Chase: I’m glad we’re still talking. Can we meet up this week? I’d like to apologize in person. Maybe over dinner? I can come cook for you if you want?
Tamra: I want.
I’d hit send before thinking it through, but it was a small risk to take after all the others. I wasn’t giving up so easily on Chase. I did want. In my life, in my kitchen, in my bedroom. Preferably without witnesses.
We settled the details for him to come over on my next day off, and I went to bed with a smile. Finding someone like Chase, someone I could dream with, whose sense of humor matched my own, and who made me tingle in all the best ways? That was worth fighting for.
Chapter 24 - Tamra
The work week flew by. We had some rough deliveries, including one emergency C-section that was touch and go for the mother and another patient with a case of perinatal asphyxia that had me second guessing every decision in the delivery room. Luckily, the Guerrera baby had started breathing on his own shortly after breathing support. Every dicey delivery stayed with me long after my shift ended, playing on repeat as I examined and changed variables.
On the plus side, I loved the sweet, new baby smell and helping mothers that wanted to breastfeed. For those mamas that could, there was nothing like the wonder of baby and mama figuring out breastfeeding for the first time. Likewise, it was awe inspiring watching dads bottle feed or elicit the inaugural burp. The magic of those firsts was one of the things that drew me to labor and delivery. They provided solace on the tougher days.
On the flip side, I was pretty sure there wasn’t a job in the world where you got peed on more. Gross, but true. If it wasn’t the babies, it was the mothers. There had even been one memorable delivery where the wife had such a death grip on her partner’s hand that by the end of the delivery, he couldn’t hold it anymore. That had been unexpected, and thankfully a unique experience. I’d grown immune to most of the less attractive parts of my job, but the emotional days still got me down.
It was my last shift before my dinner with Chase, and Gina and I were finishing up online reporting at our stations and trying to cheer each other up after transferring one of our newborns to NICU by focusing on something outside of work. I struggled to let go every time. The mother had been devastated that her daughter couldn’t be with her, and my heart ached for her. Our NICU team was world-class, but that was cold comfort when you wanted to hold your baby and couldn’t.
“So, are you excited for dinner tomorrow?” Gina asked.
My head tilted from side to side, not quite a nod, not quite a shake. “I’m not sure excited is the right word. Possibly apprehensive or nervous? This seems like a make-or-break kind of night, and part of me doesn’t want to be broken.”
She smiled softly. “I can understand that. Did I ever tell you how Vicki and I got together?” she asked.
My gaze flew to hers. “No, not really. I know you met at a Human Rights Campaign event, but that’s about it.”
Gina nodded. “Yes, I wasn’t very involved in HRC, but I wanted to socialize more in a place I knew I’d be welcome. Outside of the bar scene, it was one of the few options I had at the time. This was in the age before dating apps,” she said. “I’m an old.”
I blew a raspberry at her. If Gina was old, I too was ancient at only ten years her junior.
“Vicki was one of the event organizers. She spotted me hanging out on the fringes and came to talk to me.” Gina smiled softly. “I was captivated by her calm intelligence. I was too shy to ask for her number, but I remembered her name and that she taught at the technical college.”
I squinted at her. “I know times were different, but you didn’t show up outside her office with a boombox blaring, did you?”
She laughed. “Not exactly. I enrolled in her class. That probably earned me creep points even by today’s standards, but at the time I was shy and didn’t have much experience asking women out. The topic didn’t matter, I only needed something that didn’t conflict with my nursing schedule and was taught by Vicki. I was working days at the time, so I ended up in one of her evening sections.”
My eyes widened. “Wait, wait. You? In a programming class?” I couldn’t help my brief laugh. “Gina, I love you dearly, but you still ask me where to access the standard patient history reports in the hospital software. I take it the class was not successful?”
She smiled, and her eyes took on a faraway look. “Depends on your definition of success. I had miscalculated—badly. Vicki absolutely believed in the college’s code of ethics, which forbade any social interaction between students and professors. She treated me like any other student. She wouldn’t even acknowledge that we’d met before, and I was convinced she didn’t recognize me. I was crushed, but I figured I’d spent the money on the class, so I was going to learn something from the whole debacle. I didn’t give up, though programming was not for me. I struggled through the first few assignments before admitting that I was in way over my head.”
“Then what happened? Did you pass the class?” I asked.
“I discovered office hours. They saved my butt. Vicki scheduled time once a week to help struggling students, and I made it my religion to go every session to try to muddle through. She still didn’t acknowledge our prior meeting, but she did help me learn. Our time together was purely professional, but it was still time together, and my feelings grew.
