The Hookup

Ninety five

"What are the chances I can get you to leave and I stay here all day?" I call out to Myra from my bedroom down the hall as I finish getting dressed.

"Zero!" She calls back and it makes me roll my eyes.

"I think I'm coming down with something!"

"Ha!" Her laugh echos within the walls of my apartment. "Nice try, but no!"

Groaning and slipping on my shoes, I stomp down the hallway to where she sits perched on my couch scrolling through her phone like a temper tantrum throwing child.

"Ready?" She smiles up at me and I roll my eyes again.

I am not ready. Not even a little bit. It's been a week since I'd returned home and today, I have a meeting with hospital staff about my apparent 'lack of communication' when I'd left without saying a word for nearly a week and a half. I haven't worked. And honestly, it hasn't been very nice. All it did was give me time to think about Hero and where and what it was he was doing. I hadn't talked to him since our call the other day.

But, today I had no choice. It was finally time to face whatever punishment I had coming. Something I'd lost sleep over the night before. But it was now or never. Unfortunately.

•••••

Upon entering the hospital, the first thing that hit me was the smell of antiseptic seeming to cling to every surface, including the walls. As well as the sound of cardiac monitors beeping from various rooms as we pass. The harshness of the lights over head mixed with the nerves underneath my skin have me feeling lightheaded as I walk alone down the never ending hallway.

Myra had a shift starting when we arrived, so my moral support was no longer. I offered to take her place but she just gave me a pat on the back and ushered me on my way. I didn't know who all would be in the meeting I was about to walk into. My guess was upper management and HR.

After coaching myself to take a few deep breaths, I found myself standing just outside the office of Wendy McLain. Head of Human Resources and basically head of staff here at Jefferson Memorial. Raising my hand, and closing my eyes, I knock twice and hear someone beckon to me inside.

Shyly, I open her door and take a step inside. Smiling slightly when I see her sitting behind her desk. But once my eyes focus on the scene laid out in front of me, my smile drops and my blood runs cold.

None other than Marvin is sitting in a chair off to the right, dressed in scrubs and a painfully white doctor's coat. A stethoscope draped around his neck. His blonde hair parted off to one side, his icy clue eyes on me as I enter the room. And then there were the three of us.

"Josephine, please take a seat," Wendy motions to the other dark wooden and leather chair that sits in front of her desk. Only a few feet away from Marvin. The hairs begin to rise on the back of my neck as I close the door with a soft 'click' and take a few steps in her direction.

Before my mind can begin racing as to why Marvin would be here, Wendy clears her throat and begins to speak. "It's nice to have you back."

Ha. Not so nice from where I'm sitting.

"Thank you," I reply and fold my hands in my lap. Anxious all over again.

"Where was it you were at?" Her voice is calm. Not harsh in any way. But it doesn't stop from making me feel like a child being interrogated.

"Uhm," I clear my throat. "I was in London."

"London?" Her eyebrows rise and she seems genuinely surprised. Most definitely not where she would have guessed. "So spur of the moment?"