“You didn’t have sex because the man was a total sleaze and used a fake profile picture,” Roya countered. “Otherwise you would have. And we both know it.”
Silence again. The monitors beeped intermittently throughout the room. A scalpel clattered against the tray. Roya landed a strike and they both knew it.
Olivia glanced at the clock, noting that it was time for her to step away for the others to work. Her work was too delicate to finish while the other two surgeons hit the peak of their procedure. Roya redirected her attention to inserting a steel rod through the femur. Now that the hard part was here, she had to push away all the emotions revolving around Olivia.
Even though the girl was young, her bones were hard enough to cause a significant amount of force to work it inside. Taylor watched attentively. Soon, she would have to do this exact same thing to the other side. The metal rod slid halfway through before it needed to be twisted an anchored. Roya made sure she completed every intricacy perfectly. The last thing Savannah needed was a faulty procedure, especially after enduring so much already.
“Sick,” Taylor appraised, breaking the tension. “Do you always hold the joint like that?”
“Yeah,” Roya answered. She loved it when other surgeons admired her technique. “I’ve found it helps reduce slippage in the bone. That means—“
“Less chance of adjustments later on,” Olivia finished softly. She had been admiring Roya from the outskirts of the surgical circle. “Amazing. Very well done.”
Roya relished the praise. Absorbed it and let it fuel her through the next four hours. When she was finished, she watched Olivia complete her surgical routine. The blonde finished with a smile, though she refused to preemptively call it a success. They wouldn’t know that until Savannah woke up.
In the sanitation room, Olivia chose the sink next to Roya. She bumped the brunette with her elbow. “Good work in there, Doctor Bahar.”
Olivia only used her medical name when she was teasing. After all this time, Roya wondered if it was really flirting.
Roya flashed her teeth almost involuntarily. “Thanks, Liv. You too. I saw that microdisectomy.”
Her flirtatious tone was even more obvious. Roya hoped it didn’t overstep, but she wanted it to be perfectly clear with her intentions: she still wanted this. Them. Neither an intern nor a random pickup at a bar had changed that. They were just an attempt to forget Olivia anyway.
It hadn’t worked.
Nothing would. Olivia was unforgettable.
Surprisingly, Olivia went with it. She lightly placed her hand on the soft skin of Roya’s inner elbow. Her thumb rubbed there, stoking a fire. “Why don’t you come over after work? I want to finish our discussion.”
Roya took in Olivia’s expression, and could see it for what it was: admiration. She forced herself to swallow. Pushed away her excitement to, hopefully, unleash later tonight. “I’ll be there at eight.”
Chapter 12
At 7:58, Roya parked in front of her best friend’s house. Even though the blinds were drawn, she could see the glow of light from the living room. She imagined what Olivia was doing in there. Did she feel this nervous too? Was her heart pounding, anticipating each second the clock ticked closer to eight? Olivia would have to be a machine to not feel this way too.
When she got out of her car, Roya made sure to grab the unopened wine in the front seat. She had picked it up on the way, an old tradition. This time it felt loaded. Instead of the bubbly moscato from the twenty-dollar rack, she splurged for an aged classic. A sharp and sweet red with floral notes. Even if things went horribly, at least the wine would be palatable.
Outside the door, Roya regarded her outfit. Olivia had complimented this particular shirt many times, and her jeans lifted her ass a good inch. The pieces came together well, showing off her long legs and slight curves. She appreciated that her effort paid off. Olivia would probably appreciate it too.
The wine felt heavy, so she shifted it in her hands a few times. Her finger hovered above the doorbell. It had never been this hard to press a button before. Walking through the door would send her down one of two paths. She would either leave with one less friend and heartbreak or start the life she had been dreaming about for years.
She would know which one in a matter of minutes.
With a shaky breath, she pushed it firmly.
Olivia answered the door so quickly that it was almost like she had been standing behind the door the entire time. Roya gasped at the sight before her. Olivia, with her hair down and casual black dress, looked damn near ethereal. It physically made Roya’s chest hurt, how badly she wanted to kiss her.
Instead, she forced out some recognizable words. “Hey there.”
“Roya,” Olivia greeted. “Is that for us?”
She ceremoniously handed over the glass bottle. Her ears burned hotter the longer Olivia studied it. “Yeah, I uh…thought we could use it.”
“This looks wonderful.” When Olivia smiled, everything felt less strained. “Come in.”
Roya stepped inside like she had thousands of times before. The fireplace crackled in the distance and made the place smell earthen and warm. Fall decorations had recently been placed around the entry and living room, signaling the beginning of October. She felt more at home here sometimes than she did in her own apartment. It was cozy, clean, and well-organized. The purest reflection of Olivia as a person.
“Are you hungry?” Olivia asked once they stood in the kitchen. She found a corkscrew to open the wine. “I have some lasagna we can heat up. It’s pretty good, though I do think I left it in the oven a little too long.”
“Maybe later.” Roya licked her lips and watch her best friend pour the wine. She usually stopped when the glasses were a little less than half-full, but tonight the wine almost hit the brim. “Someone’s thirsty.”
“Someone’s nervous,” Olivia admitted. She took an unusually large drink. Then she took another, taking the time to roll it around in her mouth. “That’s phenomenal. Thank you.”
“Only the best for the best.” Roya winked jokingly, but realized it didn’t quite come off that way anymore. Things were different between them right now. They stood on a dangerous precipice. One wrong step, and they would never recover. “Ah—Sorry.”
Olivia covered Roya’s hand with her own. It was the only thing connecting them from where they stood on opposite sides of the counter. The gesture was small, but massively promising. Roya allowed a small amount of hope to grow within her.
“Let’s go sit in the den,” Olivia offered.
Roya willingly followed her through the picturesque home and into the coziest space in the house. The flames from the fireplace kept the bite of cool fall air away and added an ambiance impossible to ignore. She stood awkwardly in the doorway, waiting for Olivia to sit first. Surprisingly, the blonde still chose their usual spot on the cramped loveseat. Roya both loved and hated her for it.
When she sat, their knees bumped. It was the first time they had touched since their elbow nudge earlier today, if that even counted. She took another drink of the wine. The taste was sharp, sweet. Worth the extra money just like Olivia was worth the extra effort.
Roya cleared her throat. “So…”
“I don’t like feeling awkward around you,” Olivia said bluntly. “It makes my whole world feel unbalanced.”
Roya thought about their relationship over the years. Until a month ago, they had the perfect friendship. Olivia was the first person she went to when things were bad. Or when they were good. They had daily lunch dates when their rotations allowed, spent the night with each other after drinking wine and watching movies until it was too late to safely drive home. Their schedules were synched, and they touched more than anyone Roya had known in her whole life.
With a sharp intake of breath, she realized they had actually been pseudo-dating all along. This was never meant to be a friendship. They were always destined to be here, having this conversation. It was always meant to come
to a head like this, an explosion of emotions as they worked their way towards forever together. Call it fate. Kismet. A joining of two souls that were always supposed to be one.
Olivia ghosted her fingers across her lips. “I also don’t like knowing that you’re picking up random women.”
“It was one,” Roya answered, holding up her finger. “And you’re the one always telling me to get out there.”
“Yes, but that was before I knew women were an option.”
Roya knitted her brow. “Wait. What does that mean?”
Olivia pretended to invest herself in the television show, but Roya knew that she was actually contemplating exactly what she wanted to say next. After a minute, the blonde refocused her attention on the building conversation between them.
“Do you remember when I said I had been interested in a woman before?” Roya nodded and Olivia smiled humorlessly. “It was you.”
It felt like the air got ripped from her chest. Roya grabbed onto the arm of the couch to steady herself.
“What? You said the woman wasn’t interested in you,” Roya repeated from a couple of weeks ago. “And I have definitely been interested.”
“Not at the time,” Olivia refuted. “I wanted to tell you then. I really did. But then you came to work talking about Eric and I—“
“Oh my god.” Roya dropped her head in her hands. “I am such an idiot.”
Roya recalled her life nearly six months ago. She had been going through an almost six-month long dry spell, and her attitude had begun to reflect it. After a particularly nonsensical meltdown, Olivia had practically begged Roya to get laid. Now that she thought about it, Olivia may have even offered to do it herself. Roya thought it was a joke at the time, but now her confidence in that wavered.
To make Olivia finally stop nagging, Roya went on a blind date with an orthodontist named Eric. He was handsome, smart, but...still a man. She was unenthused about his company from the very start. In fact, she remembered texting Olivia more often than she spoke to him over the course of their short meal. She left the restaurant before he even had time to pay the bill.
Roya turned red when she finally met Olivia’s gaze. “I only said I slept with him because…”
Olivia softly encased Roya’s wrist with her unbelievably soft hand. Her voice prodded gently, “Because why?”
“I wanted to make you jealous,” Roya groaned. “God, I am so stupid.”
“I’d judge you, but I would be lying if I said I hadn’t done the same thing.”
Roya’s eyebrows spiked upwards. “You have? When?”
“Well I never lied about having sex with someone, but I certainly…exaggerated a few things.” Olivia shrugged, brows knitted. “Why did we do that to each other?”
“To get a reaction.”
In the silence that followed, Roya finished the majority of her wine. She would normally go get more, but she wanted to be sober for this interaction. Olivia apparently felt the same, as she set her empty glass to the side. The room was a little too warm from the fireplace, but Roya appreciated the way it made Olivia’s hair look like spun gold.
Roya dared to break the heaviness in the air. “Why have you been fighting this so hard if you have felt this way for so long?”
“I told you,” Olivia answered. Her voice sounded shaky. “I’m afraid to lose you.”
“So you keep pushing me away? How’s that supposed to work?”
“Relationships only end in one of two ways, Roya. We could either end up together for the long haul, or we could crash and burn. Taking that chance is...terrifying.”
“But taking the chance is worth it,” Roya refuted softly. “Don’t you want to be happy?”
“Of course I want to be happy,” Olivia replied.
Roya didn’t know when it happened, but their faces were barely inches apart and kept moving closer. “Would you be happy with me?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Do you want to be happy with me?”
They were so close that Roya could feel the warmth of Olivia’s words. “More than anything.”
Roya cupped the blonde’s cheek. It was almost involuntary. “So let’s be happy together.”
Their eyes locked. Olivia looked at Roya in a way she never had before. A look reserved for lovers only. It felt like a whole realm existing within Olivia had been revealed for the very first time.
And then, before Roya knew it, they were kissing.
It was better than the first time they kissed, and infinitely better than any kiss she’d ever had before that. Olivia’s lips were soft and gentle, but they moved with purpose: to consume and be consumed by Roya.
They melded against one another, years of pent up energy bursting between them. Roya cupped Olivia’s head in her hands., prompting Olivia to straddle Roya’s lap. Being pinned down by the delicious weight of Olivia made Roya damn near giddy. Finally, finally, finally.
Mouths moved against each other with an ease that usually comes from years of intimately knowing someone. For them, it came naturally. Roya tasted the slight tang of wine, knew it came from Olivia, and tried to taste some more. Her hands tentatively slipped under the back of Olivia’s shirt. She had never touched the skin there before. Not like this.
It felt soft, both from Olivia’s obsession with moisturizing and from the simple fact that she was a woman. Her curves were apparent, lush, and Roya loved roaming around them freely. She gasped when Roya bit her bottom lip.
“I didn’t know you were a biter.”
“You’re about to learn a whole lot about me.” She nipped at Olivia’s bottom lip again. “Even the things you don’t want to know.”
“I want to know everything about you,” Olivia hummed.
Roya recalled the past few years. While they knew each other in a way more intimate than anyone else, they still couldn’t share everything. They weren’t lovers. They didn’t kiss or exchange soft touches. They hadn’t been able to experience each other in the coils of passion or come apart in the other’s arms.
This would change all of that. Roya pushed a few wild strands of hair from Olivia’s face. “I want to give everything to you.”
“I’m sorry I pushed you away for so long,” Olivia leaned down, planted another kiss on Roya’s lips. It felt mind-blowing to be the object of her desires. “Want to take this upstairs?”
She grinned. “If it means what I think it means—“
Their phones blared simultaneously. Roya dropped her head back on the couch and allowed a near growl to emerge from deep within her. “This cannot be happening.”
“Unfortunately, it is.” Olivia retrieved her phone from the table beside the loveseat. She started climbing off of Roya’s lap before she even finished reading the message. “And it’s Savanna Lee. We have to go.”
Chapter 13
They rode to the hospital together in a silence tinged with anticipation and dotted with words relating to all the traffic laws Roya was breaking. By the time they stumbled into the emergency room, the other three doctors were already suited up and on guard.
Roya stepped up to the patient. “Fill me in.”
“Swelling on the brain,” Taylor started. “The rod I put in yesterday started to slip too. And—“
“And all those heart problems we kept pushing off,” Doctor Price finished. He was bouncing on his toes, ready to get in there and do his job. “So what’s the plan?”
The monitors screeched in the background as the child’s heart rate spiked. Her body was failing, and it was failing fast. Everyone in the room looked towards the clump of five surgeons; all waiting to see what necessary step should happen first.
With one last adjustment to her mask, Olivia stepped up to take charge. “Okay, only necessary personnel. Everyone else can leave. If you want watch, go to the gallery. Just get out of the way. Now!”
Roya loved it when Olivia was assertive. Her voice got sharper, nostrils flared, and her walk would easily plow over anything in her way. Sh
e stood at Savannah’s head, already beginning to reduce the swelling there. The remaining nurses listened to her every request almost instantaneously thanks to the urgency in her voice. The appearance of this Olivia was rare, but sexy as hell.
The two cardiologists began reinforcing and rectifying her enlarged heart. Taylor left with the others, allowing Roya to stay and correct the structural issues. She glanced between the new x-rays on the wall and the prepped area on Savannah’s thigh. The rod seemed to have slipped through no fault of Taylor’s own. Sometimes it simply didn’t hold up.
Unfortunately, this wouldn’t just be an in-and-out kind of situation. Too many procedures at once could overload their small patient.
She sighed. “Damn.”
“What’s wrong?”
Roya jumped at the sound of Norah’s voice beside her. They hadn’t spoken since their last foray weeks ago. They had also never been together in front of Olivia before. Fuck. Roya did not have time for this.
But she also couldn’t discriminate against Norah. They were both willing participants in their sexual encounters. Norah didn’t deserve a lesser learning experience just because of what happened between them.
That didn’t mean she had to bend the rules for the intern though. No one got preferential treatment around here, whether they got naked with a surgeon or not.
“Why are you in here?” She questioned Norah. “Necessary personnel only. Interns should be upstairs.”
“Doctor Price asked me to stay.”
Roya grimaced. “Oh my god. Are you sleeping with him?”
“What? Gross,” Norah refuted. Her face twisted slightly. “But even if I was, it shouldn’t matter. You made it very clear that there was nothing between us.”
Roya thought back to the text message Norah had sent her after their second (and last) meeting in the on-call room. It was short, simple: I had a good time tonight. But Roya knew it meant more than that, and also knew she couldn’t give Norah anything more than an emotionally-detached orgasm. Her heart belonged with Olivia just as much then as it did now.
In Stitches (Rose Valley Hospital Book 1) Page 6