by Kaylin Evans
“Just for getting drunk and messing up?” Alyssa asks with a shake of her head. “That’s awful.”
“Well, for getting drunk and messing up one too many times,” I say, and her expression changes.
“How many times have you been in a drunk tank?”
I shrug. “A few. Enough to make Silas call me a disappointment right there on the precinct steps and then drive away and leave me to find my own way home. I was mad at him for a long time, but the older I get, the more I can see his point. Our mom’s been through enough without having to worry about me.”
I get a little pensive, fidgeting with the label on my beer bottle, and Alyssa puts her hand on my thigh. I look into her eyes and a little part of my brain… the part that’s further south than the rest of it… thinks that if I moved closer to her right now, if I tucked a strand of that curly brown hair behind her ear and then let my finger trail along her jawline… she’d let me kiss her.
A more responsible part of my brain—one I’m shocked and a little annoyed to discover exists at all—says that kissing her now would be a mistake.
So I smile and redact another name from the top a her resume, and put it back in the pile. “My point is that family shouldn’t weigh into this decision. Everybody deserves a fair shake.”
Alyssa’s gaze lingers on me for a moment, and then she gets back to work, saying, “Thank you, Sawyer.”
11
Alyssa
The hiring process is slow, especially when half the candidates don’t even live in Hemlock Hills and we have to coordinate video conference interviews with them. Trying to schedule two surgeons with heavy workloads is nearly impossible, and adding a third person into the mix turns it into an exercise in patience.
Crazily enough, I rarely have the urge to strangle Sawyer these days and he’s been genuinely helpful with the whole process.
Who knew?
By the end of the week, we’ve got our candidate pool narrowed down to the top three. Unfortunately for Taylor, she didn’t make the cut, but honestly, I saw that coming—all I wanted was an excuse to get her out of a bad situation at home. She’s still a teenager and the only thing on her resume is the coffee shop—I’m sure she could handle this job, but there were much more qualified applicants. I’ll just have to keep thinking of ways to get her out of there.
In the meantime, we’re ready to bring our three candidates in for interviews. Before that can happen, though, I’ve got to find time to actually call each of them, and it’s not looking good today.
I started my Friday shift with a burst appendix, followed immediately by a gallbladder removal, or cholecystectomy in medical terms. Sawyer was in the second OR all morning and into the afternoon doing wound debridement and burned tissue removal on a teenager who forgot to let go of a lit bottle rocket and it exploded against his bare leg, so I can’t ask him to schedule the interviews.
Now it’s nearly four o’clock, I’ve got a whole day’s worth of charting still to do, and I haven’t eaten a bite since the barely satisfying donut I snagged from a coworker at the nurses’ station this morning.
My stomach is rumbling and I’ve got every intention of sequestering myself in my office until all that paperwork is done and those phone calls are made… but first I pop my head into Sawyer’s OR.
“Hey,” I call from the door, careful to stay out of the sterile field, “how’s it going in here?”
“This is going to be one unhappy kid when he wakes up,” Sawyer says with a shake of his head. “He’s gonna be in a lot of pain and he’ll likely need grafts. How many times do we have to tell people that fireworks are dangerous?”
“Probably about as many times as it took to convince people that lawn darts were a bad idea,” I say. “You doing okay? You need a break?”
“Needed one two hours ago,” Sawyer says, “but I’m nearly done. Might as well press on now.”
“Okay,” I say. “My choly patient is in post-op. I’ll be in my office if you need anything.”
He grunts, looking up from his patient but only briefly as I slide back into the hallway. He really does get tunnel vision in the OR, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I never see him as serious or as focused as he is when he’s operating.
I decide to take a quick detour to see what’s left over in the vending machines at the end of the day—even a nutrient-free bag of chips sounds better than the gnawing in my stomach right now. But when I get to the ground floor, Ryder Cane comes jogging over to me.
“Hey, Alyssa, got a minute?” he asks, and I try not to let the dismay show on my face. Goodbye, salty snack.
“Sure, what’s going on?” I ask as I follow him in the direction of the walk-in clinic that he runs.
“Have you met Lucas yet?”
“Lucas… no, is he new to the staff?”
“Not exactly, but I have a feeling we’re going to be seeing a lot of him,” Ryder says. “He’s four and he’s very… curious.”
I laugh. “Oh lord, what’s that code for?”
“He seems to have an affinity for putting his toys in places they don’t belong,” Ryder explains. “I helped him extract a Lego Darth Vader from his left nostril in the fall, and today it seems he’s swallowed at least one fridge magnet.”
“Uh-oh,” I say.
“Yeah,” Ryder agrees.
He knocks softly, then pushes open a treatment room door, revealing a nervous-looking woman sitting on the exam table and bouncing her son on her knee. The first thing out of her mouth was, “I don’t know how he keeps doing this! After the Lego man incident, we went straight home and cleaned up everything that could possibly be dangerous. I never thought of the fridge magnets. Is he going to be okay, doctor?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I say, feeling a bit anxious because swallowed magnets are no joke. I introduce myself to her and to Lucas, and she tells me her name is Lydia. Then I turn to Ryder. “Has he had images yet?”
Ryder nods. “Just got back from radiology—was it as fun as I told you it’d be, Lucas?”
The boy smiles. “It was cool. I had to lay on a table and this big robot flew over me and scanned my belly.”
“Well, it wasn’t so cool that we’re going to be doing it again any time soon,” Lydia says. “Right, doctor?”
I go to the viewing box mounted on the wall and Ryder points out the dense, circular object inside Lucas’s small intestine. “This is what I wanted to consult you about,” he says. “Does that look like one magnet or two?”
I frown and look a little closer. It’s really just one big blob to me, but I know why Ryder’s being extra cautious. One magnet isn’t a huge deal—most likely it would pass on its own with careful monitoring. Two magnets, though, could be drawn to each other through the thin walls of the bowels and end up causing obstruction, decreased blood flow, or even tearing.
“I really can’t tell,” I say, looking apologetically toward Lydia. She’s not going to like this. “To be safe, I think we should admit Lucas overnight, take a few more sets of X-rays to monitor the movement and make sure everything comes out safely.”
“More robots?” Lucas asks, not the slightest bit upset about the prospect of staying in the hospital tonight.
“Okay,” his mom says, her voice shaky.
I put my hand on her shoulder. “It’ll be okay. At the first sign of trouble, we’ll be here to take care of it, and I’ll be here for a little longer tonight, so if you need anything or you have any questions, you can have one of the nurses page me.”
“Thank you, Dr. Grant,” Lydia says, then turns to fuss at her son.
Ryder holds the door open for me and I follow him out. He goes to the clinic’s combined reception desk and nurses’ station and asks the woman sitting behind the computer to arrange for Lucas to be transferred to pediatrics, then he turns to me.
“Thanks for that,” he says. “It’s so hard when there’s a young kid and an anxious mom involved.”
“No problem.�
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“So what’s got you working late tonight?”
I smile. “Your dad.”
Ryder chuckles. “Good luck with that.”
“Thanks. Good luck with magnet boy.”
I go over to the vending machines in the lobby—they’re mostly for patients and family members who are stuck waiting, but they get plenty of use from the staff too. I grab a couple things, salty and sweet, then head back upstairs to set up those interviews. It’s getting late and I hope I can still catch all three of our top picks today to schedule them.
I’m on my way to my office when I see a light on beneath Sawyer’s door. He must have finished with his burn debridement, and I remember what he said about being overdue for a break, so I knock, then pop my head through the door.
“Hey, Stone, you want a–” I’m about to say Snickers, but the word dies in my mouth when I see Trish sitting on top of his desk, her thighs spread in front of Sawyer’s chair. “Holy shit.”
“Grant,” Sawyer calls, but I’m already closing the door, muttering an apology and getting the hell out of there.
Good God, from the way Trish eye-fucks him when they’re in the OR together, I should have known, but I sure wasn’t expecting to walk in on them. At least I interrupted at a point when all their clothes were still on.
I jog the rest of the way to my office and close myself inside, equal parts mortified and annoyed. There I was, trying to be a good coworker, bury the hatchet with a little snack, and instead of helping me out with this damn project for Chief Cane, Sawyer’s trying to score with a surg tech! Or maybe already has!
“Jerk,” I grumble as I slump into my office chair and stuff the Snickers in my mouth in three bites. I don’t even enjoy it. I’m just hungry and pissed off, and I reach for the bag of chips next, mechanically eating them while I try not to picture Dr. Stone banging the staff.
Is it just Trish, or have there been others?
Hell, has he banged everyone on this floor but me?
And, shamefully, I wonder… why not me?
I polish off the chips in short order and wipe my greasy fingers on my scrub pants. My shift should have ended by now and I’ve just about run out of fucks to give. There’s only one more thing I need to do before I can get the hell out of here for the night. I swivel in my chair to wake up my computer and access the hiring software, then call the first of our three personal assistant candidates.
I’m just hanging up with him, interview successfully scheduled, when there’s a soft knock at my door.
“Shit,” I whisper to myself, brushing the crumbs off my thigh, then call, “Come in.”
The door opens, and Sawyer steps in. I sort of figured he’d end up here when he was done with Trish, but I was expecting a contrite posture, a plea for discretion. Instead, he lets out a long breath and plops right down in a chair in front of my desk, saying, “Thanks for that—really dodged a bullet.”
I cock an eyebrow at him. “What bullet?”
Sawyer reaches behind himself and pushes my door closed before he says, “The bullet named Trish.”
“Oh? I figured you just forgot to lock your door.”
His eyes go wide, his expression sincere as he says, “God, no. She followed me out of the OR and cornered me. She’s been pulling crap like that since the fall.”
I can’t help smirking. I know sexual harassment isn’t exclusively a woman’s cross to bear, but I’ve heard plenty about Sawyer’s reputation and he’ll have to forgive me if I find it hard to believe he can’t handle someone like Trish.
“What’s wrong? She’s not your type?” I ask, knowing it’s bitchy even as it leaves my mouth.
Sawyer shrugs. “Maybe in a past life. I’ve got my eye on someone else though.”
He’s looking straight at me, those dark, brooding eyes boring right through me, and I squirm in my chair thinking about the night we reviewed resumes in his apartment. How he came and sat beside me, put his hand on me… how I was both relieved and disappointed that it didn’t go any further.
He can’t possibly be talking about me.
So why do I feel so hot around the collar when he looks at me like he is right now?
I sit a little taller, making an effort to compose myself, then slide a resume across the desk to him. “Here—since you’re available now, help me finish setting up the interviews for Chief Cane’s assistant. There are two more to schedule. You make one call, I’ll make the other, and we can get out of here.”
Sawyer gives me a wry look, like admin work was not what he came in here for, but he takes the resume and gets up. He goes to the door, then pauses and looks back at me. “Was this all you wanted? When you barged into my office earlier?”
“I did not barge,” I say. God, he gets me so frustrated. And even if I hadn’t already demolished that Snickers, there’s no way I’d give it to him now. “Don’t worry about it. Just make the call, okay?”
“Sure.”
He leaves, and just as he’s pulling the door shut behind him, I decide to be nice after all. I call, “Thanks,” but he probably doesn’t hear.
Fifteen minutes later, my second interview is set and I’m more than ready to go home. I just need to pop back over to Sawyer’s office—knock and wait this time—to make sure he got our third candidate scheduled.
When I step into the hall, the overhead lights have been dimmed and the whole department is quiet. With a small staff and not a ton of surgeries going on yet, it gets pretty deserted around here at night, and I wonder if Sawyer already left. His door is closed, and there’s no light coming from within. I’m just walking past on my way to the elevator when the door swings open.
“Oh, hey,” I say, breathless as Sawyer nearly walks right into me.
“Hey, sorry,” he says, pulling his door closed again. “I’m just on my way out.”
“Me too.”
“Got that interview scheduled,” he says, then hands me back the applicant’s resume.
“Thanks.” I take it, and then all of a sudden I blurt, “Who is it you’ve got your eye on?”
Good lord, why? I could blame it on the sleep deprivation, or the junk food dinner I just had, but honestly, I’m just plain curious. And deep down, a little bit hopeful.
“I think you know the answer to that,” he says, his voice low and rumbly.
Fuck, this man does things to me that he shouldn’t, things he probably does to every woman he encounters, and yet every time he looks at me, I always end up feeling like I’m something special.
Then, just as suddenly as I blurted out that regrettable question, Sawyer loops an arm around my waist and pulls me to him. I can’t breathe as our lips touch meet there in the hallway.
My entire body comes alive with tingling desire. An hour ago I might have slapped him for trying this, but it feels so genuine, so right, that I part my lips and let his tongue into my mouth—just for a second before I come back to myself, realize that we’re kissing in the empty hall of the surgical department, dangerously close to crossing the line into full-on making out.
“Sawyer.” I put my hand on his chest, pull back. “We can’t.”
“I know. Not here.”
“Not anywhere,” I tell him. “We work together, and we’re competing for the same job. Adding sex to the mix… it won’t end well.”
He lets out a sigh as he releases my waist. “You’re right. I’m not sorry I kissed you though—I’ve been wanting to since day one.”
I smile and confess, “Me too.”
“Come on, let’s go home,” he says, nodding in the direction of the elevator. When I hesitate, he laughs. “Our own homes, I mean.”
“Right.”
While we wait for the doors to open, he says, “I’d like to propose a truce. The whole ‘mortal enemies’ thing was sort of fun at first—I enjoyed making you blush.”
“I do not blush.”
He laughs. “You do—when you get angry and when you’re flustered. It’s cute.”
Cute. I wonder if I’m blushing right now, because the last thing I ever wanted a colleague to call me was cute… but coming from Sawyer, and after that kiss, I just roll my eyes and accept the compliment.
“So, what?” I steer the conversation back around. “You want to be friends or something? I didn’t know you had female friends.”
He just shrugs as the elevator doors slide open. “I don’t, but we could try. You could be my first.”
12
Sawyer
Friends. What the fuck was I thinking?
I’ve never had a truly platonic female friend in my life, and every time I’m around Alyssa, I don’t know if I want to push her up against a wall and kiss her, push her to the side on my way to chief of surgery, or some combination of the two.
After a very tense elevator ride and a quiet walk through the lobby, we go our separate ways in the parking lot while I wonder if I’ve lost my mind.
I’m still wondering that when I get back to my apartment and go out on my balcony with a cold beer. It’s a nice night and it’s pretty uncommon for me to actually take the time to just sit back and enjoy it. On the rare occasion that I do, I remember how great the mountain air is.
I sit down in a seldom-used Adirondack chair, crack open my beer, and let my eyes adjust to the low light until I can see the stars. I’m thinking about Alyssa—the way her hair cascades over her shoulders when she’s not all scrubbed up for surgery. The fierce competitiveness that’s so annoying sometimes but which perfectly matches my own. The softness of her body when I pulled it against mine…
I hear feminine giggling and foreplay noises coming from the balcony above mine, and that snaps me out of my reminiscing. I enjoy the sound for a few seconds, until I remember that Ryder has the apartment directly above mine and I must be listening to my best friend and his woman about to get it on.
We’re close and all, but not that close.