Chapter 2
Nursing school at eight in the morning was a study in organised panic.
Backpacks swung through crowded hallways. Coffee steamed from paper cups. Someone was always running. Someone else was always crying over an exam that had not happened yet.
I reached my locker just as a voice called my name.
“Grace!”
I kept working the combination. “Morning, Mia.”
Mia Chen appeared beside me with a high ponytail, immaculate scrubs, and the unearned enthusiasm of a person who had either slept eight hours or made a deal with the devil.
“You will not believe what happened last night.”
“Did you finally finish that true-crime series?”
“Better. Jason texted me.”
I stopped halfway through lifting my pediatric nursing textbook. “Sprained-thumb Jason?”
“The very same.”
Three weeks earlier, Jason had disappeared from Mia’s life and later explained that a sprained thumb had made texting impossible. Apparently it had not prevented him from posting gym selfies.
“What did he want?”
“To talk things over.” She smiled sweetly. “I left him on read.”
“As medicine intended.”
She bowed. “Thank you. Now. Your turn. How was your weekend?”
My locker door suddenly became fascinating.
Mia narrowed her eyes. “That face means something happened.”
“Nothing happened.”
“Grace.”
I shut the locker. “My father wants me to go on a date.”
Her mouth fell open.
“You?”
“Please try to sound less shocked.”
“With whom?”
“The son of his old friend. Richard Reeves.”
Mia’s expression changed before I finished the name.
“Wait. Reeves as in—”
“Don’t.”
“General Alexander Reeves?”
I leaned my forehead against the metal locker. “You did it.”
She grabbed my arm. “Grace, that is not some random military guy. That is the General Alexander Reeves.”
“Saying it with capital letters is not helping.”
“Have you seen him in uniform?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“He is offensively attractive.”
“He looks like he could have someone arrested for breathing out of rhythm.”
Mia laughed, but I was only half joking.
The man frightened me in photographs. In person, I imagined he would be unbearable.
We ended up sitting on the hallway floor with students stepping around us as I explained Dad’s request.
“Maybe the media exaggerates,” Mia said. “Your dad wouldn’t send you to dinner with a monster.”
“Last month a reporter asked Reeves a question at a press conference and he just looked at the man until the reporter apologized.”
“That was about national security.”
“I am worried about personal security.”
Mia nudged my shoulder. “When was the last time you went on a date?”
“I have priorities.”
“Studying anatomy with Daniel does not count.”
“It was studying.”
“Exactly.”
The bell rang above us.
We got to our feet and joined the current of students heading toward lecture rooms.
“Think about it,” Mia said. “Worst case, dinner is awkward and you never see him again.”
“Worst case, I die from embarrassment.”
“Then I will give a beautiful eulogy about your bravery.”
I shoved her lightly.
She caught my wrist before I could walk away.
Her teasing expression had disappeared.
“Grace. Your dad is scared.”
The hallway seemed to sharpen around us.
“His health hasn’t been good,” she continued. “Maybe he just needs to know that if something happens… you won’t be alone.”
I hated that sentence because it was the same one I had been refusing to hear at home.
A crowd moved around us, loud and hurried and alive. For a moment I felt completely separate from it.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I’ll go.”
My phone chimed almost on cue.
Dad.
SATURDAY.
LUCIOUS RESTAURANT.
6 PM.
DON’T BE LATE.
I showed the screen to Mia.
She grinned.
I dropped my forehead onto her shoulder.
“This is going to be the longest week of my life.”
