Chapter 1

I had noticed her, early in nursing school. She was petite, cute, and focused. Of course, since I was one of a dozen men in the class, the guys were outnumbered by something like 8:1. There were a lot of focused grown up young women. Most of them cute, all of them intelligent. Our class was mostly “degree completion” folks, generally women who had gone to LPN school, worked a couple of years, and, once they qualified for their employers’ tuition assistance programs, back to school they went. That meant the typical classmate was in her mid twenties, had a couple of years of LPN school behind her, as well as a couple of years of nursing, as an LPN.

So, somehow Kathy and I wound up in the same study group. Sometimes I’m just lucky. We got to know each other, safe among the group of us studying heart disease, renal disease, how skin breakdown occurs, and how to prevent it.

The Stars Aligned one day. I found myself part of her gaggle leaving the library after our study session, and she managed to dawdle enough that she and I were nearly alone for a couple of moments. I worked up the nerve to invite her out for lunch, and she smiled and accepted. Her smile calmed my nerves, as I really, really wanted to get to know her better. I was quite attracted to her.

We got some coneys at a hot dog cart, and ate on a bench at Grand Circus Park. We chatted. I was working my way through school, working nights at the city’s EMS, she was picking up weekend shifts at the nursing home, as a Nursing Aid. She wondered how I could go to school all day, most days of the week, after running calls all night, and I applauded her single mindedness, working weekends after a full week of school and studying.

She was funny, and smart, and fun to be with. She laughed at my joking around. I felt completely at ease with her. She appeared relaxed with me, particularly so when she slipped closer to me on the bench, took my arm, and draped it over her shoulder. She leaned up, and murmured in my ear, “I’ve seen how you have been looking at me. I know how you have wanted to hug me, and more. You will simply get to hug me, silly white boy, because there are too many people around. And, you will simply have to wait for our second date to see if you will get to play the games with me, that I can see you want to play!”

I squeezed her a bit, driving her shoulder into my side just a bit. She wriggled like a puppy, and laughed when I asked her, “So, is this date number one, or date number zero?”

She pecked me on my cheek, and I felt my cheek begin to glow. “You will simply have to wait and see! That is, if you want to get next to me?”

I reared back a bit, a faux-hurt wide eyed expression on my face. “Want to get next to you? Why on earth would I not want to spend time with you? And, maybe I’m confused, but I thought,” and with that, I rocked my hips on the bench, pressing against, and releasing, her own firm hip, “that we were already next to each other? If I got any closer, I’d be behind you!”

She twinkled her eyes at me, and responded, “Maybe, if you act right, you just might get to get behind me!”

“Yes Ma’am! I will act right!”

She rested her head against my chest, her one hand spaded into my hip pocket, the other resting on my thigh, safely distant from my thickening muscle of love. She muttered something, indistinctly, that sounded sort of like, “That’s what I thought!”

A clock began to toll out the top of the hour, large bells echoing across downtown Detroit. I looked at my watch, and saw I had a couple of hours to sleep, if I was going to, before having to be back on duty at Medic 7. I jiggled my cute companion, and shared this fact with her.

“So, we have lecture tomorrow, right?”

I allowed that this was my understanding as well.

“Well, what are you gonna do for lunch tomorrow?”

I had no plan, other than my usual. I suspected I’d race home from the firehouse, shower and change, and speed to class, and try not to sleep in lecture. Failing that, I planned on not snoring and not drooling. As for lunch, well, I’d make a half dozen sandwiches tonight before going to work, and a couple would indeed be lunch tonight, and a couple would be lunch tomorrow. Or so I thought. Kathy thought otherwise.

“We have an hour and a half between our Med Surg lecture in the morning, and Peds in the afternoon. Do you work tomorrow?”

“Nope. This is my rotation on first of the week nights. This is Wednesday, so tomorrow I start three days off. Two months to go, then I am due to rotate to end of the week days. I’m gonna swap so I’m still on nights. Probably it’ll be end of the week nights at that point, for another four months. Why?”

“Because, I’m fixing you lunch. Since you start your three nights off, beginning tomorrow night, I’ll give you two nights to regain your strength, because we’re gonna go out on a date Saturday night. So, simply to make sure that you have the strength to take me out on the town, I’m bringing you your lunch tomorrow.”