There For Me

Drowning her sorrows at the bar was not something that Nia usually did, but tonight had been a rough shift at work and she just needed something to block out the world around her. It wasn’t long before her phone vibrated in her pocket and she pulled it out, opening the new text that she had just received from Knoxville.

'Where you at, beautiful?'

'Some sleazy bar in town,' Nia responded quickly.

'What do you mean by sleazy?' came Johnny’s reply a few moments later, showing even through words that he was worried about her, 'Tell me the name of it and I’ll come pick you up.'

'It’s called O’Donnell’s, but I’m totally fine… you don’t need to ruin your night to come get me.'

'I’m on my way, don’t move.'

Doing as she was told, she downed the remainder of her drink and ordered herself another. She hadn’t even touched it, when Johnny sat on the stool next to her and pried it from her hands.

“Life is so fragile…” Nia mumbled after a long silence, resting her chin on her hands and glancing over at Johnny as she continued, “I lost a patient tonight… the kid was only nineteen and I couldn’t do anything to save him.”

“You can’t save everyone.”

“I know that, but he was young,” Nia argued, hearing her voice quiver and wiping away a few stray tears that rolled down her cheeks, “The thing that makes it worse is that the person who hit him with their car didn’t even stop… they just drove away as if nothing happened and left the poor boy alone to die.”

“People do stupid things when they’re scared, but he wasn’t alone in the end… he had you by his side,” Johnny said, standing up and holding out his hand for her to take, “Come on, this isn’t where you should be right now.”

He was right of course, so Nia took the offered hand without hesitation and followed him outside to his car. Sat in the passenger seat, Nia stared out the window and quickly realized that they were going the wrong way if he was taking her home.

“Where are we going?” Nia asked, frowning as she glanced over at Johnny, “My apartment is in the other direction.”

“Well, it’s late and I’m kind of guessing that you haven’t eaten,” Johnny told her, “So, I thought we’d go get some food and then head back to mine to watch a movie.”

“That sounds good,” Nia stated with a warm smile, “It’s been ages since we’ve hung out just the two of us.”

It wasn’t long until they arrived at Johnny’s house with the food and Nia grabbed some plates from the kitchen, before joining him on the sofa where he was browsing through Netflix.

“How about we start watching Once Upon a Time?” Johnny suggested, glancing over at Nia and earning a nod in response.

They had watched four episodes by the time Nia started to feel the exhaustion from her shift catching up with her, but the mere thought of closing her eyes sent a wave of anxiety sweeping through her and she fought against it.

“How did filming go today?“ Nia inquired, following Johnny into the kitchen and sitting on the counter as he washed up, “Bam was saying something about a huge stunt.”

“That’s still in the planning stages,” Johnny replied, “We filmed a couple of smaller stunts today and I chased Bam with a snake... he screamed like a girl.”

“Nine, maybe ten years old,” Nia added with a chuckle, “I’m picturing pigtails and a frilly skirt.”

“That would be about right,” Johnny agreed, putting the final plate away in the cupboard and moving to stand between Nia’s legs, “I’m sorry that your day was shitty.”

“The ending wasn’t all that bad,” Nia mumbled, smiling and leaning forward as Johnny kissed her.