Save the Date Read online

  Save the Date

  Carrie Aarons

  Copyright © 2018 by Carrie Aarons

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Editing done by Proofing Style.

  Cover designed by Okay Creations.

  To the women who believe that, sometimes, a really good pair of shoes is even better than romance.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  About the Author

  Also by Carrie Aarons

  One

  Erin

  Sometimes I wish I was forewarned, or I guess aware, to soak in the moment right before something pivotal happened.

  A Monday morning quarterback kind of feeling, a knowledge that something cosmic was about to go down. Like the day before I got my first period. That song change the minute before I got in my first fender bender.

  And the four seconds that lead up to me meeting Reese Collins.

  But, I guess that’s life. And by life, I mean being whacked, blindsided by an event that you weren’t prepared for. I wish I had known, in that moment, the effect this boy was going to have on my life. How much trouble we’d get ourselves into, the deep conversations we’d share. The lasting bond we’d create.

  But timing was never on my side when it came to Reese.

  We met as awkward, gangly preteens at a backyard barbecue, forced to play together by fathers who had become the best of buddies at their very competitive men’s league basketball games. He was into Star Wars, video games and baseball. I loved reading, cutting out posters from magazines of that week’s latest heartthrob, and playing with my St. Bernard, Waldo.

  We couldn’t have been more different, and yet, we became the best of friends. Inseparable. Pranksters till the end. A ride or die kind of relationship, the ones where you’d get detention just so the other wouldn’t have to do it alone.

  But high school ended, and college sprang on us like an alarm clock you keep hitting to turn off. We stayed close; but how close can texting and email, and the monthly phone call, really keep you?

  I stayed local, he moved away. Years and other friendships and significant others shoved us that much more apart.

  And now, I sit in front of my laptop, an opened email sitting on my browser saying that he was coming to Philadelphia for a job interview, and was I free for dinner?

  My mind wanders to the pact, and if he’s thought about it as our thirtieth birthdays neared. Two weeks and five days apart, we used to give each other birthday punches on the arm until our extremities were numb.

  The deal we made when we were fifteen is flashing through my mind as I sit in my apartment, sirens screaming through Center City ten stories below me. My hands hesitate over the keys, because I don’t know how to respond.

  I twirl a long strand of corn silk blond, a color I completely overpay for but still looks natural, through my fingers and chew my full bottom lip. What is it that my mom always calls my mouth? A cupid’s bow, because of my smaller, curved upper lip.

  The skin above my mouth is hard and crusted over with a face mask I should have washed off twenty minutes ago, but was too lazy to get up and do so. I was pretty okay looking, could even be beautiful if I got the highlighter on my cheekbones just right and my hair wasn’t full of dry shampoo. But the wrinkle lines had started to mark my face as my twenties neared their end. Yet, I still got a pimple somewhere on my face weekly. What was with that? I wish my body would pick; young or old. I didn’t want to be bothered by both ends of the spectrum.

  And then I got caught up in my Facebook feed, looking at cute dogs and babies of people I hadn’t spoken to in over a decade. Priorities, am I right?

  “What the hell am I doing?” I mentally smack myself, because of course I’m going to get dinner with Reese when he’s in town.

  Laying my fingers, the nails of which are grown out with light pink polish and really need a fresh manicure, on the keyboard, I type an email back to my best friend.

  Reese,

  Of course I can grab dinner, but I don’t want to hear any bragging about how amazing your interview goes. Because we both know you’ll charm the healers of little people, and will end up charming this city away from me.

  You’re buying though, since the medical field definitely pays better than a dying newspaper.

  I’m only meeting if you bring me one of those muffins from that bakery on that street I like.

  Tolerate you,

  Erin

  P.S.- Actually can’t wait, get ready for picklebacks.

  The email was full of inside jokes, and I close my laptop smiling. I’ve become too cynical lately, which means it’s probably been too long since we’ve seen each other. Reese and I are like opposite sides of a battery, we charge the other to be fun and eccentric. Although, Reese was usually the one who did this better than I did.

  It had been three months since I’d visited him in Dallas, since we’d gorged on breakfast foods at that tiny bakery near his apartment and I’d confessed my undying love to muffins. And I wasn’t lying when I said he was taking me to dinner, my position as Editorial Director at the city’s biggest newspaper, The Philadelphia Journal, had more prestige in the title than it did in the paycheck.

  Standing from my suede gray couch, my Christmas present to myself when I found it on clearance at Pottery Barn, I walk across my modest apartment. It wasn’t the shoebox I’d rented when I first moved into Philadelphia from the suburbs of Pennsylvania. And it didn’t have three roommates that came along with it; no, I’d promised myself that I’d spring for solitude even if it cut into my budget a little more than shacking up with a girlfriend.

  I was almost thirty, after all.

  And then the pact pops back into my brain, and my palms begin to sweat. Because what if Reese remembered too, and was coming back to collect on promises past?

  Oh, shit on a shingle. I wasn’t ready to say “I do.” Especially to the boy who used to put worms in my hair.

  Two

  Reese

  The heated exhaust from a SEPTA bus hits me square in
the face, and damn does it feel good, and smell horrible, to be back on my East Coast.

  It’s been too long, and I even smiled when the Uber driver, who dropped me off in the middle of the city from the airport, had slammed on his horn and flipped the bird at a tailgating car. Dallas, the current location where I worked and played, was great … but there was just something about the bluntness of Philly and its inhabitants that I craved. The south was amiable, slower, and everyone was pleasant. Being from the suburbs of Pennsylvania, a stone’s throw from the city of brotherly love, I grew up in the chaos, harsh language, and cold.

  Crossing the street at a crosswalk, I add not having to pay for a car as a plus for taking the job here. The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia looms over me as the humidity settles into every crevice of my suit, and I square my shoulders. It’s hot as hell, but I’d be an idiot not to don a crisp tie and jacket for this interview. CHOP is big time, especially to a NICU nurse, which is what I’ve worked as for the last eight years. This is the whale of jobs in my field, and I wanted to slay it like I was Moby Dick.

  I check in at the security desk, telling the guard I’m here for an interview.

  “Which floor?” she asks, not even looking up at me.

  I turn on the charm, making sure my dimple does an extra flex when Dorothy, I spot her name tag, looks up. “The NICU, hoping to become a part of the team.”

  That gets a smile in my direction, and not like it matters what the guards think of me, but I see it as a positive on my scorecard of this interview day.

  Dorothy tells me to wait in the lobby, and Joann Callens, the President of Human Resources, will be down shortly.

  I walk to the bathroom, wanting to wipe the sweat from my neck and wash my hands before Joann comes down. I consider myself in the mirror after I pee and splash water on my face. The same light green eyes and dark brown, almost black, hair that have always met me stare back, but I can tell I look tired. Partly from the flight, and partly because of the argument I got in to right before boarding it.

  Was I insane for considering a move back home, essentially, and leaving my entire life behind?

  To be honest, the move couldn’t come at a better time. The hospital I currently worked at was about to go under, despite all we’d done to work our asses off to save it. They were going to go corporate, and we all knew what happened when those vultures came in and picked apart the bones of a hospital and it’s staff.

  Life in Dallas was becoming monotonous, and as an East Coast native, I missed snow. I’m sure I wouldn’t miss it after I had to walk through two feet of snow to work after the first storm, but seasons would be nice. And to stop having to walk funny seven months out of the year due to my balls being so fucking sweaty.

  But most of all, things with Renée were … complicated.

  After two years of dating on and off, she wanted a ring. And even though she made me happy and I think I love her, there was something holding me back. Maybe it was the way she tried to hand hold me into doing what she wanted. Or the fact that she couldn’t stand to watch even one minute of the Phillies on TV, even though I sat through hours of her reality TV trash.

  But it wasn’t just stupid little things like that … when I looked at her, I just didn’t see my future wife. It was a horrible thing to say about someone who was supposed to be, and had been, your person for a long time … but there it was.

  We were on a break, our fifth this year and it was only June. That was saying something. She was pissed I was taking an interview so far away, that I could just up and leave without considering her and our relationship. But I was considering it, just not the outcome she wanted.

  I’m only waiting five minutes in the lobby when Joann comes down.

  “Reese, great to meet you. I’m Joann Callens.” An older looking woman fiercely struts toward me, and you can tell she means business. The pantsuit, the hospital badge hanging from her neck, the perfectly flattened bob haircut.

  But the smile on her face is endearing, and it’s the one thing that keeps me from second-guessing my chances here. This woman knows her power, how to wield it, you can just sense it about her. But hopefully, and it seems so, Joann Callens is fair enough to consider all angles of my personality and work.

  “Thank you for the opportunity to interview for the position.” I shake her outstretched hand, trying to match the strong grip she gives back.

  “Hope you had a good flight, you’re from here, correct?”

  I nod, smiling. “Grew up just outside the city. Lifelong Jim’s fan, so if you tell me you like Pat’s or Gino’s, I may have to reconsider my application here.”

  A Philadelphians choice of cheesesteak joint said a lot about them.

  Joann hesitates a beat, and then grins. “I like Jim’s too, so I think we’re off to a good start.”

  She walks me around the hospital a bit, pointing out floors and rooms, waving to staff, detailing the mission of CHOP. I try not to let my mouth hang open at the top-of-the-line technology they’re sporting. The hospital I work at now is good, but this place puts it to shame.

  We finally reach our destination, the stereotypical conference room made of glass that overlooks a courtyard on the side of the hospital. I often wonder about these courtyards, and why hospitals put them in. I think the architects or people who don’t work in the medical field think they’ll be utilized for a peaceful outdoor space for families of patients, or for the staff on their breaks. I bite my tongue to keep from smirking, because no one ever uses them. They’re too preoccupied with what is going on inside the hospital walls, whether it’s concerning family members or patients.

  Joann starts off with all of the regular questions: tell me about your career thus far, what are your strengths, weaknesses, what would you do in this situation, etc.

  And then she asks me why I got into the field, the one question that I always know has an underlying meaning for a male nurse candidate. Whether it should or not.

  “Well, I know you can’t ask me this in an interview, but you’re probably wondering why a male would want to become a nurse. Much less a nurse in neonatal intensive care.” I incline my head at her, knowing that most people are shocked to find a man in this line of work. “First off, I am a nurse because I love working with patients on a more intimate level than a doctor’s work allows. I enjoy getting to know their quirks and personalities, holding their hands when they get a needle or joking with them when they’re finally allowed to eat a meal after surgery.”

  I watch Joann lean forward, and I know she’s hanging on my every word. It’s not insincere either, I really do feel that way. I love my job. But, I’m also an expert salesman when it comes to myself, especially when I’m trying to get in on something I really desire.

  I go on. “I love what I do. I’m committed, I’m passionate, and I will do everything possible to make my patients feel comfortable, even if they are two-day-old newborns. I think there is a delicate balance when working in the NICU, because you really have two patients, even though you’re charged with caring for one. Parents are your other priority, and I thrive when I need to help these parents, who are both grieving and overjoyed, bond with their little one in the most normal way that we can allow given their current medical situation.”

  After I’m done with my little diatribe, she doesn’t break eye contact with me, just leans back and assesses me, a light smirk on her face. And I know I’ve nailed it. I’m not cocky, just confident. There are a few things I excel at in life, and I know what those are. Nursing, and being able to hold a conversation, are two of them.

  My mother’s voice comes into my head just then, “Never doubt the things you know you are good at. There is enough to feel self-conscious about, don’t let it be your strengths.”

  Never having had a daughter, I think she built me up too much as a little boy with the self-esteem talks. But I can’t say they didn’t work.

  After another five minutes of small talk Joann stood, extending her hand for me to sha
ke. “We’ll be in touch. Thanks for coming in, Reese.”

  As I left CHOP, I shook off the interview nerves. My body relaxed, and was in sudden desperate need of a beer.

  And then I thought of Erin. And the pact. And if she’d thought of it at all since I told her I’d be coming to town.

  Three

  Erin

  The sun is setting over the city, making the metallic windows of the buildings gleam off of each other, as I wrench open the door to the seafood restaurant I made a reservation at.

  “Nice to see that your running late hasn’t changed a bit, Carter.” I almost run smack dab into Reese, who is waiting for me in the lobby.

  I hold my hands up, panting. “Sorry, sorry, last minute edit to tomorrow’s paper and I had to do some creative rearranging. And don’t call me by my last name, you know I hate that.”

  I push my knotted hair out of my face and suck in a breath, a side-effect of running when I hadn’t exercised in who knew how long. I was slacking on my workouts, yet my gym membership was still coming out of my bank account each month. Something needed to be done about that.

  It’s only then do I really take in my best friend. Every time I see Reese as a grown man, it somehow continues to shock me. When I’m not with him, I think of him in childhood terms, the way he looked when we used to hunt for guppies out by the creak or his appearance as fireflies blinked around his face on a summer night.