by Kaylin Evans
“Ooh, aren’t you sweet?” Holly croons, and Sawyer’s already flagging down the bartender.
“Is that Dr. Carter I see over there?” Caitlin asks.
“Yeah, and Decker from internal med,” Sawyer says. “Shall we join you ladies?”
Oh God… this is turning out exactly as I feared. In another minute or two, I’m going to be locked into some kind of three-way coworker date-hookup-nightmare scenario. I can already see it in Holly and Caitlin’s eyes—they don’t want to go home alone tonight, and knowing Sawyer, he’ll be happy to oblige.
“What are you drinking?” he asks me as he waves Drs. Carter and Decker over to the pool table.
I polish off the last of my beer and set it on a nearby table. “Actually, I think I’m going to call it a night.”
“What? No,” Caitlin says. She sounds sad, but I wouldn’t say we’ve crossed the threshold from coworkers to friends just yet, and I doubt she’ll miss me. If anything, my leaving tilts the ratio of girls to hot doctors in her favor.
“Seriously?” Sawyer asks.
I nod, reaching for my purse. “Yeah, I just remembered there’s this JAMA article I wanted to read before my next surgery. You all have a good night.”
I turn on my heels, high tailing it for the door before anybody else has a chance to object. I wave politely at the other two docs as I pass them, and then I’m outside, breathing in the cold late winter air and looking up at a sky full of stars. As eventful as my first six months here have been, you really can’t beat the scenery.
The bar door opens behind me, and I hear Sawyer’s voice. “Hey, Alyssa. Got a minute?”
I turn, surprised that he dragged himself away from two cute nurses who were no doubt getting ready to throw themselves at him. “Well, that article won’t read itself.”
I smirk to show him that I’m teasing, but here’s another surprise—he looks abashed. I draw my coat closed and wait for him to speak.
“I didn’t ruin your girls’ night out, did I?” he asks. “I didn’t mean to butt in.”
I laugh. “Yes, you did.”
Sawyer stuffs his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and the motion draws my eyes downward, to the contour of his cock beneath tight denim. I quickly shift my eyes away as he says, “Okay, you’re right. I did, but only because you hate my guts so much when we’re at work. I figured with a little help from the ol’ beer goggles, you might like me better in a social situation.”
Well, that was unexpected. Makes me feel a bit like a bitch, too, which—okay, thanks to the slight buzz of alcohol in my system, I can admit that I’ve been meaner to Sawyer than is strictly necessary.
“I don’t hate you,” I say. My eyes flick back down to his package and I mentally scold myself. The square jaw, the big brown eyes, the firm biceps—there are so many other attributes my eyes could be drawn to and yet I just keep returning to the most embarrassing one!
“Coulda fooled me.”
“I just…” I just think you’re a playboy who doesn’t take his job seriously and is going to use his social connections to score the Chief of Surgery job, I think. Instead of that, I say, “We have different work philosophies.”
Sawyer laughs and looks away, shaking his head. “Well, if that isn’t the most politically correct answer I’ve ever heard…” He meets my eyes again and it must be the booze, but I feel something awaken in my core. I get what all the other girls see in him… I’m just not fooled by it. “I’m a good surgeon, Alyssa.”
“I know.”
“And I take care of my patients, just like you.”
“You do,” I concede.
“But I also know how to let off some steam,” he says. “I work hard to play hard. You should try it sometime—before you burn out.”
“I prefer to just work hard,” I tell him, taking a few steps up the sidewalk. “I’ll leave the playing to you. See you Monday, Dr. Stone.”
“Happy reading, Dr. Grant,” he answers, and I’ve already got my back turned to him.
I walk up the sidewalk and listen as Sawyer goes back inside, the sound of the jukebox momentarily cutting through the silence outside. When the door is closed and I’m alone again, I let out a long breath, shaking off my encounter with Sawyer.
The truth is that I did want to cut loose a bit tonight, and it was just bad luck that the only bar worth going to in this town is where Sawyer apparently likes to cruise for chicks.
At least it’s still nice out—it’s February and the ground is frosty, but I’m perfectly warm in my coat, and it’s a good night to take a stroll back to my apartment. I’m in one half of a duplex, and the other side is already dark by the time I get home.
My neighbors are a sweet elderly couple who told me when I moved in that they’ve been together for over forty years and have lived in Hemlock Hills the whole time.
I want something like that eventually—maybe not the small mountain town, but definitely the long and happy marriage. For now, I’ve got my job and my medical journals, and I know I’ll be here for the next three years working off my student loan debt… unless Sawyer Stone drives me out of town first.
The next morning, I’m up bright and early as usual, and I guess I’ve got Sawyer to thank for the fact that I’m not the least bit hungover when I show up to the hospital at seven a.m. to begin morning rounds.
Taking a job as an attending physician at a larger hospital, with a bigger surgical staff, would have meant a lot fewer weekend shifts—and I really kicked ass during all five years of my residency. There were a number of high-profile hospitals that would have been happy to take me on… but none that offered the same rural medical school loan forgiveness that I qualify for at Mountainview.
With a hundred grand of my own debt, plus terrible credit and a whole lot of inherited financial burdens thanks to my dad, that program is really my only chance to climb out from under all of it and start fresh three years from now.
In the meantime, here I am—all caught up on the latest clinical research and here bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to be the best damn surgeon these mountains have ever known.
I check on all the patients that are currently in recovery and talk to the night nurse before the shift change, then prep for surgery. The board is pretty empty today—it usually is on the weekends, and that’s one nice thing about working in a small hospital—but I got a text from Ryder Cane in the clinic last night just before I went to bed telling me to expect an appendectomy today.
Any risk of rupture? I’d texted back, a little jolt of adrenaline already working its way through my veins in case I needed to sprint into action.
Not now… I’ll schedule for the morning, Dr. Cane had answered.
I’ve got a similar rush of adrenaline flowing through my body now, as I head into the scrub room and watch through the window as a nurse and a surg tech work together to prep both the patient and the room.
While they’re positioning disposable surgical drapes around the patient’s abdomen, I’m scrubbing my hands and forearms and reviewing the steps of the procedure. It’s a simple one, which I’ve done at least twenty times, but repeating the steps in my head before I go in is part of the pre-surgical ritual I’ve developed over the last five years.
Umbilical incision for the optical device… second incision–
“Morning, Dr. Grant.”
A deep, velvety voice cuts into my recitation and I look up to see Sawyer standing in the doorway of the scrub room.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. “I thought you weren’t on the schedule again until Monday.”
“I’m not,” he says, “but I promised my bowel resection I’d check in.”
I roll my eyes. “Well, aren’t you the surgeon of the year? He’s got a name, you know.”
It’s Anthony, and I happen to know that he’s healing well and ready to be discharged because I checked on him while I was doing morning rounds.
Sawyer smirks at me. “I know—I just wasn’t sure you knew
it. Oop, missed a spot.”
He points at some non-existent fleck of dirt on my hand, and I scrub under my nails even harder even though I know he was just teasing. If a patient around here gets an infection, it sure as hell won’t be because I didn’t scrub diligently enough.
“Well then, what are you doing here, in my scrub room?” I ask.
“Did they dedicate the room to you?” he asks, acting genuinely befuddled as he checks the door for a nameplate. “I hadn’t realized.” When I give him a scowl that says I’ve had too little coffee and too much of you, he relents and holds up his hands. “Okay, okay, truce?”
What is he, my little brother? It sure as hell feels like it sometimes, except I’ve only got one sibling and she’s enough of a handful—I’m not auditioning additional roles.
The surg tech and nurse are looking at me through the window, and the anesthesiologist is in place, ready to go at my signal. I’m holding everyone up, and I am never late for surgery.
“Fine, truce,” I say. “What do you want?”
“Honestly, I just wanted to apologize if I drove you away from the bar last night,” he says, and for a moment, I’m taken aback. The Sawyer Stone standing in front of me now bears very little resemblance to the one I’m used to—no swagger, no superiority complex, no sarcasm. I can almost believe he’s being sincere.
“You didn’t,” I lie.
“I think I did,” he says. “I was just trying to be friendly, but it seems like I have a special talent for getting under your skin. I’m sorry I wrecked your night out and I’ll try to steer clear in the future.”
I’m momentarily dumbstruck, studying Sawyer’s big, dark eyes and trying to catch some glimmer of dishonesty, some evidence that he’s teasing me, toying with me yet again. He really does seem to be telling the truth, though, and I consider asking him why he can’t be this decent all the time.
This Sawyer is a man I could work with, somebody I could have a beer with on a Friday night.
“Dr. Grant, we’re ready for you.” My scrub nurse comes into the room, propping the door open with her foot to keep her hands sterile, and I nod to her.
“Thanks,” I say. “I’ll be right there.”
“Better get in there and save a life,” Sawyer says, backing out of the scrub room. He’s gone before I can explain that it’s a routine laparoscopic appendectomy and nobody’s life is in danger, and then it’s just me and my team—who are doing an admirable job of pretending not to be curious about our conversation.
“Let’s do it,” I say, belatedly resuming my pre-op ritual.
Umbilical incision for the optical device…
4
Sawyer
I leave the scrub room, but linger for a moment to watch Alyssa gown up with the help of her scrub nurse.
She really is a fantastic surgeon, and I don’t think anyone at this hospital—or any other—would say that she’s less professional than me. But at least half the time I’ve spent working with her since Mountainview opened, I’ve just wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her a little bit until she promised to lighten the hell up.
Or better yet, grab her and push her up against a wall. Part of me thinks that’s all she really needs.
My obligations for the day are through, and unlike my rival, I’m neither a workaholic nor a boss’s pet, so I head for the exit. I’ve got no plans for the rest of my day off and most of the people I’ve met in this town are workaholic doctors, so God only knows what I’ll find to occupy my time, but before I have to worry about that, I run into Ryder at the elevators.
I’m waiting for a ride down and he’s in the elevator on his way up, but the damn elevators in this building seem to have a mind of their own and the doors open on my floor.
“Hey,” he says. “Aren’t you supposed to be off today?”
“I could say the same to you,” I tell him. “Just checking on a patient.”
“Well, I’m mostly buried in paperwork. I just took a break to grab lunch,” he says, holding up a bag from Atomic Sub down the street. “Haven’t seen you in forever—want to come to my office and split a meatball sub?”
I shrug. “Sure, why not?”
I step into the elevator and we go up to his office on the third floor. Ryder and I have been thick as thieves ever since medical school, and he made a damn good wingman back in the day, even if he never let me hook him up. Now he’s sort of my boss, but he just rekindled an old flame with his high school sweetheart, so I barely see the guy.
“So, what’s been going on?” Ryder asks as I take a seat in one of the plush chairs in front of his desk and he hunts around in a cabinet for a knife to cut the sandwich.
“Well, I’ve been feeling a bit misled regarding the female population of this little hamlet,” I say. “When you asked me to come here, you said there was a bar scene.”
“There is.”
“One hipster bar and a bunch more filled with old miners does not a bar scene make,” I say. “Plus you made me promise not to sleep with the Mountainview staff, and that severely limits my options.”
“You could settle down, stop sleeping around and get a girlfriend,” Ryder suggests, to which I respond by pretending to gag. Ryder just rolls his eyes because he’s in love and he thinks relationships fix everything. No idea where he got that dumb idea. He hands me half his sub and I chow down as he asks, “So, what else? How’s the surgical staff getting along?”
“Fine,” I say. Lie.
The thing is, it’s not really my fault that I can’t walk into a room without Alyssa snapping at me about something, and it’s not hers, either. I’m sure we both would have rather interviewed for the Chief of Surgery job the old-fashioned way. One of us would have won, the other would have found a job elsewhere, and the decision would be made by now.
But Ryder wanted me—I like to think it was because of the innovative 3D printing work I did during my residency and not just because we’re buddies. And his dad wanted Alyssa. We’re both young and a brand-new hospital like Mountainview is the only place either of us could land a chief position so soon in our careers, so of course we both wanted the job.
Two people, one job… what to do? Xander Cane decided that a year-long competition to prove our mettle would be the fairest way to choose, and make sure whoever wins is experienced enough with the department by then to take on the job.
I like to think I’m a pretty easy-going guy, I roll with the punches, but Alyssa was pissed when she showed up and found out the person she was competing against was best friends with one of her bosses and practically an honorary son to the other.
Ouch.
“Come on,” Ryder says around a mouthful of sub. “It’s not fine.”
I shake my head, feeling all of my contrition from the scrub room melting out of me and being replaced with righteous indignation. “I just don’t understand why Grant can’t lighten the hell up here and there.”
I tell him about the bar last night, how Alyssa left in a huff and didn’t exactly forgive me with open arms when I tried to make it right this morning. I leave out how dickish I felt after I essentially drove her out of the bar, and by the time I’m finished ranting, Ryder has his arms crossed and he’s looking at me skeptically.
“So are you still gonna stick with ‘it’s fine’ when it comes to personal relations in your department?” he asks.
“Hey, I didn’t ask to compete for Chief of Surgery,” I say, holding my hands up. “It’s not like it was my idea, and I’m doing my best to take it all in my stride. She’s the only one holding grudges and acting like it’s all my fault. The woman hates me.”
“I don’t know about that,” Ryder says. “Sounds like classic playground pigtail pulling to me—from both of you.” This time, I’m the one with the skeptical look, and I just raise an eyebrow at Ryder until he adds, “Having a crush isn’t the worst thing in the world.”
“A crush? What are we, twelve?”
Ryder cocks his head to the side. “A
dmit it—you like her.”
“I like her ass,” I say, being intentionally vulgar as I add, “and she’s got a nice rack. Are you telling me I can break your rule about not banging the staff?”
My best friend looks at me like I just slapped his grandmother, or gave him a thunderclap headache or something. “No, man, that’s not what I’m saying at all. All I’m saying is that this is a contentious situation but you could make it a little easier by not holding onto that toxic masculinity macho bullshit attitude you have about women.”
He polishes off the last of his half of the meatball sub. While he’s chewing, I say, “You just think everybody else is wearing the same rose-colored glasses that you are since you got back with Erin.”
“Would it be so bad?” Ryder asks.
As I head out of his office, making my second attempt of the day to leave the hospital and find something to do with the rest of my day off, I think about his question. Taking the stairs down to the first floor, I decide that yes, it would be so bad to see the world not as it is but as lovestruck fools see it.
When you get right down to it, I’m a realist and love doesn’t last. Those optimistic feelings always wear off and they leave scars behind. I’d rather spend my time having fun in ways that don’t leave any permanent marks.
5
Alyssa
I’m sitting at the small dining table in my kitchen with a bowl of cereal for lunch and the latest issue of the American Journal of Surgery propped up against the milk carton when my phone rings on the coffee table behind me.
I barely even need to stand to retrieve it—my half of the condo is much tinier than it looked when I leased it based on the photos I found online. It’s barely more than a studio, although there’s a separate bedroom so it was billed as a ‘cozy one-bedroom perfect for students and young professionals.’ Read: people who don’t spend much time at home. But that’s me in a nutshell, and aside from the fact that I’d definitely have a cat if there weren’t a no-pets policy, it suits me fine.