Don’t Mind If “I Do” by Everly Ashton
Forty-Eight
Nick
Ollie stands with me in the ER break room while I lose my shit.
“I fucked up, man.”
“Sounds like it,” he says.
“Thanks for the support.” I glare at him.
He shrugs. “It’s not anything you don’t already know.”
“Well, tell me how to make it right. You’ve been in a relationship for a while now. What do you do for Jemma when you fuck up?”
“Let’s see… when I leave the toilet seat up in the middle of the night and she falls in, a round of oral sex the next day usually gets me off the shit list.”
“After showering, right?” I ask.
He rolls his eyes. “Yes.”
“I’m not talking about leaving the fucking toilet seat up. I’m talking about giving my wife an ultimatum between me and her father.” I push my hands through my hair.
The slow grin that slides over Ollie’s face makes me want to punch him in the face.
“What the hell are you smiling at?”
“This is the first time I’ve heard you refer to her as your wife and not just Mazzy.”
My hands drop. “I love her, man. I can’t lose her again.” Even I hear the desperation in my voice.
“You’re not gonna lose her. We’ll figure this out.”
The door to the break room flies open and the charge nurse bursts in. “Dr. Ryan, your wife is coming in by ambulance. ETA is two minutes.”
My stomach bottoms out and bile rushes up my throat. “What?”
“I recognized her name when the EMTs called in to give us an update.”
I push past Norma and race down the hall. “What happened?”
“She was at the gym and fell and hit her head on the end of a weight shelf. She has a contusion and she lost consciousness.”
Fuck. I’d bet it was her Meniere’s.
I reach the ambulance doors, Ollie by my side. He clamps a hand on my shoulder. “She’ll be okay, man. She will.”
“You don’t know that.” I grip my hair in my hands.
“Maybe you should let the other doctor tend to her. Or I can. You’re too close to this.”
I whip my head in his direction. “No one else is seeing to my wife.”
He puts his hands up in front of him. “Okay, got it.”
The ambulance pulls up in front of the door less than a minute later, and it’s all I can do to keep my feet planted until the doors in the back swing open. Mazzy lies there with a trail of dry blood running down her face from the bandaged cut above her left temple. Her eyes are closed, but her coloring is good.
“Maz!” I rush forward and help them get the stretcher out of the back. “Maz, can you hear me?”
She blinks her eyes open but doesn’t say anything.
“Give me an update,” I say to the EMT as we roll the stretcher inside.
“Vitals are stable. Respirations are good. Lung sounds are good bilaterally. She was awake when we got there, but the caller said she was unresponsive when he called. She knows her name and the date, but she’s groggy.”
“Get her into room number three.”
As soon as she’s set up in the room, we re-check her vitals and everything looks good.
“Mazzy, honey, can you hear me?”
She opens her eyes and looks at me. I shine the pen light in each of them while one of the nurses cleans the wound on her head so we can see what we’re working with. Her pupils look good, which eases some of my worry.
“Mazzy, do you know who I am?”
“You’re my husband. What kind of stupid question is that?”
Normally I’d chuckle at her attitude, but I can’t until I know for certain she’s okay. I take her hand. “Do you remember what happened?”
“My Meniere’s. I fell and I think I hit my head.”
I nod. “Are you still feeling dizzy?”
She lets her eyes drift closed again. “Yes. I feel like I might throw up.”
I ask the nurse to put in an IV and deliver some of Mazzy’s medicine and anti-nausea drugs.
“On it.” The nurse rushes from the room.
“We’re going to need to watch you for signs of a concussion, and you’re going to need stiches for the cut on your hairline.”
“I want you to do it,” she says.
I squeeze her hand. “You got it.”
A hand on my shoulder makes me turn around. Ollie’s there. I totally forgot he was waiting with me at the doors.
“You good?” he asks.
I nod. “Thanks, man.”
“Want me to order a CT for her while you’re doing the stitches?”
He’s a good friend and he knows me well. Truth is, I probably wouldn’t order a CT Scan for another patient, but there are some perks to being the ER doctor’s wife.
“That’d be great.”
Mazzy’s a good sport, not complaining at all while I stitch her up, but it’s only once she’s returned from the CT and I see that everything looks normal that I have any sense of relief.
And I’m more pissed at myself than ever. Because we shouldn’t fight about her dad getting what he deserves. She made her decision, and I shouldn’t have started a fight over it even if I didn’t agree. It was her money and her decision to make. She’s the most important thing in the world to me and that’s all that matters.