The Best Laid Plans

“Can you give me some drugs? I need some drugs,” Mrs. Garrison grunted. First timer for sure.

“I need you to breathe like this.” Charlie showed her how to puff air out so she didn’t push before they were ready. “There’s no time to get you to the hospital, or for drugs, I’m afraid. This baby is going to be out before anything could start working.”

Mr. Garrison returned with towels, and Serena got busy turning the bedroom into what would now be the delivery room. Mrs. Garrison grimaced and then screamed out again.

“I need to push!”

Charlie told her to go ahead as he helped ease the head out. He checked to make sure there was nothing wrapped around the baby’s neck and let her push again. In a matter of seconds, Charlie held a tiny baby boy in his hands. He suctioned the mouth and nose, and the baby let out the kind of cry that every parent loves to hear. Charlie cleaned him off and wrapped him up in a clean towel. Serena handed him the oxygen to administer to the little guy until he pinked up nicely.

“You’ve got a good-lookin’ son here. Now we can take you guys to the hospital to make sure.”

These were the kinds of calls that made Charlie’s day. Not only had he helped bring a life into the world, but he also had to transport this new family to Saint Joe’s, where Emma worked. He felt as if it was a good omen that something as joyous as a newborn was bringing him to her hospital today.

As soon as Mrs. Garrison was no longer in agonizing pain, she realized her husband did not have his camera at the ready. The hair and makeup made perfect sense after she got him to take a few dozen pictures of her and their son. Mr. Garrison gave his wife her phone so she could post some selfies and make the announcement that she’d delivered a healthy boy on every social media site out there.

Serena’s face gave away her annoyance. Charlie could only smile. “Come on, Serena Hayes. I bet you looked like a million bucks in all the pictures when your babies were born.”

Serena had heard about Charlie’s proclivity for giving nicknames when she came to work at Station 22. She was an African-American woman in her thirties. No one was going to call her anything childish or foolish. She’d introduced herself and let him know he had a couple options. He could call her by her first name or last name. She would respond to either, but nothing else. That led to him calling her by both her first and last name. Sometimes he slipped in a Serqueena when he was feeling rebellious, but that didn’t happen too often.

“I look good all the time. I don’t need to post it all over the web to prove it,” she said under her breath. She gave Mrs. Garrison one more minute to finish her announcements before they loaded her and the baby into the ambulance and headed to Saint Joseph’s Hospital.

* * *

THE TRIAGE NURSE on duty loved Charlie. She congratulated him on his successful delivery and offered him a chocolate kiss from the little jar that sat on her desk.

“I think you missed your calling. You should have gone to medical school,” she said.

“I’m not doctor material. Too many years in the classroom and then the rest of your life spent in the hospital. Not to mention, I look terrible in white. But blue, I’m to die for in blue,” he said with a wink. Charlie unwrapped the chocolate and popped it in his mouth. He attempted to nonchalantly scan the ER for any sign of Emma, but she was nowhere to be seen. He worried she wasn’t on duty today. “Any chance Emma Everhart is around?”

“Emma?” The woman’s forehead creased. “What do you need Emma for?”

“I’m the best man in her sister’s wedding. I just wanted to touch base with her.” His eyes continued to search for her.

“Her sister is getting married? You know her sister?”

“Her sister is marrying my neighbor. Small world, right?” Just then, Emma stepped out from behind one of the curtained-off care rooms. She changed the colored marker outside the room from orange to green. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun and her blue scrubs were nothing fancy, but she wore blue better than Charlie did. His throat tightened at the thought of talking to her.

“Emma!” the triage nurse screeched. Emma turned at the sound of her name and Charlie’s heart began to pound. Her eyes fell squarely on him, as if he was the owner of the painfully shrill voice. The triage nurse waved her over. “Come here.”

The closer she got, the warmer he felt. He practiced greeting her in his head, trying to sound cool. Then she smiled and he lost the ability to speak.

“Hey, Charlie. What’s up, Diane?”

The sound of his name coming from her lips was magic. He wanted to sweep her up in his arms and hear her say it again, breathlessly this time.

“Why didn’t you tell me your sister is getting married?”

Emma glanced at Charlie, who could only grin like an idiot. She spoke to Diane. “I don’t think I’ve had a minute to talk about it with you. But I see it’s already ER gossip.”

“He wasn’t gossiping,” Diane said in his defense. “Charlie was just telling me how he’s the best man.”

Those eyes that were this mesmerizing mix of brown and green fell back on him. “Max asked you to be the best man?”

This was when Charlie wanted words to come out of his mouth, but all he could do was nod. She had this way of turning him into a mute.

“Huh.” She smiled and said, “Well, you better start writing a fabulous best man’s speech because the maid-of-honor one is going to be pretty awesome.”

No doubt she would knock it out of the park. She exuded a confidence that had to come from being successful at a thing or two.

“I’ll do that,” he said, knowing full well he’d wing it when the time came.

“Good. I’ll see you around.”

She started to go and Charlie panicked. “Nightingale, hold up.”

She stopped and her eyebrows arched while she waited for him to continue.

He didn’t have anything else to say. His mind went blank, then filled with things he couldn’t possibly do. He wanted to take her by the hand and pull her out of this busy hospital. He wanted to walk the city’s streets and find out what she loved about it. He wanted to know what she put on her hot dog and who she thought had the best pizza.

“Did you want something or are you planning on just smiling at me like that? Because it’s borderline creepy and I really need to get back to work.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder.

Charlie felt himself smile bigger. “Do you want to meet up sometime?”

“What?” Emma and Diane said at the same time.

“I mean, I heard you were planning the wedding, and I thought, since I’m the best man and you’re the maid of honor, maybe we could get together and talk about what would make Kendall and Max happy.”

Emma’s chin dropped. “You want to help plan my sister’s wedding?”

She made that idea sound weird. He didn’t want to seem weird. So he shifted the blame. “Max asked me to talk to you. I think he wants to make sure he has some say in all of this.”

“He thinks I’m not going to include him? I plan on checking with both of them before I do anything,” she said defensively, stepping back in his direction. “It’s their wedding. Of course he’ll have a say.”

Charlie wanted to kick himself for offending her. He tried again to backpedal. “No, of course he thinks you’ll involve him. I think he thought...I think we both thought it would be nice of me to help you out so you didn’t have to do it all on your own.”

Emma smiled, hopefully because she thought he was endearing and not a moron. “That’s really sweet, but I have it all under control.” Again, she started to leave.

“I have a few ideas, though.” He had no ideas, but desperation took over. Who knew getting her to agree to one meeting would be so tough. He watched as she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Was he annoying her? That was the last thing he wanted.

“I’m off tomorrow.”

Relief flooded his body. “Me, too,” he said, barely believing his luck.

“I’ll be in touch, then.”

“Perfect.”

“Fletcher,” Serena said as she came back into the ER. “We have to go.”