by Kenna Ryan
“Kate?”
“Huh, what?” My nipples are hard, rasped through my bra by stitching on my dress sequins. It’s been like this at work, too, for months. The last two weeks it’s been worse than ever. Rub-one-out-in-the-ladies-room bad.
Ugh! He’s my boss. My boss. What am I doing?
He holds out the open bottle of Moscato, no glass. He was serious and he really does know me. “Middle button. Turn your controller on.”
“What? Oh– right.” I snuggle into the chair, pry off my heels and tuck up. “How would our patients feel if they knew this is how we spent our free time? Not reading The Lancet or doing yoga, just slaying the undead.”
“Wake, slay, horseplay!” Jake folds into his chair, long legs stretched out in front of him so I can appreciate those lean, muscled thighs. “I’d like to think Z-Day preparedness is of major concern for our patients. That we’d have higher value when it comes time to choose survival compound members.”
“I love the way you think.”
“Feeling’s mutual.” Jake grins, setting up our game with a deftness my brothers would envy. “And I’m rubbing off on you. Immunity by repeated exposure.”
I want to say the only real treatment has to be taken internally. Something. I can’t make the joke without sounding horribly cheesy and a little too serious at the same time. “Ready to get your ass handed to you?”
“Ohh ho! She can swear.”
“I swear all the time. Just not where you or the other doctors can hear it.” It’s not professional. It’s hard enough to get doctors to take us seriously.
“Hm. That’s unfortunate.” He’s watching me with those hot dark eyes. Does he feel something? Nothing? Is this a you’re-like-my-sister moment?
“Partial to swearing?” I ask.
“Under the right circumstances.”
Which are? I want to slide onto the floor and flop around in a confused, aroused semi-tantrum. Instead I swallow and turn my attention to the screen. “You still haven’t said what you get if you win.”
“Don’t you worry; I didn’t forget. I’m mulling it over. I have a feeling you’ll be hard to beat and I want the reward to be something really good. And by good, I mean bad, and a complete punishment.”
I volunteer as tribute. Anything that makes him think about me, throws us together more.
And just like that, I consider losing on purpose.
-Chapter Four-
“Yes! Uh!” Jake doesn’t even pretend to be a gracious winner. He’s one-hundred percent doctor-ego and smug smiles. “I believe that was best three out of five.”
He knows damn well it was. And he knows I totally moved the goal posts from best out of three, desperate to up my odds of beating his pants off, figuratively if not literally. “Alright, winner. Name your price.”
“Nope,” he stifles a yawn. “I have to think about it.”
His yawn is catching. I lean forward and squint at the time on his tv. “It’s after one a.m.!”
“Holy shit!” Jake checks the watch he’s not wearing. He pauses. “Hear that?”
I shake my head. I haven’t heard anything but the rich, sexy timbre of his trash talk for hours now.
He jumps up. “Come on; I might need your assistance if I’ve committed the host party-foul I think I have.”
“Uh…” I clear my throat and point to his clothes. His lack of clothes. “If that’s your goal I wouldn’t go downstairs like that.”
“Oh? Oh.” He looks at the closet with a bachelor expression of resistance. “I don’t want to put on pants.”
And I don’t want you to. I really don’t. But I also don’t want the talk. The gossip. I’ve been through it before and I don’t want that cloud hanging over what I share with Jake. “We were up here for… a while, and we work together. I just think–”
“Shit! Yeah, of course. I didn’t think of that. I’m sorry.”
“This is why you keep me around,” I toss back brightly. This and for a gaming buddy and to give me the female equivalent of blue balls.
The house is totally silent as we creep downstairs, but lit from end to end. Apple-spice, dark beer, and smoky barbeque hang in the air, dampened by cold air and snow gusting in the open front doors.
“Hey!” Jake stops, turns, and gives me a look. “Whatever happened to ‘last one out turn off the lights’? Or at least close the damn door.”
“Good to know all that stands between competent medical professionals and zoo animals is four drinks and gambling,” I say, trying to push some snow outside with my bare foot.
Jake chuckles, fiddling with a dying fire.
“Wait…” I lean down. Some of what covers the hall isn’t snow, it’s bunco score slips with notes scrawled across the back.
Thanks for a great time
Glad we were here… where the hell were you?
Didn’t know this was a post and ghost party, J
There must be fifty teasing jabs. My loss to him tastes a little less bitter. “You’re going to hear about this on Monday,” I warn.
“Yeah, I had a feeling.”
I think the notes were piled on the console table, but thanks to wind from the open door all that sits there now is my handbag.
My handbag. “My phone!”
He spins around. “What? What’s wrong?”
Felicity is going to kill me. I mean, she ditched me but I ditched in kind and she isn’t going let me forget it.
“Eighteen missed texts and four missed calls,” I say to Jake’s wide eyes. My battery is at two percent. I don’t have time to read any but the last one.
Wherever you are, I hope you’re sweaty and naked. And earning cab fare because I’m sober enough to drive safely and tired enough to sleep in my car...Girl, bye!
“Felicity has left the building,” I mutter as my screen goes black.
“Oh.” Jake shrugs. “Why don’t you crash here?”
My heart pounds. My panties drop an inch, minimum.
“You can sleep over,” his eyes linger on me but I can’t read his expression, “In one of the guest rooms. If that makes you more comfortable.”
And my panties snap up around my collar bone. You’re like my sister. Let’s play games. Sleep in the guest room.
What did I expect? ‘Come upstairs and let me pound you like we’re doing chest compressions on your vajay’?
If he was going to make a move, wouldn’t he have done it by now?
Or is he respecting my lecture from ten minutes ago about keeping up professional appearances?
“That’s okay. Call me a cab?” I ask, tucking my dead phone away. “I can help you clean up to work off the fare.”
“Are you kidding? Housekeeping service is taking care of this. You’ll have to think of something else to earn your keep.”
Just like that, I know how a boomerang feels. I look him over head to toe. “Such as…?”
“They won’t be by till tomorrow and the food’s still out. Help me put it away and I’ll drive you home?”
“And if I don’t?” I ask, feeling sassy.
“Then I still drive you home but I have to eat two pounds of BBQ lil’ smokies by myself. Straight from the crockpot.”
“That… is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Right?” He nods gravely. “So, I know you’re gonna help me out.”
Anything to stay a little longer. “Sure. It’s a deal.”
Jake glances around, double-checking we’re alone. He grins. “Great. Come into the kitchen and I’ll put a wiener in your mouth.”
I can’t deny it: There’s only one thing I’d love more than riding the Jake rollercoaster...
-Chapter Five-
Jake revs, backing his gray roadster out of the garage. The purr of a Mercedes engine vibrates up my thighs. Seat warmers kick on, and all of tonight’s tension settles in one place.
“Do you get nervous driving this thing in the snow?” I’m asking for a distraction. Jake has a regular car; a silver sedan a
lways parked in the same place in our practice’s rear lot. I try to focus on this and not the fact he’s wearing his shirt, tie, and boxers to drive me home.
“Nah. It handles like a dream. Solid traction, good horsepower in the deep spots. And I’m a skilled driver.” He throws me a grin. “You’ve seen me in surgery. Have a little faith.”
We’re nine streets or seven stoplights or five-ish minutes from my building. I’ve been looking at him, doing the math and working up my nerve.
He’s been Dr. Mixed Signals all night. Or maybe it’s my wishful thinking, reading into everything he says and does.
Jake shifts for the red light. His knuckles brush my knee; the back of his hand rests there while he anticipates changing gears on green. We’ve touched more times than I can count, passing a syringe, a pen, a bandage. It’s never been this electric. I watch his skin against mine.
He’s your boss, a voice reminds me. The guy who writes your nursing evaluations. The guy who says goodnight and goes home while you’re submitting the day’s labs.
We’re lucky to have a fantastic working relationship, but that doesn’t equal more. And I don’t want to ruin it because he makes every day wonderful.
But when I glance at him, at his strong profile while he concentrates on the traffic light, I realize this might already be ruined. Because if I can’t have him, all of him, there’s no going on pretending.
I need him in all my deepest places.
His car is warm and damp from the snow our clothes brought in. Air from the vents smells like rich leather and crisp cologne. Water droplets on the windows turn street and holiday lights into glittering sparkles.
We both focus on Lexington Avenue’s horizon past historic shop fronts, but my calf tingles with electricity at his touch. He fills my senses without me looking at him. I swear, from a tension pressurizing us inside the car, that Jake feels it, too.
He takes the right turn one-handed, fingers still stroking me each time he changes gears. We glide to a stop in front of my building.
I steal glances at him.
Jake keeps his eyes straight ahead. “I had a lot of fun tonight.”
“Me too. I’m sorry we waited so long to hang out.”
“Yeah.” He grimaces. “With work and us being… you know.”
I don’t know because his face is close enough to see the little nicks where he shaved this morning. I don’t know anything. He touches my leg, fills my breath with his cologne, sets me on fire with those eyes.
All the night’s tension tears through my sanity. I grab Jake’s gray silk tie and drag him half out of his seat. Our lips crush, teeth clack. He tastes like risk and he feels like sex, leaned over me. Five o’clock shadow scrapes my palms when I cradle his face and pull him close.
What I’m doing floods in cold as the snow outside. Jake just said this was off-limits, out of the question.
I don’t know if he reciprocates; I can’t sit here and wait for rejection. I grab my purse and fumble my way out onto the sidewalk. Jake doesn’t drive away as I walk to the lobby door. Will he follow? Get out and tell me off?
I’m alone when I slip inside. When I get upstairs to my apartment and dare a look outside, he’s gone.
“Ugh! Why are you like this?” I whisper, resting my forehead against the glass.
-Chapter Six-
Saturday passes in a binge-eating pity party. Each time my phone rings I startle, and the sloshing feeling in my stomach moves another centimeter up my esophagus. If my panic level ratchets anymore, I’ll have to wear those pads they make for small dogs.
But none of the calls are him. He doesn’t’ call to chew me out or ask me out. Total radio silence. And I don’t want to talk to anyone else. I can’t make chit chat or swap pins, and I can’t bring myself to tell anyone what’s happened – not even Felicity.
Fun fact: Saturday feels like it lasts four years and Sunday lasts about twelve minutes. It doesn’t occur to me until I’m hauling a load of scrubs and socks down to the laundry room the next morning that tomorrow at work, I’ll have to face what happened. Realization sets in, and there isn’t a big enough stay of execution. There aren’t enough hours to gird myself. I have to tell someone, because I need advice and if I don’t get it I’ll be found passed out in my stairwell dressed in ugly sweats with a handful of quarters sprinkled over me, and the police will assume I’m a hobo and take me to sleep-off.
I trudge back upstairs and send Felicity a text. I do not call. This crisis is too big to be handled verbally. I need words and pictures.
I thought you were dead!, she writes back.
Nope. Just wish I was.
Did you let the good doctor give you a physical exam? Found out he has clumsy gorilla hands and a parakeet–
I can’t even finish reading. No!
Oh, that’s sad. This dry spell is killing me. Thought I could live through you for a while.
Felicity…
Her ‘typing’ status disappears. She gets that I’m serious. I kissed him Friday night...
I don’t type ‘we kissed’ because I’m pretty sure we didn’t.
Really? I don’t see the big deal. I mean, he’s your boss, you two have to work together. But we date doctors. Doctors date doctors. It’s not the end of the world.
He didn’t kiss me, though
Felicity’s ‘…’ appears and disappears at least four times. Then:
What
“Ugh!” I grumble to my empty apartment. I just grabbed him and planted one. Maybe there was tongue?, I add.
I went stupid the second his lips slid against mine. It’s hard to remember the specifics. I can call up a patient’s lab results from seven months ago, but I don’t know if I slipped my tongue in Jake’s mouth.
And then he?
This is the hardest part to type. I don’t know. I ran.
You ran? I’m calling
No! Don’t call. If I have to say this crap out loud–
My phone rings. “Felicity, I can’t. I’m so embarrassed and humiliated and–” I sigh out the rest.
“Has he called? Written? Showed up with condoms and bulk coconut oil?”
This lump in my throat is hard to swallow. “Nothing.”
“Whoa. That’s no good.”
Oooh, that stings. “See? I didn’t want to talk.”
“Okay, we can figure this out.” Felicity launches right in like an ER nurse, restarting my heart, stopping the bleeding. “You and Jake have one of the best working relationships ever.”
“Believe me, I know.” And we have the office equivalent of the friendzone.
“That’s not going away,” she promises. “But obviously, you guys are not on the same page.”
“Obvs,” I mutter.
“So just reset the clock.”
“What?”
“Just go back to a place where things are good.”
I pause over the last sad remains of a chocolate bar. “Spell it out. I’m lost.”
“Roll into the clinic tomorrow morning like nothing happened.”
My heart squeezes at the idea. I guess I’d made peace with me and Jake hashing this out no matter what. Now we just ignore it? “Doesn’t that make me a huge jerk?”
“Yeah, but guys do that stuff all the time.”
Spoken from experience with things only a hot blonde nurse can get a pass on. “I rest my case.”
“I bet you fifty bucks Jake does the same thing tomorrow. Besides, it spares everybody the awkward stuff. You look cool and confident, and he feels zero pressure. It’s no big deal that he didn’t reciprocate. NBD all the way.”
As awful as this sounds, it also sounds like a fantastic tourniquet. I can save face while I figure out how to put my heart back in my chest. “You are either the world’s most brilliant friend or the next Marvel villain.”
Felicity lets out an evil laugh. “Both. You’ll be fine.”
I hope so; I hope this works. The only way it doesn’t work is if Jake decides we need to talk tom
orrow. Considering he’s a talker who’s been silent all weekend, I have a bad feeling about this...
-Chapter Seven-
I get to the clinic at seven and spend sixteen minutes pretending to make coffee. Jake will be here any minute and he usually picks up on Monday. Well, he used to. Probably not anymore. And if he does bring it and I can’t face him, then I have to come out of hiding to get it– or go de-caffeinated.
Why? Why am I like this?
Rhonda pokes her head into the staff lounge, giving me the barest wave. She feels in the pockets of her trim blue cardigan, pats her silvery bun, and frowns.
I watch her scan the room. “What’s wrong?”
“Whole day just feels off,” she grumbles, striding in and rifling the break table and the silverware drawer. “I can’t even find my good pen.”
“Uh oh.” Rhonda once drove to a patient’s house after he borrowed her pen at check-out and took it home.
“You having that kind of Monday?” She asks this with an unusual amount of accusation, like she thinks I might be responsible.
I might be.
“Nope,” I say, crossing my fingers behind my back. “All good here.”
“Hmph. Even better for you, your eight o’clock had to cancel. That’s why I need my gosh-darn pen!”
I stop fiddling with my badge. “No first patient?”
“Nope. I texted Chance. He’ll be in at ten for your 10:15 with Mr. Alvarez.”
Ten? Jake’s always in before eight. Is he avoiding me?
This ignites a storm of all-new anxiety; I press a hand to my chest.
And feel Rhonda’s pen in my scrubs pocket. I must have grabbed it on my way in.
I hold it out to her, feeling more than a little sheepish. “I’ll unpack the linen delivery.”
“That’s why you’re my favorite.” She grins and snatches her pen. “You don’t have to get them; Ashley likes doing the linen. You can come keep me company while I input the online appointments.”