by Cher Etan
Her phone rang at the end of it and she looked down to see that it was Dean calling her. She stared at the name for a while wondering if she should answer but she was physically and mentally exhausted. There was no way she could summon enough energy to be the girlfriend right now. She barely had enough to declare herself a human being. So she clicked ignore then texted him to say she’d speak to him later, long day, blah blah. She put her phone in her pocket and sighed deeply then started when a cup of coffee appeared before her face held by the most delicate looking pair of hands she’d ever seen. She followed the hands to the face and her eyebrows went up in surprise. It was the new supervisor; Dr…Shelley or something. All the nurses were buzzing in excitement about him and calling him Dr. Sexy. He was a tall distinguished looking man with jet black hair going gray at the temples. His eyes were piercing blue and he tended to pin people down with them. She’d seen doctors lose their ability to speak when Dr Sexy, er, Shelley fixed his eyes on them. And now the same thing seemed to be happening to her.
“I thought you could use this,” he said, his deep voice soothing her wounded spirit.
“Thanks,” she squeaked not exactly sure why this guy was even speaking to her. They had been introduced at the meeting at which he was presented to them but had hardly exchanged two words since.
“I’ve been watching you Ms. Leonard,” he drawled smiling at her.
Meaghan brows lifted at the ‘Ms.’; she wondered if it would be incredibly rude or extremely flirty to say ‘that’s Dr Leonard to you’. She didn’t really know how these games were played.
“Why have you been watching me?” she asked instead.
“Because…you’re going to make a great surgeon one day,” he said fixing her with that stare and making her hand shake. Nerves; it was just nerves.
“Really?” she asked voice higher than usual. Dr. Shelley was a neurosurgeon of really good repute. The hospital was lucky to have him. He’d said he’d wanted to work here because he grew up in Queens. Meaghan had been really surprised to hear that – he certainly did not have the look of any of her neighbors…but it also gave her hope. If a fellow Queens resident could reach the heights that Dr. Shelley had then surely she had a chance too.
“Yes. Really. Plus I hear you grew up around here too,” he said.
Meaghan stared at him suspiciously, she could be crazy but he really did sound like he was flirting with her. She couldn’t remember what the nurses had said about his marital status though…either way; she had a boyfriend so it wouldn’t fly. Should she just come right out and say so though or how the fuck did this work?
“I did grow up here. My mother worked as a nurse in this community and she inspired me to go into medicine,” she said.
“That’s cool. My dad was a mechanic and my mother is a house wife,” he informed her.
“Oh,” Meaghan said at a loss for how to reply.
“Well anyway, I wanted to compliment you on the exemplary work you did today. First rate. Was this your first crisis situation?” he asked.
“Yes,” Meaghan said warmed by his words, “It was…”
Dr. Shelley nodded, “Yes, I know. The first one can be overwhelming. Would you like to sit down to some coffee and talk about it?”
“Yes I would,” Meaghan said with relief. She definitely needed to talk to someone about her day and Dr. Shelley would understand her like neither Bain nor Dean would. He had been there; maybe he could give her some useful tips about how to get over the feeling of failure when one of her patients died; or how to cope with being immured in people’s shit all day every day and then have to go home and smile at your loved one like everything was alright with the world. When you knew how fucked up it really was right this minute, where some kid was dying and you can’t save them and you have to put on a brave face and tell their parents that there was nothing more you could do. It sucked ass.
*****
Dean drew up to the hospital anticipating surprising Meaghan by taking her home and cooking her dinner. He’d heard about the accident on I-295 and that patients had been taken to Mt. Sinai. So he’d called earlier to commiserate but she hadn’t picked up and he knew it had been hard for her. He realized they rarely talked about the hard things; too many barriers to that, what with his family drama and their limited time together which he realized was mostly spent in bed. After his talk this morning with Smith he’d realized he didn’t really know how Meaghan felt about the continuous attempts to sabotage them perpetrated by his mother and his ex-girlfriend. She always said she was fine with it; that she understood but maybe…
He pulled into the parking lot just in time to see her sliding into a blue SUV with a tall white older looking guy. The guy drove off and before Dean could think about it, he was following them. They didn’t go very far; just to La Trattoria, Meaghan’s favorite restaurant…the guy handed her out of the car – she was smiling at him – and they walked into the restaurant. Dean vacillated between wanting to drive off right away and wanting to find out who this guy was who his girlfriend seemed to have blown him off for. It seemed she wasn’t too tired to talk to him. He snatched his phone off the console and sent Meaghan a text.
Where are you?
He tapped his foot, waiting anxiously for her reply. Willing her to tell him the truth. She didn’t reply for a while and Dean was just contemplating stepping out of the car and going to confront her when his notifications pinged.
I’m at work. See you later?
Dean stared at the text, his eyes burning and his heart beat fibrillating dangerously.
She had lied to him.
*
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15