Page 40 of Stick Side
He smiled before asking the rest of their table if anyone else needed anything.
“I’d take another beer,” Kayleigh said shyly. She lifted her bottle so he could read the label.
“One Rose London Fog and one Wicked Easy coming up,” Nolan stated before heading over to the counter to place the order.
Melody counted it as a point in his favor that Nolan hadn’t made any crude comments about the name of Kayleigh’s beer. With a name like “Wicked Easy,” it would have been all too easy to swipe at the low hanging fruit.
“So,” Suz said, folding her arms and leaning into the table, “now that I’ve eaten and resemble a human again.” She sent Emery a look when she tittered. “How do you and Nolan know each other? He just said you were a friend of the family’s.”
“And you haven’t come up in conversation before,” Emery added, “so we know he’s lying.”
Melody laughed at the brash commentary. “He’s not wrong,” Melody explained. “I work at the retirement residence where his grandpa lives.”
“And Nolan saw you on one of his visits and couldn’t resist asking you out?” Nicolas mused, leading Melody to believe he was the romantic of the group.
“Not exactly,” Melody said with an only slightly begrudging smile. “His grandpa kept pushing us together until he wore us down enough that we agreed to spend time together.”
Melody deliberately avoided calling it a date. Why that was, she wasn’t entirely sure.
“Oh ho!” Aaron laughed as Nolan returned to the table and deposited first Kayleigh’s beer and then Melody’s tea in front of them. “I hear that you’re being set up by your grandpa.”
Nolan just smiled and shrugged, seeming to take Aaron’s guffaw in stride. For a second, Melody thought he would leave it there, but he added, “I have zero complaints. Clearly, Grandpa recognizes a remarkable woman when he sees one.”
Nolan shot her a wink that left her feeling remarkably warm and flattered. Then again, maybe it was the words more than the wink that had done that.
Kayleigh focused her attention on chipping away at the label on her beer before glancing up at Melody. “What do you do at the retirement residence? Are you the manager?”
“No,” Melody answered, though she would have been proud to claim the title. “I’m a physical therapist.”
Melody noticed the entire group seemed to understand what her job entailed. That was a first.
Nicolas grinned. “It sounds like you belong here with us even more than I realized,” he said with a friendliness that was contagious.
“Oh yeah? And why is that?” Melody wondered aloud.
“We jokingly refer to ourselves as ‘The Scrub Club,’” Aaron answered.
“Which is just one more reason why Aaron here will always be introduced as my brother,” Crystal added. “He’s an interloper who’s only welcome by association.”
“By association twice,” Aaron grumbled.
Crystal laughed, while Nicolas pressed a loving kiss to his partner’s temple. “We love you,” he reassured. “Even if you don’t work in scrubs.”
“I guess,” Crystal agreed in that begrudging way of siblings.
Suz must have noted Melody’s confusion because she jumped in to fill in the blanks. “Crystal, Kayleigh, Nolan, and I all work together at the hospital,” she explained. “Crystal and I work in the ER, while Nolan and Kayleigh are in pediatrics.”
Melody’s eyebrows shot up. “Your grandpa never told me that you work in pediatrics.”
Nolan scuffed a sneakered foot along the floor before moving to retake his seat. “I’m guessing Grandpa didn’t tell you I’m a nurse, either, did he?” he said, scratching the back of hisneck in what appeared to be a somewhat self-conscious gesture. “Grandpa never could appreciate that I preferred to be a nurse over a doctor.”
“Now that you mention it, I don’t think your grandpa ever did say what you did for a living,” Melody explained. “Just that you also worked in healthcare.”
Nolan smiled sheepishly, reminding her of why she initially thought he looked a little bit like James Marsden. He bit his lower lip in the same attractive way and gave off the same boy-next-door vibes.
“I had the grades to get into medical school,” Nolan admitted without any noticeable ego. “I just preferred the idea of nursing. I wanted to work more closely with the patients I was treating, you know?”
Melody’s lips curved up in understanding. She did know. She had also considered becoming a physician but had dismissed it as not being the right career for her. Like Nolan, she’d wanted to have a different type of relationship with her patients than the type afforded most physicians.
