Thank you for your continued support. I appreciate it.

Standard disclaimer.

There is nothing better than a good friend, except maybe...a good friend with chocolate.

The next morning, Mercedes awoke to a disgruntled meow. It was the cat, letting the world know it was passed time for breakfast.

When she ignored this, the cat climbed onto her stomach and batted her on the forehead with its paw.

"Shh," Mercedes said.

"Meow."

Mercedes stretched, her body feeling sore. She hadn't been to the gym, since her membership had expired a year ago, which left only one thing to attribute the soreness to.

Sam...and his own special brand of workout.

She sighed blissfully and rolled over.

She hadn't gotten home until late...or early...depending on how you looked at it. She would've liked to stay at Sam's all night, but that would have been too much.

Not for her...for him.

She'd promised him, that this was a simple fling and there was no use in telling him, she'd broken that promise.

Besides, she was pretty sure, he was more than just physically attracted to her as well, but she wasn't sure if he knew it.

She loved being with him. That was the bottom line. The only line.

And there were no preconceived notions on how she should behave.

It was freeing, exhilarating.

And absolutely amazing.

And also unsettling.

She was in the big girls' sandbox, when she played with Sam, and she was going to get hurt.

But there was nothing she could do about that, so she headed to the bathroom and showered.

When Mercedes went to the closet, for her white athletic shoes, she caught a scent, then wrinkled her nose.

"Oh no, you didn't!" she said to the cat.

Sweet Pea was in the middle of the bed, daintily washing her face. She had no comment.

"You poo'd in my shoe?"

Sweet Pea gave her a look and continued with her grooming.

"Two words," Mercedes told the cat. "Glue. Factory."

Sweet Pea didn't look worried, and with good reason. It was an empty threat, and they both knew it.

Mercedes cleaned up the mess, thankful, that Sweet Pea hadn't used her bad girl shoes, to go potty instead.

Just as she thought of the shoes, she thought of Sam tossing her onto his bed, in said shoes and nothing else…

It's official, she was going to bronze those suckers.

Shaking loose from her thoughts, she grabbed her phone off her nightstand and proceeded out her front door, to head to work.

Jace was in her driveway, head under car's hood.

"Hey," he said. "Who did your alternator?"

"No one. What are you doing? You said you were busy."

"And now I'm not. I picked up a new alternator for you this morning, but someone beat me to it."

"What?" She stepped off the front porch and took a peek at the thing he was pointing out...the one shiny, clean part in the whole car.

"See?" he said. "Brand new alternator. Maybe it was Evans."

"Why would you think that?"

"Because, he helped this guy…Ray, I think…get a job at the welding shop. And Ray told me you're seeing Evans."

Everything in Mercedes softened, at the thought of Sam caring that much, and she briefly wondered, if it was too soon to go back over there.

She'd wear her heels again. And maybe a trench coat and nothing else…

"Hello," Jace said, irritated.

"What?"

"Are you seeing Evans or not? Would he have done this for you?"

Mercedes flashed back to finding Sam in her driveway, in the middle of the night.

She'd never questioned what he'd been doing here, figuring, it had been about sex. And she hadn't minded that, because, she'd wanted him, too, but she got a little warm fuzzy, that it hadn't been about just sex.

She had no explanation for last night, which had been all her own doing. She'd have to tell Santana, that she was right...bad girl shoes were awesome.

And Santana loved to be right.

Mercedes drove to work with the smile on her face. She had parked and was just getting out of the car, when her phone vibrated.

Which was odd, because, she would've sworn she'd set it to ring.

Pulling it out of her pocket, she didn't even attempt to see the screen in the bright morning sun, before she answered with a simple,

"Hello?"

There was a long beat of silence and then,

"Who the hell are you and where the hell is Sam?"

Mercedes blinked at the very snooty female voice, sounding damn proprietary, then said,

"Who is this?"

"I asked first. Oh, for fuck's sake. Just put him on the phone. Now!"

'What the hell!' Mercedes thought, feeling a little proprietary herself, even though on some level, she'd known that Sam had to have other women in his life.

It made perfect sense, but that didn't mean she liked how it felt.

"Fine, have it your way," the woman snapped. "Tell him Francine called. Make sure you tell him that it's important, do you understand?"

"How did you get this number?"

"Cookie, you don't want to go there. Now listen to me. I don't care how good you suck him, I've known him longer, I know him better, and I'm the only one of us, who will know him by this time next week. Give him the damn message."

Mercedes stared at the phone, realizing, that it wasn't her phone at all. It was an iPhone just like hers, but the background was of only the date and a clock, not the picture of the beach she'd taken last week.

She had Sam's phone.

She tried calling her phone, but it went directly to voicemail, signaling, that Sam had either turned it off, or she'd run out of battery.

She chewed on the situation for a minute, then punched out Santana's number.

"Hey, it's me," Mercedes said. "I'm using someone else's phone. Life is getting nuts..."

"Nuts is all relative on the Bad Girl scale," Santana said.

"Is that right?" Mercedes asked. "So, where on that scale would you put, getting yelled at by the ex of the guy I'm sleeping with?"

Dead silence. Then,

"So the bad girl shoes worked?"

Mercedes blew out a breath.

"Yes. Now concentrate."

She told Santana all about the call.

"And really," she said. "I have no one but myself to blame. I wanted this one-time thing. I mean, I wanted the second time too, and the third, but now..."

"Now you're in this, and you're worried that maybe, you're in it alone."

Mercedes' throat tightened.

"Yeah. I mean three times. To me that's…"

"I know."

Suddenly, Santana wasn't sounding amused.

"It's a relationship."

"Yeah...and I'm pretty sure Sam is allergic to relationships."

Santana paused again.

"Chica, are you sure, you haven't bitten off more than you can chew?"

Mercedes choked out a laugh.

"Now? You think to ask me this now? You started this. You egged me on, with the list of Mr. Wrongs! Hell yes! I've bitten off more than I can chew!"

"Okay," Santana soothed. "We can fix this. You'll just downgrade to a less Mr. Wrong. Someone easier to drag around by his twig and berries, you know?"

But she didn't want just anyone's twigs and berries.

"Look, I'm at work. We'll have to obsess over this later. Have cake waiting. I'm going to need it."

"Will do, babe."

Mercedes clicked off and went into the hospital.

Five minutes into her shift, Shelby called her into her office.

"Two things," her boss said cryptically, giving nothing away. "First up..." She laid a piece of paper on her desk, facing Mercedes.

It was a receipt for a sizeable amount.

"Anonymous donation," Shelby said. "For HSC."

"My God!" Mercedes sank into a spare chair. "Am I looking at all those zeroes correctly?"

"Yes," Shelby said. "And they're all very pretty."

Mercedes' eyes jerked up to her boss'.

"Did you just make a joke?"

"Tell anyone, and I'll skin you." Shelby let out a rare smile, but it was fleeting. "Nicely done."

"How do you know I had anything to do with this?" Mercedes asked, still astonished.

Shelby gave an impressive eye roll.

"Mercedes, without you, there would be no HSC. Even with you, it's barely there, and it's on tentative footing. Someone you know or talked to donated this money."

She absorbed that a moment.

"Someone I know? I don't know anyone with a spare ten-K."

"Don't you?"

"You're not talking about Sam, are you?" Mercedes asked, but Shelby's eyes said, that's exactly who she was talking about.

"He already donated money for the Vets' program," Mercedes protested. "Besides, he doesn't have this kind of money."

But truthfully, she had no idea what Sam had or didn't have. Ten thousand dollars was a lot in a small town.

"Why would he..."

"Don't ask me that," Shelby said quietly. "Because, honestly, Mercedes? I don't want to know why he'd give you so much money, for a Health Services Clinic, in a town he has no ties to...a place he apparently plans on leaving very soon."

"Not me," Mercedes said. "He didn't give the money to me. He gave it to HSC. If it was even him."

"Hmm," was all Shelby said to this. Then,

"I really don't like to delve into my employees' private lives, but…"

'Oh boy.'

"But…?"

"But since yours is being discussed over the water cooler, it's unavoidable. You're dating a man who no one knows anything about."

Well, technically, there was little 'dating' involved. She was flat out boinking him.

"No disrespect, Shelby, but I really don't see how this affects my job."

"Whether he was the anonymous donor or not, he's been seen socializing with known drug addicts. And he yelled at two aides in the cafeteria."

Mercedes' temper was usually non-existent, but it flared to life at Shelby's cavalier description of Ray.

"That's not quite how either of those two events went down," she said, as evenly as she could. "Sam is involved in the Vets' program. He and Ray connected, because of their military backgrounds, and he's been helping him, giving him rides and bringing him food."

Which she only knew, because Lucille had told her, and thinking about it, still melted her heart.

She also knew about the hospital cafeteria incident, thanks to Lucille.

"As for the radiation techs, they were just downright rude, so..."

"My point," Shelby said, "Is that you're not just an employee now. You're running the HSC. You're in a position that requires a certain public persona, and you have no one to blame but yourself for that one. You chose this, Mercedes, so you have to understand, that certain aspects of your life, are now up for scrutiny. And you have a moral and financial obligation, to live up to that scrutiny."

Mercedes was having a hard time swallowing this.

"Are you saying, I can't have a private life?" she asked.

"I'm saying, that private life can't conflict with your public life. You can't date a man who might need the services HSC provides. Wrong as that sounds. You just can't."

The words rang through Mercedes' head for the next few hours, as she dealt with her patients.

She had a vomiter...oh joy...a teenager who'd let her new tattoo get infected, and an eight-months-pregnant woman, who ate a jar of pickles and put herself into labor with gas pains.

Marley was little to no help. She was far too busy, flirting with the cute new resident doctor, hoping to score a date for her night off.

And all of her patients kept hailing Mercedes down, until finally, she physically yanked Marley away from the new resident and reminded her, that she had actual work to do.

Mercedes pretty much ran ragged, until there was finally a lull.

Then, she used the rare quiet time, to sit at the nurses' station and catch up on charting.

"Mercedes!"

She looked up to find one of her patients, Joelle Mele, standing there beaming from ear to ear.

She was ten years old, a leukemia patient, and one of her all-time favorite people.

She'd been in for her six-month check, and given the smile also on her mom's face, the news had been good.

"Officially in remission," Joelle said proudly.

Her mom's eyes were shining brilliantly, as she nodded affirmation of the good news.

Thrilled, Mercedes hugged them both tight, and Joelle presented her with a plate of cookies.

"Chocolate chip and walnut. I baked them just for you."

They hugged again, and before the tears could settle in Mercedes' eyes, at the beautiful gesture, she got paged and had to go.

It turned out, the page was from her own mother.

"Mercedes," Nadine Jones whispered, dragging her daughter into a far, quiet corner. "People are talking about how you were seen, driving home at 3:20 in the morning. Why do I have a daughter coming home that late? Nothing good happens that late, Mercy. Nothing."

'Oh, for the love of God!'

"Actually, it was only 2:30, so your source is dyslexic."

'And pretty damn annoying,' But she didn't bother to say so. Her mother had a point and she was winding up for it.

"You were with that man," her mother said.

'Uh huh, there it is.'

Mercedes' left eye began to twitch.

"That man has a name," she stated.

"Cute Guy."

"A real name."

Her mother's lips tightened.

"Yes, I believe, The Facebook is calling him Mysterious Cute Guy."

Mercedes put a finger to her twitching eye.

"Okay, for the last time, it's not The Facebook, it's just Facebook."

"Honey, please. It's time you came to your senses. You're going to end up, as wild and crazy as Jace and Tamara, and that's not who you are."

"Mom, Jace is only twenty-four. He's not ready to settle down, so a little wild and crazy is okay. And Tammy is settled down, in her own wild and crazy way. Maybe, it's not what you wanted for her, but she's adjusted and happy. What's wrong with being like them?"

Her mom's mouth tightened.

"That's not what I mean, and you know it."

"No," Mercedes agreed quietly, her chest tight. "That isn't what you mean, and I do know it. You're talking about Kamara."

"No, we're not."

"Well, we should."

Her mother closed her eyes and turned away.

"I have to go."

"She started dating a guy no one knew."

"I don't want to talk about this, Mercedes!"

"He encouraged her to take a walk on the wild side, and..."

"Don't," her mother said stiffly. "Don't you..."

"And she changed. She stopped being who you thought she should be. And..."

Her mother whirled back, eyes blazing, and finger pointed shakily in her face.

"Don't you dare say it."

"Mom," Mercedes said, through a tight throat, and suddenly very tired. "It's not the same this time. You know it's not the same for me. Kamara was doing drugs."

"Your young man went to NA."

Mercedes shook her head in disbelief.

"That's confidential."

"It's Lucky Harbor," her mother said with a shrug, that said, Sam's privacy was nothing compared to her need, to make sure her daughter was okay. "Remember that stormy night, when he ended up in the ER? He refused narcotics for pain. Adamantly."

"So?"

"Don't play dumb, Mercy. You know what I'm saying. He's an outsider, and I realize that sounds rude, but you've got to admit, people are getting the wrong idea about you two."

Actually, given what she and Sam had been doing in the deep, dark of the night...and sometimes in the middle of the day...people had the exact right idea.

Nadine Jones took one look at her daughter's face and got a pinched look of tension.

"See? It's happening. It's happening again, just like Kamara with Frankie."

"No," Mercedes said firmly.

'God, no!'

"Frankie got Kamara hooked and then pregnant, and she spiraled downward. I can't believe we're comparing my life to hers now, after all these years. Why not back then, when I was in danger of spiraling?"

Her mother looked, as if she had slapped her.

"You…you weren't. You were our rock."

Mercedes let out a breath and shook her head, feeling weary to the bone. And sad. Way too damn sad.

"Forget it, Mom."

"I can't. Oh my God!" She covered her face. "I thought...you were so sweet during that time. I never thought...Oh, Mercedes...I'm so sorry. Are you…spiraling again?"

Mercedes drew a shaky breath and stepped forward, putting her hands on her mom's arms.

"No," she said gently. "I'm not spiraling again. I'm not going to kill myself, Mom..."

The big, fat elephant in the room.

"...I'm not Kamara."

Her mother nodded, and with tears in her eyes, hugged her tight.

"I know," she whispered.

Then, in the Jones way of bucking up, she sniffed and pulled back to search her pockets, coming up with a tissue, which she used to swipe her eyes.

"You're really okay?"

"Really," Mercedes promised.

"So, can I have my sweet daughter back?"

A low laugh escaped Mercedes.

"I'm still sweet, Mom. I'm just not going to be amenable all the time, or compliant. And I'm not going to live my life, exactly as you'd have me do."

"Are you going to keep seeing that man?"

Lucille walked by in her candy-striper uniform.

"Well, I hope so," she said. "He's the hottest thing you've dated since…well, ever."

"Don't encourage her," Nadine said. "This isn't just a silly thing. It's affecting her job."

"Phooey," Lucille said.

"Shelby is concerned, about it affecting the HSC as well."

"Phooey," Lucille said again. "And shame on you, Nadine, for buying into that. It's about time our girl here stops paying for others' mistakes and regrets, don't you think?"

Nadine Jones turned and looked at Mercedes for a long moment, seemingly stricken, by the thought of anyone thinking, she wasn't fully supporting her own flesh and blood.

"I never wanted you to pay for our mistakes and regrets."

"Well, she has," Lucille said, brutally honest as always, though her voice was very kind.

She moved behind the nurses' desk, poured Nadine some coffee, pulled a flask from her pocket, and added a dash of something, that smelled one hundred proof.

"Lucille!" Nadine gasped. "I'm on the job!"

"You're clocking out, and it's time."

"Time for what?"

"Time for Mercedes, to not be the only one to stretch her wings. And speaking of wings," Lucille said to Mercedes, "You're going to need wings for your next patient...and she's ready for you."

The next patient turned out to be Mrs. Garland.

"You," Mrs. G, said when Mercedes entered her room.

"Me," she agreed and reached for the blood pressure cuff. "It says on your chart, that you passed out after your bath again. Did you take your meds at the right time?"

"Well, of course I did. I'm not a complete idiot. They didn't work."

"Did you space the pills out with food, as explicitly instructed on the bottles?"

Mrs. Garland glared at her.

"I'll take that as a no," Mercedes said. Mrs. G's color was off, and her blood pressure was far too low. "When was your last meal?"

"Hmph."

"Mrs. Garland." Mercedes put her fingers on the woman's narrow, frail wrist to check her pulse. "Did you eat lunch today?"

Mrs. Garland straightened, to her full four-foot-eight inches, quivering with indignity.

"I know what I'm supposed to be doing."

Mercedes looked into her rheumy, pissy eyes and felt her heart clench.

'Dammit!'

She had a feeling she knew the problem...Mrs. G didn't have any food.

She probably wasn't feeling good enough to take care of herself, and since, she'd long ago scared off family and friends, with her mean, petty, vicious ways, she had no one to help her.

Mercedes picked up the room phone and called the cafeteria.

"Estella, it's Mercedes. I need a full dinner tray for room three."

"Sure thing, Sweet Cheeks. Is your hunk-o-burning love, going to be making any more visits my way?"

Mercedes rubbed her still-twitching eye.

"Not today."

When the tray came, Mercedes stood over her grumpy patient.

"Eat!" she kindly commanded.

Mrs. Garland tried to push the tray away, but Mercedes was one step ahead of her, holding it still.

"Oh no, you don't. You're not going to have a little tantrum and spill it, not this time."

Mrs. Garland's eyes burned bright with anger, which Mercedes was happy to see, because, it meant her patient was already feeling better.

Mercedes leaned close.

"I'm stronger and meaner, and I've eaten today."

"Well that's obvious." Mrs. Garland sniffed at the juice on the tray. "Hmph."

"It's apple."

"I have eyes in my head, don't I?"

Nonetheless, sipped the juice, and in sixty seconds, her color was better.

"You didn't used to be so mean."

"It's a newly acquired skill," Mercedes said..

"I'm ready to go home now."

"You can't go home until I see you eat."

"You're making that up. This cafeteria food isn't fit for a dog," Mrs. Garland said.

Well, she had her there.

Even Mercedes, who'd eat just about anything, didn't like the cafeteria food, not that she'd ever say so to the cook.

"Fine," Mercedes conceded.

Then, she went to the staff kitchen and pulled out her own lunch, which she brought back to Mrs. Garland's room.

"Try my sandwich. Turkey and cheese with spinach."

Which she'd only added, because, her mom kept asking if she was eating her vegetables.

"There's a little bit of mustard and probably too much mayo, but your cholesterol is the least of your problems."

She also set down a little bag of baby carrots and an apple.

Mrs. Garland took a bite of the sandwich first.

"Awful," she said, but took another bite. And then another, until there was nothing left but a few crumbs.

"The carrot sticks and the apple too," Mercedes said.

"Are they as horrid as the sandwich?"

"They're as horrid as your bad attitude. And I'll tell you this right now, you're going to eat it all, even if I have to shove it down your throat myself."

"Mercedes," a voice breathed in disbelief from the doorway.

'Shelby. Perfect.'

Mercedes turned to face her boss, but not before she saw triumph and evil glee, appear in Mrs. Garland's eyes.

"A moment," Shelby said, face tight.

"Certainly."

She jabbed a finger at the carrots and apple and Mrs. Garland meekly picked up the apple.

In the hallway, Shelby led Mercedes, just out of hearing range of Mrs. G.

"New tactic?" she asked.

"Yes," Mercedes replied, refusing to defend herself. "She finish it all?"

Shelby took a look over Mercedes' shoulder at Mrs. G.

"Every last bite. How did you do it?"

"By being a bigger bitch than she is."

"Nicely done."

By the time Mercedes got into her car and left work, she was starving and exhausted.

But she solved the first problem, by eating a handful of Joelle's cookies. Then, she pulled her phone out and took a quick peek, to see if she had any texts, before remembering, she had Sam's phone.

She paused and eyed the remaining chocolate chip/walnut cookies. And fifteen minutes later, she was pulling into Sam's driveway.

The garage door was open, and the man himself, was flat on his back, beneath his car, one long denim-clad leg straight out, the other bent.

His black T-shirt had risen up, or maybe it was his Levi's, that had sunk almost indecently low on his hips.

In either case, the revealed strip of his washboard abs, had her mouth actually watering.

And then she thought, maybe she could stand here and just look at him all day long, but he seemed to enjoy looking right back at her and she'd had a hell of a long day and couldn't possibly be worth looking at right now.

Not that it appeared to make any difference.

Sam's attraction to her was apparently based, on some intangible thing she couldn't fathom.

She knew she could think about that for a million years and not get used to it...to the fact that, no matter what she did or what she looked like, he seemed to want her.

And the feeling was far too mutual.

Stay safe!