“Listen up, and listen good, Dr. Koels,” Aimee told me, stalking closer in the narrow elevator. “Don’t talk to me like that. I’m not here for your entertainment or puerile gratification. We aren’t friends. I don’t even want to be your colleague. Leave me alone.”
I blinked. I was not used to being rejected like this by women, especially not this abruptly or thoroughly. The only good thing about working in this god-forsaken hospital was her, but it was beginning to dawn on me that she really did hate me. It wasn’t a coy scheme. She genuinely and completely despised me.
“Is this because of—” I started to ask about that one time with Hunter and she cut me off with an angry noise.
“You know what it’s because of, and if you don’t, you fucking should.” I swallowed. She was furious. Her skin had gone pale and her eyes were wide. “You, Brandon Koels, are a bad person. You create havoc, chaos, and unhappiness wherever you go. Now you’ve brought it here, where I live and work. I want none of it in my life. Do you understand?” Her voice was an angry hiss.
“I’m not seventeen anymore, Aimee,” I managed to say, still stunned and confused. I had not expected this sort of outburst from her.
“Neither am I.”
“Just—”
“No. Just nothing,” she told me. “You think you can just come in and charm me with your cute smile and lunch offer? You think I’ll let you off the hook for being cruel to me? For breaking your dad’s heart and running away? You think that I’ll sleep with you? Well, think again. You can take that knowing attitude of yours and shove it straight up your smug ass.” As soon as the doors popped open, she was walking away. “Go bang a nurse or something but leave me alone,” she said over her shoulder. “I’m not buying what you’re selling, Brandon Koels. I’m much too smart for that.”
I gaped at her retreating figure and thought over her suggestion for a moment. Nah. I didn’t want to bang a nurse. I wanted to bang Aimee Ford. And if it made my father furious? Well, that was even better.
6
Aimee
For a little while, I was able to avoid seeing Brandon Koels alone. We passed now and then in hallways, and we stared at each other uncomfortably when we did before he would try to talk to me and then I’d bolt, but I managed to prevent any direct interaction with him. Still, I knew he was around and causing trouble because I heard stories. Lots of stories. Stories galore.
Everyone had a story about the young Dr. Koels. From the most senior doctors to the little candy stripers who were volunteering from the local high school, the mysterious Brandon Koels was on everyone’s mind. It didn’t help that he seemed fixated on making sure that his displeasure at his assignment and dislike of this hospital were abundantly clear.
As the estranged, black sheep son of the hospital’s Chief Medical Officer, Brandon would have been a topic of conversation even if he tried his best to blend in and keep his nose clean. However, all sources indicated that the opposite was true. Given his antisocial behavior as a teenager, I wasn’t really all that surprised, but it was almost like he was trying to get in trouble. He was the undisputed hot topic of all the hospital gossip for weeks, and it was all typically sensational. Knowing Brandon, however, some of it was probably also true.
All the nurses in Oncology are in love with Dr. Koels. That was probably true. Seemed plausible enough to me. I mean, I’d seen him. I might hate the man, but he was undeniably very good looking.
Dr. Koels made a patient cry when he rejected her advances. Also very plausible. He was always a heartbreaker with an ego bigger than Texas. He’d made me cry plenty of times when I tried to be nice to him when we were kids. He could have let me down gently, but he never did.
Dr. Koels is so rude he got banned from the cafeteria on his first day. Again, I had no trouble believing it. I had copious first-hand experience with his uniquely terrible attitude. He always had amazing grades and a terrible disciplinary record at school. How he managed to be an academic wunderkind and a stereotypical popular bad kid at the same time was really an achievement. He settled into the same dynamic at the hospital. The mostly male staff physicians largely hated his arrogant, laidback attitude and obvious disdain for their power structure. The women, meanwhile, loved him. Or at least they loved to look at him.
Dr. Koels rides a motorcycle and listens to heavy metal music. Not at all surprising and almost certainly true. He used to love Metallica and risk seeking. Motorcycles are road-legal death machines. As a doctor who’s seen a hundred too many biking injuries, I can say that as an absolute fact. Brandon should know better, but he probably doesn’t care. He was always too cool for things like physical safety.
Dr. Koels doesn’t want to be here and is trying to get himself redeployed to the middle east. That sounded perfectly plausible too. He probably doesn’t want to be here any more than I want to have him here.
Some of the stories were a bit more unbelievable.
Dr. Koels has scars on his chest from being in a knife fight.
Dr. Koels has military tattoos all down his arms that you can see when he scrubs in.
Dr. Koels has an expunged murder conviction.
Dr. Koels joined the military to escape jailtime for drug possession.
Dr. Koels goes skydiving for fun.
“I heard that Dr. Koels has a modeling contract on the side,” I heard one of the phlebotomists telling her coworker when I walked through the lab one morning. Her voice was a breathy whisper, but I have great hearing and a sixth sense for Brandon gossip. “Can you believe it? Apparently, he’s on billboards in Monaco.”
Her companion nodded seriously. She looked like she actually believed this nonsense. “I heard he does swimwear modeling in Europe.”
“You know men don’t wear swim trunks in Europe. They like their swimwear to be more, um, form-fitting.” She raised her eyebrows significantly.
“Usually I’m not a big fan of speedos, but I’d make an exception for him. I heard he dated Kate Upton before she dumped him for being too moody and broody.”
“I don’t mind moody and broody. Especially if it looks like him.”
They both giggled. I rolled my eyes. Oh, for God’s sake. He’s a jerk, not a brooding, mysterious Byronic hero! This is just getting out of hand.
“Brandon Koels doesn’t date supermodels or pose in speedos,” I announced. “He’s just a decent looking doctor with a terrible attitude. That’s his job. What’s yours? Gossiping?”
The two women turned around to gape at me. They both flushed guiltily. “Sorry, Dr. Ford,” they said in unison before getting back to work. I instantly felt bad for losing my temper and being bitchy, but it was too late now. I just nodded coolly and moved on.
I told myself that I wasn’t even curious about Brandon beyond how he might affect the hospital and my job. I almost convinced myself it was true. I did my best to ignore all the gossip and walk away when people started talking about him, but the truth was that I was just as curious about what Brandon was up to as everyone else. If anything, I had it worse than the average person.
Naturally, Martin and I hadn’t talked about Brandon at all. It was easier that way. I didn’t know how to deal with Brandon’s sudden reappearance in my life, so I wasn’t dealing with it at all. It was mostly working. Mostly.
7
Aimee
“I don’t care whose son he is, Brandon Koels doesn’t belong in this hospital.” Edgar Mounce, the head nurse of the ER department, wasn’t happy. His posture was full of righteous indignation, which didn’t go well at all with the ham and swiss sandwich I’d been trying to wolf down between consults. Lucy had decided to accompany me downstairs out of curiosity and was listening intently at my side as we watched Mounce’s apoplectic display. “He’s dangerous, incompetent, unprofessional, and I want him gone,” Mounce insisted.
You and me both, Mounce. I didn’t say it, of course. That would be unprofessional and unbecoming of a future Chief Health Officer. I couldn’t let my personal baggage ge
t in the way of my ambition, after all. I wasn’t technically in any position to make staffing decisions yet, but the fact that Mounce called me over anyone else was evidence that people were starting to see me as an authority figure.
“What happened?” I asked in a measured, reasonable tone of voice.
The three of us could see Brandon rushing between triage cases in the bullpen beyond the administrative office where we were meeting. He seemed to be doing fine. We were behind a pane of one-way glass, which meant we could see out, but no one could see in.
“He’s a complete asshole, that’s what happened,” Mounce told me. He looked steaming mad, which was something I’d never seen before.
“Can you elaborate?” I asked, looking between him and Brandon. Being an asshole, while unfortunate, was not by itself a disqualifying thing. The truth was that a lot of doctors were complete assholes. It comes with the territory sometimes. We all had to be pretty resilient to make it in this field and sometimes it didn’t leave a lot of room for social niceties.
“Yes, I can elaborate,” Mounce said, striding forward excitedly. He was holding a thick stack of records, and he also produced a small notebook from his coat pocket. “I certainly can,” he repeated. His voice was eager.
Lucy watched with interest. I got the feeling from her smirk that she was here for the entertainment value. And the gossip.
“What’s that?” I asked, nodding at Mounce’s notebook.
He pursed his lips. “It’s my list of Dr. Koels’ infractions.”
“How can you have a list? It’s hasn’t been that long.”
Mounce fished his reading glasses from his pocket and slid them on. “It’s really remarkable in a sad sort of way,” he said coolly. “Would you like to hear the list?”
This was surreal. I mean, I always thought Brandon was an asshole, and God knows he got in trouble a lot in school and most of his teachers hated him, but this was a hospital and he was a doctor. What’s more, he was a doctor in the US military. Surely, they taught him how to follow rules there. I mean, there was no way he was smoking pot in the bathrooms… right?
I blinked. “Please.”
Mounce smiled a tiny, mirthless smile. “Yesterday, he accused one of the residents of gross incompetence for ordering a patient an MRI. He yelled at her in front of the nurses and patients. She cried.”
“Is that the patient’s chart?” I questioned.
Mounce nodded and slid it across to me. I looked at it for a moment, running through the details in a flash. Eighty-two-year-old female patient on vacation from Pakistan visiting her grandchildren. She reported a 1979 surgery for hip replacement after a car accident.
I paused.
“This patient has a hip implant?” I asked.
Mounce shrugged. “So? Titanium doesn’t react in an MRI machine.”
“We know for a fact that the implant was made of titanium?” Mounce swallowed. “We don’t, do we?” I felt myself frowning. This was kind of a big deal. “While non-ferrous metals have been standard in implants in the US for decades, elsewhere in the world other metals are still frequently used. Putting the patient in an MRI machine could have literally ripped apart her torso from the inside out.” I absolutely hated defending Brandon, but he was right. Having a woman die a grisly death from an easily preventable medical error would have been tragic. “Ordering an MRI was gross incompetence. We’re lucky he caught it.”
Mounce looked disconcerted. “He made the resident cry. He wouldn’t explain what the issue was to her and told her to hang up her white coat before she ended up in prison orange.”
I couldn’t help my tiny smirk at the clever line. Brandon was quick, I’d give him that.
I shrugged.
“Okay, I’ll give you that one. That’s just the tip of the iceberg anyway,” Mounce replied.
Mounce had three more cases that he was sure demonstrated Brandon’s incompetence, but none of them actually held up to medical scrutiny. The problem wasn’t in Brandon’s judgment. It was in his personality. I was starting to become resigned to the inevitable outcome to this conversation.
I sighed.
“He’s been in the military for years,” I said, feeling deeply annoyed that I was having to defend Brandon. “They have a very different culture. It’s probably much less collaborative than what we try to foster here.”
“So, he just gets to treat the nursing staff like his personal slaves?”
My jaw dropped open. “Absolutely not. Has he been making inappropriate requests to, like, get him coffee or something? Because that’s unacceptable.”
“Um, Aimee?” Lucy interjected, pointing at the window to the bullpen. I ignored her for the moment, focusing on Mounce who was still very worked up and almost shouting.
He looked torn and red-faced. “He hasn’t been asking us to make him coffee, but he’s incredibly dismissive and he has no manners. He told one of the cafeteria workers that he got better food in warzones.”
“Um, Aimee? Edgar?” Lucy repeated, louder this time. “I think you two should look at this.”
I frowned at Mounce. “Well, our cafeteria food isn’t the best.”
“Aimee!” Lucy said a third time, this time with a lot more urgency. Mounce and I both turned to see what she was pointing at.
Brandon was in the process of dragging a patient out of an exam room and sending him sliding across the floor. They were clearly in the midst of a heated argument. Their raised voices were mostly unintelligible from where we were, but I could still hear lots of words that started with “F.” The patient was bald, tattooed, several inches taller than Brandon, and heavy set. The nursing staff and other patients were all aghast at the shouting match. As we all watched in horror, the patient got up and shoved Brandon with an open palm. I felt my mouth drop open. Before anyone else could react, Brandon pulled back and punched the patient in the solar plexus, dropping the larger man to the ground in one smooth movement.
“I told you he doesn’t belong in this hospital,” Mounce stuttered.
8
Aimee
There’s a lot of grey area in the practice of medicine. There’s a lot of space to make choices that may or may not be absolutely correct but can be justifiable one way or the other. It’s the space that falls under the heading of “professional judgement” and is essential for what we do. But even with all that grey area, there are plenty of bright line boundaries and things you aren’t supposed to ever do. There are rules we have to follow. For instance, punching patients. Punching patients is pretty much never allowed.
I stormed out of the office with Mounce and Lucy trailing behind me, burning with fury. People saw me coming and got the hell out of the way.
Brandon, who was standing over the now unconscious man’s body, looked up at me. We locked eyes. He looked stunned, either by the fact that he’d just decked a patient or the furious expression on my face. Seconds ticked by in uneasy silence as all the nurses, other patients, and doctors stared at us. My gaze snapped down to the patient, now face down on the floor, and then up to Brandon.
“Brandon!” I finally blurted. “What the fuck?”
At my outburst, Lucy and Mounce started moving the patients back into their rooms and trying to clear the area.
“Just don’t,” Brandon snapped back at me. He tried to push past, but I blocked him.
“I need to know what just happened,” I said, trying to get my temper under control and sound professional. “He could sue us!” My voice was much louder than it should have been, but I was at my wit’s end over Brandon.
“I was defending myself,” he said, yelling back at me. “Besides, there are extenuating—”
“There’s no excuse for punching patients!” I screamed at him. Lucy and Mounce were moving the patients away, but the staff were definitely getting a show. The truth was, I was terrified. This was my first time filling in for Martin for any length of time and now the hospital was going to get sued on my watch. And it was all Brandon’s
fault. “You can’t attack patients! That’s why we have security.”
“I wasn’t—”
“I saw you!” I snapped. “We all saw you! You really screwed up.”
“I’m not going to explain myself to you,” Brandon said. “Not unless you can get your temper under control.”
What a freakin’ hypocrite. “My temper?! I’m not the one hitting people!” I took a deep breath. “You want me to get my temper under control?” I replied, dropping my volume down to a low hiss. “Fine. Follow me. We have to get a written statement from you tonight, before you leave the hospital.”
He paused. “Yeah… no. I don’t think so. Not you. Not tonight.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?” Nobody else in this hospital would dare just tell me no like that. He was so goddamn rude!
Beneath us, the still unconscious body of the patient was a smoking gun. I could smell the stink of alcohol on the patient—he was obviously very drunk. There would be fallout from this. Brandon needed to listen to me if he wanted to keep his damn job.
“I said no,” he repeated. “I’m not writing you any statement essays. Not tonight. Not ever.”
“You have to,” I insisted, still in a near-whisper. “It’s policy.”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t. I couldn’t care less that it’s policy. You said you have a no-dick policy the other day, right? Well, I have a strict personal no-essay policy after hitting douchebags. I’m leaving. Right now.” He was looking at me like I was the last person in the world he wanted to see. I knew the feeling.
“You can’t leave until you give me your written statement,” I repeated. “That’s hospital rules and it’s nonnegotiable. You aren’t exempt just because your last name is Koels.”
Bad For You: An Enemies to Lovers Romance Page 4