by Max Monroe
Did I not do a good enough job? Were her hickeys already fading?
I hope not.
I didn’t really understand what had drawn me to mark her so thoroughly, but whatever it was, the urge wasn’t waning. If anything, the thought of them fading into oblivion made my collar feel tight and my chest feel heavy.
All of my unsubstantiated, unexpected frustration was cut short with a ping of my phone.
I pulled it out of my pocket, figuring it was a page from the floor, waiting for me to stop reading gossip articles and come to fucking work. But it wasn’t.
It was a text message from Pamela Lockhead—a woman I’d had sex with, sure, but not the one I’d been thinking about.
God, you really are a manwhore, my mind taunted as I tucked my iPad back inside my locker and focused on my phone.
Pamela: I got a meeting with the mayor for you.
My eyebrows shot nearly to my hairline with both surprise and excitement.
Me: Holy hell! Seriously? I think I might be in love with you.
I winced when I hit send before thinking through my words carefully. Jesus Christ, Scott. I might be in love with you? That’s the worst fucking thing you could say to this woman. She hadn’t seemed clingy when I’d taken her home that night, but immediately after being intimate, she’d flipped the switch. I was still angry with myself for taking everything that far. On some deep, internal level, I’d known Pamela Lockhead wouldn’t be happy with fucking once and moving on.
Pamela: It’s in two weeks. I just emailed you all the details.
This time, I made sure my response didn’t make me want to punch myself in the nuts quite so much.
Me: Thank you.
Pamela: We should get together between now and then. Have some fun.
See, Scott? Do you fucking see what you’ve done? She had clinginess written all over her. The more I would fuck her or consider fucking her, the more complicated my life was going to be. It was better to cut and run after the one time.
Not to mention, the thought of fucking Pam after fucking Harlow felt ruthlessly lackluster. And, surprisingly, made me feel oddly nauseous at the very thought.
Me: Sorry. I’m slammed with work the next two weeks.
Fucking hell, that was an awful cop-out. But I couldn’t exactly tell her to fuck off given the fact that she’d just secured a meeting I’d spent months unsuccessfully attempting to land on my own.
Pamela: Maybe after then. ;)
Ah Christ.
Me: Yeah, we’ll see.
Don’t judge me. My mother may call me a heartbreaker, but I hate breaking fucking hearts. My real game is staying far enough away that I don’t have to.
I tucked my phone back into my pocket before I could give it any more thought and slammed my locker closed. No doubt I was a good five minutes late for my shift now. But that was one perk of being the boss. I’d just tell Deb I was busy doing important shit, and she’d have no choice but to believe me.
Knowing they were working shorthanded without me, I shoved open the door and broke into a jog on my way to the floor.
Will Cummings was running the other direction with a sweating, panting pregnant woman on a gurney next to him.
He smiled and nodded in my direction. “I see you got a live one,” I called after him, but he was too busy listening to the woman as she screamed in his ear. He really was one of the best doctors I’d ever seen, his bedside manner completely unparalleled. Not actually obscene in any way.
I, on the other hand, actually deserved my nickname. Hell, I probably deserved his. But the old saying was right: Nice guys finish last.
“Dr. Shepard!” Deb yelled just as I rounded the corner.
She had barely contained panic—the kind that only came with years of training—in her eyes.
“What’s up, Deb?”
“You’re just going to have to see it,” she told me and turned in the other direction to break into a jog.
I followed her obediently, grabbing a pair of gloves from an empty bay on the way there. If this was anything like she was making it sound, time and protection were going to be of the essence.
She pulled the curtain back as the woman behind it cried out in hysterical agony, and it didn’t take me long to figure out why.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I muttered just before jumping straight into action.
Visibly pregnant with a—
“Is that a curtain rod?” I asked, fucking horrified as I got a closer look at the pole sticking straight up and out of her protruding belly.
“Yes,” Deb said, efficiently briefing me. “She’s thirty-six weeks pregnant and was walking on 53rd when that struck her from above. Probably someone working in an apartment with the window open. The police are looking into it, but overall, it just seems like horrible timing.”
“My baby!” the woman screamed, panting to catch her breath through the panic. “Somebody please tell me my baby is okay.”
“What’s your name?” I asked as calmly as possible, stepping forward to take her trembling hand in mine.
“Luc-y,” she answered, a little sob hitching at the very end of the word.
I turned quickly to Deb. “Page Dr. Cummings. I just saw him headed to the OR with another patient, but I want him on this.”
“You got it,” she responded quickly while Sherry worked to get an IV going in Lucy.
I turned back to her and looked her in the eye. “Hi, Lucy. I’m Dr. Shepard—”
“Like on Grey’s Anatomy?” she asked, horrified and curious at once. It was amazing what adrenaline could make you focus on.
“Sort of. But I promise there’s less death around here.”
She tried to smile, but the effort was completely in vain. I didn’t blame her. Given the seriousness of her situation and the lingering Harlow-Pam clusterfuck, I didn’t feel much like joking either.
“What’s your baby’s name? Have you picked out a name yet?”
She nodded, her face cracking as she started to fall apart.
My heart jumped into my throat for what she must be feeling, not what I was. Thanks to years of training and medical experience, I felt calm. “No, no, Lucy. You stay focused on me, okay? What’s the baby’s name?”
“Jacob.”
“Jacob. That’s a fucking great name. Strong. Sure,” I coached her. She nodded. “I might have chosen Scott, myself. But Jacob is really, really good.” Sherry managed to work and roll her eyes at once. I was a great leader, giving my staff the skills to multitask like that.
Swift and efficient, I assessed the point of entry and put up a silent prayer that the rod’s relatively small size, the low amount of bleeding at the site, and the fact that it was lodged slightly to the right of her abdomen versus the center, would be the reasons both the patient and her baby survived.
Quickly, I placed the fetal monitor on the heartbeat of Jacob, and all of us took a deep breath when his heartbeat filled the air, strong and sure, just as I’d said.
“See, Lucy. He’s strong. Everything is going to be okay.”
Still, I knew I couldn’t do anything about removing the rod until Will was there to monitor and assess the baby.
“Vitals?” I asked Sherry, and she immediately rattled off the patient’s heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation.
Her oxygen level was stable, which told me the rod hadn’t impacted her diaphragm, or worse, her lungs, but her blood pressure showed a steady drop over the past five minutes. I needed to get her to the OR before mom’s decrease in vitals started to affect the baby. Not to mention, the patient most likely had serious internal trauma that needed to be fixed stat.
I looked at the clock and noted another sixty seconds had passed.
We need to go. Now.
Deciding he was taking too long, I made a decision on the fly and rolled with it. Honestly, that was the brunt of what I did on a daily basis. If you can’t make quick decisions, you don’t belong at the head of an ED.
“Okay,
we’re moving. Tell Will to meet us in OR Three.”
“Okay, Dr. Shepard,” Deb called as I pulled the sides up on Lucy’s bed and made use of the wheels.
“Let’s go, Sherry. Scrub in.”
She nodded, and we were off at a run.
Five hours of surgery and a safe delivery by C-section later, mom and baby had both managed to survive the trauma. Jacob was with his father—who managed to show up moments after we’d entered the OR—safe and secure in the nursery of the maternity ward. And Lucy was stable, but being monitored closely in the Intensive Care Unit.
I had no doubts she’d survive, but the amount of internal injuries I’d had to fix once I got inside made it certain that her road to recovery would be a little bumpy.
But Lucy was strong, and her baby was strong, and the amount of loved ones who’d congregated in the waiting room during surgery proved she had all of the love and support she’d need to get through it. I was confident, a few months down the road, Lucy and Jacob would be happily living their lives, and this unfortunate traumatic experience would only be a memory.
Needless to say, the five hours we’d spent inside that OR had been worth every second.
Will had done a hell of a job, and not to blow my own horn, but I wasn’t so bad either.
But as I watched Will celebrate this success story with his girlfriend, Melody—after trusting her enough to call her up to assist from the clinic—I felt a twinge of loneliness I wasn’t used to.
Unwilling to think too much about it, I texted Harlow.
Me: Have dinner with me.
Harlow: No.
A smile took over my face immediately. God, yes. This was what I’d needed—to spar. These days, life without challenge seemed boring.
Me: Have lunch with me.
Harlow: No.
My smile deepened even further as I sank into the wall behind me and moved my thumbs over the keyboard on my screen.
Me: Have sex with me.
Harlow: NO.
Me: You know, I read something somewhere about protesting too much. It’s a defense mechanism to protect you from what you really want. With the way you shouted no like that, I’d say you really want to have sex with me again.
Harlow: Yet another guy who doesn’t realize that no actually just means no.
And just like that, my smile was gone. I shoved away from the wall and swallowed the thick saliva in my throat. I respected women more than anything. I might not always show it perfectly, and I might push the boundaries sometimes, but that was a hard fucking boundary I never crossed.
Me: Wow. That’s… I’m sorry.
Harlow: Fucking hell. That wasn’t fair of me. You know that no means no. I know you know.
Everything suddenly felt too serious again, and a deep, clogging pressure filled my chest. I had to do something to break through it.
Me: So that’s a yes to the sex?
Harlow: Haha. God, you are an ASSHOLE.
Seeing her laughter in those four little letters almost as well as I’d hear it if she were right in front of me, I finally felt lighter.
Me: Okay. I’ll ask again tomorrow. ;)
“You boned him!” Amanda shrieked into my ear. “You boned Dr. Erotic! This is almost too much to comprehend right now!”
“Would you stop yelling? I’m at work right now,” I whisper-yelled into the phone as I hopped to my feet and quickly shut the door to my office. Well, my shared office with another Gossip columnist. Since, I did most of my work from home—well, usually my favorite coffee shop up the street from my apartment—I wasn’t in the offices more than one or two days a week.
Thankfully, my office mate Fiona, was enjoying a nice reprieve in the Bahamas.
But it was more than clear I’d made a huge mistake on dishing the dirty details to Amanda while I was at Gossip’s offices. The last thing I needed was for my coworkers to hear I’d been rendezvousing with Scott Shepard. It was one thing to work with nosy people, but it was a whole other ball of wax when being nosy paid their fucking bills.
Unfortunately, it was either now or a six a.m. phone call East Coast time, thanks to the six-hour time difference my stupid jet-setting friend had created. And Lord knows, I was not a fan of waking up before the sun rose.
“Like, in your office at work?” she asked. “Or just sitting around in your underwear inside of your apartment at work?”
“In my office, smartass.”
“Are you wearing pants?”
“Obviously,” I muttered. “My boss would stab me in the vagina with her stiletto if I was just strolling around the offices flashing my beave to everyone.”
“So you’re a crotchless panties kind of gal?” my best friend questioned with a smile in her voice. “Go figure. I never would’ve guessed.”
“Oh, yeah,” I retorted. “I just love wearing underwear that literally serve no purpose. It’s my favorite.”
She laughed. “I still don’t understand the point in them. Like, either just be naked or wear underwear. Why do the halfway thing?”
“For some reason, a lot of guys dig it.”
“Mateo would just want me bare.”
Wait…what? Did she just say Mateo?
“I mean…” she stuttered. “I’m pretty sure Mateo is the kind of guy who doesn’t—”
“Who doesn’t what, Amanda?” I questioned. “He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t like fucking you when you’re wearing crotchless panties? Because you’re totally boning your client and you said you’d never do it, but you totally are having sex with that Spanish piece of meat! Oh my God! You little floozy! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Fuck,” she muttered. “I just… It just kind of happened…”
I grinned. I’d fucking called this one since before she’d left to run Spanish Adonis’s PR tour. “Is this the point in the conversation where I say I told you so?”
“Like you should talk,” she snarked. “Two words. Scott motherfucking Shepard.”
“Pretty sure that’s three words.”
“Whatever,” she retorted. “And I’d say it looks like we’re both having an I told you so moment, huh?”
She had a point. “Touché.”
“But in all seriousness, this whole thing with…yeah…with him…it needs to stay on the down low, okay? Like, no one else can know it happened or else I could lose my job with the firm.”
“I’m not going to say a word. Promise.” I might’ve been a gossip columnist, but I had boundaries, and my best friend’s life was definitely a hard limit for me.
She sighed. “Sometimes it’s a little unnerving that my best friend writes a goddamn gossip column.”
I laughed. “You mean, it’s unnerving when you’re actually in the middle of something completely hot that is totally gossip-worthy, but that I would never in a million years write about?”
“Exactly,” she responded, amused. “Okay, I gotta go now, but you bet your sweet ass we are revisiting the whole you having sex with Dr. Erotic conversation later. I need to know details. Lots and lots of dirty details.”
“Ditto. I’ve heard Spanish guys are really good with their rhythm, and I really need you to confirm that it isn’t a case of stereotyping. And I sure as fuck would love to know if you’re ever going to come back home or if you intend to run away with your new boyfriend.”
It felt like it had been a year since I’d last seen my best friend. Sure, it’d only been about a month, and the PR tour that was supposed to be a month had only been extended to two, but still. I was half tempted to catch a flight to Europe just to make sure she was okay and not living against her will in a random cult inside of a remote village.
She scoffed. “He’s not my boyfriend, Low. And I’m not sure of the exact date I’ll be back. The PR tour is prolonged because Mateo is getting such an amazing response everywhere he goes.”
“Okay. Fine. Your Spanish lover,” I corrected. “And by amazing response do you specifically mean the response he receives from your vagina?
”
She snorted. “Shut up.”
“Give your Spanish lover a tongue kiss for me. Loveyoubye!” And before she could toss out a sarcastic retort, I ended the call and got back to work.
And by work, I meant research.
And by research, I meant browsing the internet for funny GIFs and taking BuzzFeed quizzes.
In my defense, though, sometimes it’s these very GIFs that inspire the next column.
Generally, it’s the GIFs where hot male celebrities are shirtless, but still.
Inspiration is inspiration, right?
And in my opinion, nothing says inspiration like Ryan Reynolds and Chris Pratt shirtless…
“Harlow,” my boss’s voice pulled my attention from my laptop. In all of her power-suit glory, with the door now opened, she stood inside of the doorway of my office space.
I cleared my throat. “Yes, Stella?” I asked as I quickly clicked out of the BuzzFeed quiz I was taking and sat up straight in my chair.
She strode across the hardwood floor, her stilettos click-clacking with each step until she reached my desk. Stella McCarthy—my boss and the editor in chief of Gossip—was a real-life doppelgänger of Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada. When she said jump, everyone in the office asked how high. And when she actually took the time to stop by your office, you’d better make damn sure you weren’t fucking around.
I took a quick glance at my laptop screen to make sure only my Word doc was visible. The last thing I needed was for Stella to see me taking a Guess My Age Based on My Olive Garden Selection quiz.
“I need you to cover an extra piece this week.”