Page 47 of Fighting For You

"He does, Liz. You've worked with him longer than I have."

Jen turned in her chair to face me. "So are you dating Knox Sullivan?"

The question hit me sideways.

"What?"

"We saw you at the diner a couple weeks ago." Jen tilted her head. "Just the two of you."

I didn't know how to answer that. Knox and I had never talked about what we were. A month ago, friends would have been the right word for it. But after last weekend at the station, and every time I thought he was going to kiss me and he didn't, friends didn't feel like the right word anymore.

"We're friends," I said. "He helped me buy a car."

Liz smiled. "Nora, you don't have to explain yourself to us." She leaned back in her chair. "You're a beautiful girl. You have options. We wouldn't fault you for exploring."

"I'm not exploring anything."

"Come on. It's okay." She held up a hand, still smiling. "We're on your side."

Jen nodded like this was settled. "Honestly, good for you. Knox Sullivan and Dr. Harlan both paying attention? That's not nothing."

"Harlan is my attending. Knox is my friend. That's all there is."

"Okay." Liz picked up her coffee. "We believe you."

They went back to their conversation like I'd never been part of it. I sat at my table with my sandwich in front of me and my appetite gone.

I wrapped the sandwich back up and went back to the floor.

That Friday, Knox asked if I wanted to come to The Lantern. The crew went every time their days off hit a Friday or a Saturday, and this week the schedule lined up. I said yes before I finished reading the text.

"...turns out, he did need to go to the bathroom. Let it go right there while I was running his plates."

The table groaned. Travis put his forehead on the bar. Greene shook his head. "Poor guy."

Jeremy leaned back with his beer. "Yeah. That was one very interesting report that evening."

Wyatt was shaking his head. Andy had her hand over her mouth. Knox was smiling beside me, his arm stretched across the back of my chair. The Lantern was full, the music was low, and the whole table was loose and easy.

Knox leaned toward me. "You okay?"

I blinked. "Oh. Yeah, just some trouble at work."

Andy looked over. "ER work is no joke."

"The work I can handle. It's some of the people I work with that make it difficult." I looked around the table. "I kind of envy this. How everyone here just gets along."

Travis pointed his bottle at me. "I thought you were good friends with Lori?"

"No, Lori's great. She's one of the good ones. One of the really good ones."

Knox took a drink. "It's Halstead and Burnham."

I looked at him. "How did you know?"

"It's not the Filipinas, and it's not Lori. That leaves Liz and Jen."

Andy set her glass down. "Liz Halstead and Jen Burnham? They've been like that since high school."