by B. B. Hamel
“Don’t.” I reached up and ran my hand through his hair and tugged. “I need you in this. You’re not done teaching me.”
“Ah, come on. You’re ready.”
“I’m really not.”
“Okay, you’re not, but you’re improving a lot.”
I grinned and kissed him. “Tell me why I put up with you again?”
“Because we have a deal, and because I’m very, very good at what I do. And also in bed.”
“There you go. That’ll do it.”
He kissed me, held it for a long moment, and I felt a spark of desire in me, and maybe we could blow off the rest of the day—what would it matter, really? Let the nurses and the staff gossip all they wanted. I’d be too busy sweating, letting Piers fuck me deep and rough, letting him get me off again and again.
But no, we had to be normal, functioning adults.
I broke off the kiss and put some space between us again. “All right, before you get too wound up, we have to start prepping for the next surgery.”
“Damn,” he said. “I guess we do.”
I sat down in his chair and forced myself to concentrate as he leaned over my shoulder, and we both got to work.
22
Piers
It was a quiet morning as I made my rounds. I gave Lori the morning off for good behavior—her surgery the day before had been very well done, and I was feeling pretty pleased with her progress.
We’d been training together for only a few months, and she was already coming along. Most surgical residents took years before they were able to perform flawlessly, but it only took Lori months to master that procedure—though it was only one of many she’d inevitably learn.
I was positive she could do it. Despite everything else crumbling down around me, at least she was a success. Going into this, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to teach her—I’d never tried to teach someone before, and the thought never really occurred to me. But it was apparent I could do it, so long as my student was already talented and smart, which really helped the whole thing.
Ahead and down the hall, I heard some shouts come from a room. One of the nurses, a woman I recognized named Tammie, rushed from the nurses’ station and ran inside. There was another shout, and I jogged toward them, looking around. There were no other nurses around, no other attendings.
I plunged into the room, thoughts disappearing. I lived for this moment, the second right before you step into chaos, when so many possibilities hung in the air.
“Mr. Slate,” Tammie said as she wrestled with an older patient, a big guy in his sixties with dark hair and a thick black goatee. “You need to calm down, please.”
She was a small woman, blonde and thin, maybe in her thirties or early forties. The patient thrashed and shouted something unintelligible as he tried to throw Tammie off him.
I had no clue what the hell was happening, but I jumped on the guy before he could hurt her.
“Sir,” I said. “Calm down.”
Tammie looked at me with shock, but her pause only lasted a heartbeat. She dove at the medicine drawer nearby and started rifling through it as the patient pushed against me, thrashing like a crazy person. I was worried he’d tear out his IV line and injure himself, so I did my best to pin him down, but the guy was relentless.
He growled and shouted, and I couldn’t understand a word he said. Another nurse came sprinting into the room and jumped on the guy, grabbed his other arm, and held it down. Tammie returned with a syringe and injected it directly into his line, and moment later the thrashing calmed and slowed, as the sedative took effect.
I stepped back from the man and took a few deep breaths. “What the fuck was that?”
“Thank you, Dr. Hood,” Tammie said. “Mr. Slate’s been having some mental issues lately, I don’t know what’s going on. We’re working on it.”
The other nurse got to work checking his vitals as I headed into the hall. Tammie followed me, wringing her hands. She looked nervous, and I had no clue why.
“You’re lucky I showed up, Tammie,” I said. “That guy was going to break you in half.”
She frowned a little. “You know my name?”
I laughed. “Of course I do. We worked together, what, last week?”
“Well, yeah, but, uh, I mean—”
I held up a hand to cut her off. “My reputation’s that bad, huh?”
“No, it’s not that.”
I ran a hand through my hair and laughed. “It’s fine, honestly. I get it. Everyone thinks I’m a bastard.”
“Less of a bastard, and more of an asshole.” She grinned at me.
I laughed again and walked with her back to the nurses’ station. “Fair enough. I’ve been a little tough to work with in the past.”
“That’s not always true, honesty,” she said. “I mean, you’re short, you don’t have great manners with the nurses, but there’s no bullshit, you know what I mean? No games, no power trips.”
“So I’m not universally despised?”
“I’ll say you’re not at the bottom of the list.”
I leaned up against the station and considered her for a second. I’d never heard a nurse talk like this before, but I was willing to bet they had these conversations with each other all the time. Nurse sentiment was important—they more or less ran the hospital, as much as the doctors liked to think they were the ones in charge. Tammie was opening up to me in a way a nurse never had before, and I wondered if I could do something with it.
But no, it wasn’t about that. Helping her was the right thing to do, and I would’ve stepped in whether I was trying to be less of an asshole or not.
“I appreciate that.”
“Thanks again for your help in there. I think Mr. Slate will be better. Dr. Atwood is trying a new medication that I think will help a lot.”
“Good luck, I guess. If the guy starts freaking out and trying to throw you out the window, call for me. I’ll take him down.”
“I bet you will.” She laughed, and I waved, walking off. I kept my head down, puzzling through that encounter, trying to square it up with what I knew about my situation. Nurses didn’t hate me—that was a good thing, for sure. But I didn’t know how it could help.
And it wasn’t like they actively liked me.
I headed to a lounge nearby and stepped inside. I wanted to get something cold to drink, and the room was mercifully empty—until Lori stepped in behind me.
“I thought that was you,” she said.
I turned, surprised. “What are you doing here? I gave you the morning off.”
“I know,” she said. “I got bored at home.”
“And now you’re stalking me.”
“Actually, I heard all that commotion, went to check it out, and found you saving the day.” She tilted her head and walked with me to the vending machine. “Good job back there.”
“You watched that, huh? Didn’t think to help?”
“It was over by the time I showed up, but winning good will with the nurses is a very smart move.”
“Didn’t do it on purpose.”
“Maybe you should.” She leaned against the machine as I bought a bottled water. This thing kept the drinks nearly frozen, which I loved.
“What do you mean?”
The water bottle thumped down into the dispenser and I reached down to grab it.
When I stood up straight, she was close to me, inches away. She touched my cheek with the back of her hand then kissed me.
I returned that kiss before turning her and pushed her back against the machine. The plastic front flexed with a deep boom. She let out a little gasp as I pressed my knee between her legs and cupped her ass with my hands. I kissed her hard, deeper, and the water bottle dropped to the floor, rolling away.
I didn’t care. I suddenly wanted her so badly. It was like that single touch, that simple kiss, pushed me over the edge and now I couldn’t stop myself. I was an animal, unleashed.
She moaned into my kiss. It was too far, m
uch too far. At any second, someone might walk in and see what we were doing—and then it was all over.
She put her hands on my chest and pushed back.
I let out a soft grunt, half a growl, and stared into her eyes. Her mouth hung open.
“We can’t,” she said.
“I don’t care.”
“I do.” She looked away. “If someone comes in, we’re both screwed. You know that, right?”
I stepped away with a curse and grabbed the water bottle from the floor. I took off the cap and chugged down half of it, the water so cold that it hurt my head and made my teeth burn.
“It’s this constant tug of war,” I said, looking back at her, “whenever you’re around.”
“Between what?”
“What I need to do, and what I want to do.”
“It’d be nice if those two things could align for once.”
“You’re right, but they never seem to. It feels like whenever I decide that I want you, there’s some reason holding us back.”
“Or it’s the same reason, over and over.” She sighed and looked up at the tile drop ceiling. “If I wasn’t your student, and you weren’t my attending, it wouldn’t matter. We could do whatever we wanted.”
“And yet here we are.” I tilted my head, staring at her. “You came in early to see me, didn’t you?”
She blushed a bit, and I felt a strange thrill run through my stomach. Of course that was why she came in—that was why she showed up here, why she hunted me down. She didn’t need to be in work yet, but she wanted to be.
She wanted to be around me.
That thought made me feel strangely good. I never experienced that before. My whole life, I’d pushed people away, acted like a grumpy asshole, pretended like I didn’t need people at all. Truth was, I needed someone to want me, and always wished someone out there would see past my hard exterior. She could, or at least she tried to, and the thought of her sitting at home thinking about me and feeling excited to see me made my stomach feel light.
“Don’t get all full of yourself.”
“I like it, though,” I said softly. “I want you to want me. You know that, right?”
“Of course you do. Dr. Asshole, you don’t care about anyone. That’s what you want everyone to think at least, right?”
“No, that’s all wrong.” I stepped toward her, almost pleading, and nearly begging for her to understand. “It’s not that I want to push people away, it’s that I’m driven to be the best—and that pushes them away for me.”
“Sounds like a good excuse.”
“But it’s the truth. You know I’m good. I didn’t get that good by spending a lot of time making other people happy.”
“And yet you’re trying to change. I saw you back there with that nurse. You helped her. You didn’t have to do that.”
“It’s because of you,” I said, staring at her. “You made me want to do this.”
“You had to do it. I mean, if you didn’t, you’d probably be fired already.”
I shook my head firmly. “No, it’s you. I might’ve given up already and walked away. I could find another job without too much trouble, even with this Nil Tippett blotch on my record. There are a lot of doctors out there that know me and would want me in their practice. I stayed because of you, Lori.”
“I didn’t ask that of you,” she said, almost whispering.
“I know you didn’t, but I wanted it. You need my training, and I need you. It’s a good match, right?”
She laughed and walked toward the door, shaking her head. “I’m getting the better deal.”
“I doubt that.”
She glanced back over her shoulder. “I’m getting some coffee. Do you want something?”
“Please,” I said, and she left.
I stood alone in the lounge for a few minutes, thinking about that conversation. It all made so much sense—my feelings for her, my need to stay at this hospital, everything. She was the catalyst for it all, the driver behind my desire to become a better man.
It was her, and always had been.
I left, walking slow, a dumb smile on my face. My problems weren’t solved, but what I wanted seemed that much clearer now.
23
Lori
Several weeks passed after that conversation in the lounge.
We didn’t talk about it again. We fell back into the routine: training, surgeries, discussing patients, working. We didn’t sleep together again, and he didn’t try to push for that.
We barely even kissed.
But the changes were enormous. Small things, at first: he smiled more, he laughed more, and he even tried to tell a few jokes. They weren’t great, but he tried.
Then bigger things: he let me take more responsibility, let me talk with the patients during consults, and let me take on more and more complicated surgeries.
He talked to the nurses and learned their names. He made small talk when he could, and went out of his way to be kind and helpful. Folks began to notice: the nurses seemed happy when he came around, and even the other residents lost some of their fear of him, and started asking him for advice.
I could tell he hated it. Every day, he wished he could go back to being a quiet, angry, laser-focused surgeon, but he was playing the game now. Gina noticed, she had to have noticed, there was no way to avoid noticing the new and improved Dr. Hood.
Part of me wished he wouldn’t change. I liked that pissed-off, arrogant bastard that I first met, but I had to admit that the new version was nice to be around. He complimented me more, and went out of his way to explain things that didn’t necessarily need an explanation, but he wanted to make sure I was learning absolutely everything possible.
I came into the hospital early that morning, intent on surprising him with coffee. He still showed up first, before anyone else did, and he liked to have some time to himself in his office. I got his favorite coffee from the fancy place near my apartment, and headed up to his floor, thinking I’d drop it off then kill some time in the lounge before he was ready to start going over the day’s schedule.
Instead, I reached his hall, and slowed to a stop.
Gina and Caroline stood outside of his door. Piers stood across from them, and though I could only see his back, I knew something was going wrong. I didn’t know what to do, and part of me wanted to run away—but instead, I walked forward, coffees gripped in my hands.
“—been an error somewhere,” Piers said, hands spread. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It’s in your handwriting,” Gina said. “In your files. If there was an error, it was your own.”
“You know how this goes,” Caroline said. “The hospital is liable, and we can’t risk anything.”
“What’s going on?” I said, announcing myself.
Both women looked at me. Gina made a face I couldn’t read, but Caroline forced a smile on her lips.
Piers turned to me, and I saw the rage in his eyes. I held up the coffee, and he took one, muttering a thanks.
“Hello, Dr. Court,” Caroline said. “We were just having a discussion with Dr. Hood. Maybe you could come back a little later.”
“Let her stay,” Piers said. “She’ll hear it soon enough.”
“You don’t need to go through this,” Gina said. “I understand it’s hard—”
“They’re suspending me,” Piers said, looking at me. “And they have the most trumped-up bullshit reason in the world.”
I felt my blood turn to ice. I stared at Gina, then at Caroline, confused. “What happened?” I asked. “We’ve been doing so good. The patients are happy, outcomes are great, things are going well.”
“We found evidence in Piers’s files,” Gina said, glancing at Caroline. “Really, Dr. Court, this isn’t any of your concern.”
“Bullshit,” Piers said. “They found bullshit. Some note I wrote about Nil, apparently calling him, what did you say, Caroline? A senile old bastard?”
“Senile old fool,” Caro
line corrected. “This is inappropriate, Dr. Hood. Please, Dr. Court, you can go.”
“I didn’t write any such note,” Piers said, his anger getting the better of him. “Go through all my files. Look at all my damn patients. Do I ever write something like that about any of them?”
“There are irregularities,” Gina said.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Piers asked, incredulous. “What else did you make up?”
“I should go,” I said, turning.
“Stay,” he said. “I want you to hear this.”
“I know this is hard,” Caroline said, trying to keep her voice level, “but it’s for the best right now. The hospital is liable—”
“You keep saying that.” Piers sipped his coffee and stared hate at her. “But I don’t give a shit about the hospital. This isn’t about that at all, this is about your vendetta against me, and your obsession with the Tippett family.”
Caroline laughed once. “My obsession? You’re the one that performed a risky procedure that you never should’ve performed.”
“And you approved it,” he said, looking at Gina. “That gets conveniently left out of the story.”
“We gave you too much leeway,” she said. “That was a mistake.”
“I guess that means you’re liable then.”
Gina shook her head. “We have to suspend you, Piers. I’m sorry.”
“This is prelude to you throwing me under the bus. You’re going to make me look like the bad guy, all so that the hospital can escape paying out too much money to those rich assholes, as if they need the cash. You know Robert Tippett is playing you both, right?”
Caroline looked uncomfortable. “Please, Dr. Hood. We don’t have to go down this road.”
“I want to.” His voice was level, but sharp. “I’m a pawn in that family’s game, and you’re sacrificing me for your own gain. You want prestige, or donations, or all of the above. And you don’t care if you throw out your best surgeon to do it.”
“Enough,” Gina said, her own anger rising. “This is entirely inappropriate, especially in front of your resident. You will be suspended, Piers, starting this afternoon. Pack up and go home.” Gina pushed past him and stormed down the hallway.