“What? You can’t tell me you’d want to be all dressed up if you were in one of those fancy hotel rooms,” I joked.
“I know I’d be going all natural,” Erik added.
“Thank you. At least someone’s on my side.”
“Oh, it’s getting ready to start. Can I call my husband, please?” Brianna asked.
“Of course.”
Brianna darted over to the nurses’ station and dialed her home phone number as she pulled the phone as close as she could toward the television. She missed her husband and children terribly; I saw it on her face every day. Brianna had also tried to call her family almost nightly as her husband worked hard to take care of their three daughters.
“It’s starting, honey; I wanted to at least be together on the phone when the new year happens.”
Technically, the New Year for us wouldn’t start for another two hours, but it was a symbolic time, so none of us really cared that we were ahead.
“Ten, nine, eight,” we all counted down in unison with the celebrity hosts of the show. “Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one! Happy New Year!” we yelled as we hit our plastic cups filled with apple juice together.
“Happy New Year, darling,” Brianna said to her husband.
“Happy New Year,” I said as I walked past Brianna. “Happy New Year,” I continued to say to each person as I made my way around the room and did a little toast with every patient.
As soon as our celebration was over, the patients trickled to their rooms to get some rest. No one was used to staying up so late and certainly didn’t feel like staying up the extra two hours for the actual New Years in Aspen.
Being in treatment was exhausting; I remembered that feeling very clearly. Not only were you getting up early and going to groups, but you were constantly thinking and analyzing everything in your life. The emotional exhaustion of being in treatment far outweighed the physical exhaustion and led to patients needing more and more sleep as their treatment progressed.
Even though patients started to feel physically better from withdrawals and their body learning to eat normal meals, sleep, and exercise, the mental exhaustion could really do a number on some. I remembered having a patient who literally slept from right after dinner until breakfast every day. She had participated in all her programming, but was just so exhausted at the end of the day, she couldn’t keep her eyes open.
When everyone else had gone off to bed, I sat with Erik on the couch as we watched the New Year’s party out of Denver. It certainly wasn’t anything even close to New York’s. But it was something to keep on in the background and gave us an excuse to sit and talk some more.
“I applied to nursing school,” I said to Erik as we sat there. “I’m not sure it’s really what I want to do. But I figure I won’t know that for sure until I give it a try. So, anyways, I decided to give it a try.”
I felt like I was babbling a bit, but I felt a little uncomfortable with Erik and I being alone.
He tried to look excited for me, but there was something holding him back. I knew the feeling. I had wanted to move forward and nursing seemed like a good option. I’d get paid well and could stay in my same profession, but I wasn’t sure my heart was into being a nurse. I figured that’s what school was for, though, to check things out and see if I liked them.
“Good for you,” he replied without going any further.
Our conversation seemed more strained without other people around. The sexual tension between us grew, and I felt like I was being pulled from one side of the couch toward him. My breathing increased. My lips felt dry. I couldn’t stop looking at his damn muscular arms and wishing they were around me.
When midnight finally hit for us, it was like an alarm when off and I knew I couldn’t keep myself to my side of the couch. There was music playing on the television, and I looked at Erik just at the same time he looked at me. Our eyes were focused on each other and no one else.
“Happy New Year,” I said as I moved over with every intention to give him a hug.
But Erik had different intentions. As I leaned in to hug him, he gently grabbed my face, looked around the unit, and whispered, “Happy New Year,” before he pulled my lips to his.
The touch of his lips on mine was more than I could have hoped for. My body moved up next to him and I wrapped my arms around his neck. I let his mouth press into me and separate my lips as his tongue entered me. A feverish need to take off his shirt hit me, and I reached for it like we were in a private apartment or something.
“Not here,” he grunted. “Come with me.”
Erik grabbed my hand and led me to his room. The door had barely shut behind us and I was grappling with his t-shirt and pulling it over his head. My hands pressed up against his bare skin like it was a medicine I desperately needed. I couldn’t get enough of him. I wanted more. So much more of him.
His hands quickly pulled my scrub top off and unhooked my bra. The release of my breasts made him pause as he looked at them in admiration before he brought his lips to meet my nipple and pulled it into his mouth. Yes, I wanted his lips on my nipples. I wanted his lips all over my body.
I didn’t care that we were in his small room on the unit. In that moment, all I could think about was how much pleasure I felt as his body and mine touched.
I let out a primal groan at the pleasure his mouth was giving me. My hands wrapped into his hair as I closed my eyes in utter enjoyment of the moment. He moved to the other breast, and I felt his hands as they pulled on the strings to my scrubs and started to press them down toward my knees.
Yes. Yes. Yes.