple. “I love you,” I reminded him.
He rested his head on my shoulder and nodded. “I love you, too. I’m sorry for being a downer. Sometimes my job is hard and emotionally draining. I want to give each patient their life back, but sometimes a new leg isn’t enough. Sometimes that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to their problems.”
I turned my head and kissed him in a gentle, emotional melding of our lips. He held me tightly, his head turning to the side so he could get a better angle on the kiss. His tongue begged for entrance, moving across my lips at a fevered pitch until I dropped my bottom jaw and let him come in. It felt like the last three months fell away and all we had left was the love we felt for each other. His hands came up to my face and I felt his hardness under my leg. He moaned softly as he explored the deep recesses of my mouth.
I was the one to end the kiss, but he wanted more, and I knew it. He began to stack his papers back together, his eyes going closed every time I moved against his lap.
I leaned back on his chest while he put his things away and thought about the woman he spoke of earlier. “Maybe you could introduce me to your patient and we could talk? Maybe what she needs more than anything is someone to share her frustrations with, but doesn’t want to burden her family.”
He kissed the top of my head. “That means the world to me that you would do that for someone you don’t know.”
I shrugged. “You did it for me. I was someone you barely knew, but you didn’t hesitate to help me through the hard days. Maybe I can do the same for someone else.”
He put his arm under my knees and one under my back, and stood. He leaned down and kissed me once, keeping his lips close. “I’ll be seeing her next week and I’ll give her your number. I can’t do more than that because of patient confidentiality. If she chooses to call you, then it’s okay to talk about it. Now, I’m going to start this Christmas Eve right and make love to my girlfriend.”
I held his face. “Your girlfriend, huh?”
We made it to the bedroom and he laid me gently on the bed, his sleep pants still tented to the max. “Will you be my girlfriend, officially, and forever?” he asked, his lips kissing mine so I couldn’t answer.
I held his face with my hands and his eyes with mine. “I will be anything you need me to be, Trey.”
“Even my wife?” he asked and I raised one brow.
“Is that an official proposal?”
He stripped his pants off and pulled his shirt over his head. “No, because I don’t have a ring, but if I did, it would be. You are my forever, Allie. Please don’t ever forget that.”
“For the record, if you had a ring, I would have said yes,” I answered. His lips came down fast and hard, and they left me dizzy with need. While he made love to my mouth, he pulled my pajama bottoms off, painfully slow. He went to work on my pajama top until the buttons were undone. My nipples pointed upward in light of the cool air, and hot kisses. He sucked one into his mouth, running his tongue around it several times while giving the other nipple the same attention with his thumb and forefinger.
He climbed onto the bed and knelt between my legs, his hands resting alongside my head. He nudged my legs apart with his and brought his lips to my ear, kissing and suckling the lobe and left side of my neck. “I can’t wait any longer, Allie,” he cried as he plunged himself deep inside me.
It was my turn to cry out and he captured it with his mouth, proving to me again that he would always take care of me and always, always love me.
I wiped down the kitchen cupboards and loaded the dishwasher, wondering what was keeping Trey at the hospital. We had no sooner finished making love than the phone rang. His boss was on the other end of the line and I didn’t like the look on his face when he listened to the other man’s demands. Finally, Trey relented and agreed to meet him at the hospital to help with a patient, even though he wasn’t on call. He promised me when he got home we would head out to find a Christmas tree, kissed me passionately on the lips and left.
I rolled into the bedroom and made the bed, one of the few things besides loading the dishwasher that I could do from my wheelchair. For some reason today I felt like I was at the top of the stairs and one small push would have me rolling down them. It didn’t make sense to me. I had talked to my parents and they were gearing up for their Christmas Eve dinner rush, the Protestants wanting to celebrate in Greek style on their Christmas Eve. I talked to Daphne yesterday when she and Angie arrived in New York. She told me her parents were waiting for them at the airport; they took one look at the two women together, and knew they weren’t simply friends. Her parents surprised her by saying it didn’t matter to them if she was gay. They just wanted her home and to celebrate with her, and Angie. Relief had flooded my heart when I heard that. At the same time, it made me sad because I knew I would be losing her as soon as she and Angie graduated this spring. New York had far better medical research facilities, and with a supportive family, Daphne would go back home in a heartbeat. She had given up on her dreams to play in the WNBA after several knee injuries had sidelined her, but she hasn’t given up on coaching a team someday.
I heard the garage door go up and I rolled back into the living room. He came in the door, took off his shoes, and threw the keys on the table. He sank down onto the couch with a disturbing look on his face and then dropped his head into both hands.
“Trey? What’s the matter?” I asked wheeling over to him and transferring to the couch. “Did something happen with a patient?”
He looked up at me and reached out, caressing my face. “You could say that.” He kept touching my face, tucking hair behind my ear, but the look in his eyes was what stopped me in my tracks.
“Did someone die?” I asked, unsure of why he looked crestfallen and near tears.
“No, my boss wanted to talk about a rumor that had come to his attention,” he explained. “He fired me, Allie.”
“What? Why? He can’t do that on Christmas Eve!” I was angry and my voice was shaking with rage. “What’s the rumor?”
“That I’m dating a patient,” he said and rubbed his temple as though he had a raging headache.
“And that matters why?” I asked. “At some point in time every woman in this town could be a patient of St. Mary’s Hospital. I don’t think he can fire you for that.”
“He can, it’s in our contract that we aren’t supposed to date direct patients of the prosthetics and orthotics department because we see them on a regular basis.”
