S.O.S. (Doctor Drama Book 3)

by Amanda Faye

  Sometime around midnight, I realized what the problem was. I didn't talk to Logan tonight. It must be the first time in two months I didn't talk to Logan before I went to bed. He had a burn patient come into the ER right as we were supposed to get off work. It was a chemical burn over the upper part of her torso and arms. Chemical burns are a whole different type of beast. I couldn't get so much as a peck on the cheek from him. Yes, I know what a whipped little woman that makes me.

  I've sent several text messages, but haven't gotten a response. I didn't think anything of it at the time. I saw the patient myself before I left for the day. She was in rough shape. It's no surprise to me that he couldn't use his phone. But now it's rounding the corner to two a.m., and I'm lying in my bed aching. Aching to talk to him, to see him. To assure myself that he hasn't been a figment of my imagination all these weeks.

  He could still be with the patient. Or, she could have died, and he could be dealing with her family and the after effects of losing someone. He could be asleep in an on-call room in case he's needed again tonight. He could be home sleeping in his own bed. In any case, it would be rude of me to disturb him in the middle of the night. The last thing a doctor wants is an unexpected text message at two a.m. That all but screams 'Warning Warning, Someone is about to die.'

  But I can't sleep. My arms are desperate to hold something in them. I haven't felt this needy for physical comfort since Brandon was a baby. Unfortunately, I already tried to climb into bed with Brandon. That didn't help. I'm craving one thing and one thing only. Logan Zachary Taylor.

  I'm out of bed and getting dressed before I've even made a conscious decision to do so. Black yoga pants under the purple long-sleeved tunic I wore to bed. Cream colored over the knee toe socks that Char got me as a joke last Christmas. Jokes on her. I discovered I love toe socks.

  A quick knock on Charlotte's door to let her know something came up, and I need to head towards the hospital, and the next thing I know, I'm sitting in my car on my way to Logan's apartment.

  ******

  I'm pulling into Logan's parking lot less than fifteen minutes later. I can't decide if it makes me feel better or worse that his assigned spot is empty. I hope his patient is okay. I send a little happy thought into the universe, then decide what to do from here.

  I should go home. I shouldn't be here. Logan isn't my boyfriend. This isn't my boyfriend's apartment. Right now, at this moment, I'm one of those crazy girls that guys joke about at the bar. The ones where the sex is incredible, but they just can't seem to shake her afterward. I'm sure I have a full set of crazy eyes happening right at this moment. I have become that girl.

  That's the only explanation I have for why I'm halfway to his front door already.

  I don't bother knocking and, instead, use my key to let myself into the apartment.

  "Logan? Are you here?"

  Nothing. I'm not surprised. His Jeep isn't here after all. Again I have the fluttering in my chest halfway between relief and longing. I shouldn't be feeling like this. What is wrong with me tonight?

  What am I doing here? I should leave immediately.

  Now that I am here, though, the ache in my limbs has lessened just a smidgen. There must have been some pressure on my chest, heartburn perhaps because suddenly I can breathe just a tad easier. Logan may not be here, but his essence is.

  The light over his kitchen sink is on as always, and it provides just enough lumination for me to see around the space. He curled his yoga mat up next to his punching bag. The plastic drawers that hold most of his folded clothes are leaning to the side, probably from him trying to close a drawer with more force than they can handle. His bed is rumpled and inviting. All of the covers are pushed over to what I subconsciously think of as my side of the bed.

  I have clothes at work to change into, so I don't have to go home before I go to work in the morning. It was already Chars day to get the kids to school, so I don't have to worry about Brandon in the morning either. Its already past two a.m. The likelihood of Logan bothering to come home to crash before work tomorrow is slim to none. Technically, I could sleep here for the rest of the night, go to work in the morning, and Logan will never have to know I was mooning over him like some sort of Disney princess.

  Before I have a chance to contemplate what a colossally bad idea this is, I strip down to my shirt and panties and climb into Logan's side of the bed. The bedding smells like him, a combination of vanilla and something muskier, and immediately sleep tries to claim my limbs.

  I check my phone one more time to review my alarms, and the last thing I see before sleep takes me is the time of 2:47 a.m. Then the sandman, at last, pulls me into slumberland.

  Chapter 33

  Logan

  Like I'm Gonna Lose You - Jasmine Thompson

  It's four a.m. when I finally leave the hospital. My patient was stable at last, and then coded out of nowhere. I'm guessing the autopsy will show an undisclosed heart condition. It's the only explanation for why her heart stopped so suddenly.

  It's been a sucky night all around. She should never have been hurt, to begin with. She worked in a manufacturing plant where the parts dip into big vats of chemicals. In and of itself, even physical exposure shouldn't have caused the amount of damage it did when one tipped on her. However, trying to circumvent the no flames, no lighter fluid rule her plant has, she had a USB lighter in her pocket.

  In the scurry to rid her of the contaminated clothing, someone hit the button to activate the lighter and whoosh. That's all it took. Luckily they were already in a contamination room with the right rescue devices to put the flames out after mere seconds, but those few seconds were enough. Third-degree burns from her upper neck down her torso. Still, we had her. It was going to be long and painful, but she would have recovered. Instead, she had a heart attack at the ripe old age of twenty-nine.

  I couldn't stay in the hospital after that. One of the benefits of being a plastic surgeon is I don't have to deal with death as often as some of my friends do. The downside is that it bothers me more than it should when I do.

  I left a message with the scheduling department to push my morning appointments until eleven, and high tailed it out of the hospital.

  My first instinct is to call Emma, but it's way too late for that. Or too early as the case may be. By the time I got a break to reply to her messages, I was afraid I'd wake her. She told me recently that she's been sleeping like the dead on nights we don't see each other because we get so little sleep when we do. I mean it makes sense. I can't help it if she wants my body twenty-four seven. Since we've been together every night for the last week, I'm sure she could use the break.

  With Emma out of the question, and really shouldn't even be in the equation, I do what I always do when I need a pick me up.

  It rings twice before Mandy's overly perky voice echoes into my ear.

  "Logan! Isn't this a little early for you? What's going on, babe?"

  "Let me talk to Ellie."

  "Oh, yeah. Of Course. Hold on."

  She puts the phone down for once instead of screaming in my ear, and I hear her go in search of her daughter. Her tone of voice says that she knows why I've called.

  "Uncle Logan! You know you're supposed to call me at night! Not in the morning. When are you going to be home? I want to see you again. Did mom tell you I'm testing for my next belt in karate next week?"

  In a spitting image of Mandy, her mouth moves so fast I can barely keep up. Her childlike sass and enthusiasm is exactly what I needed after such a shitty night.

  "I love you, baby girl. I can't talk long, but I just wanted to tell you that I love you."

  There's silence on her end for a minute, then in a much kinder tone of voice than was just used on me, she says, "Did you lose someone Uncle L?"

  Children so young shouldn't have such a keen understanding of life and loss, and I wonder if we've done our children a disservice letting them know so much about what we do with our lives. On the same side of that coin,
though, children know when something is wrong, and they know when someone is lying to them. I'm not sure how you can deal with death all day and not let your children know what you are doing. It's the same situation with the children of public servants. My Firefighter and Police friends go through the same thing with their children. What to tell them, and what to hold back for them to learn on their own?

  "Yeah, baby girl. I lost someone tonight."

  "Was it your fault?"

  This is why I love her so much. She's so much like her mothers. She doesn't skirt around the issue. Just get's straight to the point. If she doesn't go into medicine, she will make one hell of a lawyer.

  "I don't know. I could have tested for heart conditions I suppose. But the patient was young, and none of her family mentioned her having any heart troubles. When we hooked her up to the machines, there weren't any signs that said she was going to have a heart attack in a couple of hours. No, I don't think it was my fault. She was just too sick for me to be able to save."

  The silence is thick again as I pull up to the gate at my complex.

  "Uncle L, it's okay to feel bad. But don't feel bad for too long, okay?"

  My heart clenches at the pure sincerity in my goddaughter's voice, and I thank God for her presence in my life. How could I ever have contemplated leaving her, even for a second?

  "I already feel better, baby girl. Thank you Ellie. Put one of your mommas on the phone."

  This time the scuffling is more audible as they play hot potato with the cell phone, and Ellie tries to find a parent to hand the phone off too.

  Exhaustion pulls at me with an insistence that's getting difficult to ignore. I better get out of the car before it becomes my bed for the next six hours.

  Zoe's voice comes onto the line.

  "Hey Logan, Mandy's on the phone with the hospital. She's got a mom in premature labor. You okay? She said, you sounded shaken."

  "Yeah. I lost a patient."

  "Why didn't you call the little woman?"

  The concern evident through the thousand-mile phone connection makes the knife twist in my heart another turn. Zoe is as much my sister now as Mandy is. Even if we did sleep together once or twice in our resident years. With people as good looking as us, it seemed a shame not to at least test the waters. But all of that stopped a long time before she fell in love with my best friend.

  "It's almost five o'clock here. Emma is probably still sound asleep. I didn't want to bother her."

  "But you thought about it. Interesting. Very interesting."

  "It's not like that, Zoe, and you know it."

  "So you keep saying. It's starting to sound like the boy who doth protest too much."

  Before I have a chance to respond, she follows that up with a more mollifying tone of voice.

  "I'm sorry you had a rough night. Want to talk about it?"

  "No, I'm okay, thanks. Ellie used her magic powers on me. I haven't talked to you for a few days. How are you?"

  The death of my patient and the fact that I've been awake for twenty-four hours makes my steps heavy and ungainly as I step from my lifted vehicle onto the icy pavement. I have to slow my gait even more as I make my way to my apartment.

  I can hear Zoe chatting in my ear about some new treatment she's trying on a patient, but it's just background noise by this time. I couldn't repeat it back to her if you paid me to. Fumbling my keys, I finally push my door open, then shove it shut behind me. Exhaustion has turned to the walking dead, and I debate whether I can make it to my bed or if I should crash onto the love seat instead. When I catch movement out of the corner of my eye, I stop in my tracks so fast I almost trip over my feet.

  "Zoe, I've gotta go. Give my girls my love." Without thinking, I hit the disconnect button and let my hands drop listlessly to my sides.

  I cringe at how loud my voice seems to echo in the silence of the apartment, even if I whispered so softly I'm not sure Zoe heard me.

  There, not twenty feet from me is an angel sitting up in my bed.

  Maybe an angel isn't the right word. Sleep addled zombie is probably a more accurate description of her at the moment. Her hair is disheveled and lovely, falling in waves across her shoulders and over her forehead. The blankets pool in her lap with one leg already on the floor. She's looking wildly from side to side as if evaluating the horror before running into a trauma. Either she doesn't know what woke her up, or perhaps she doesn't even remember where she is.

  When her eyes finally focus on me, her posture relaxes, and all the air leaves her in a whoosh. Emma returns to her fight or flight pose a fraction of a second later. Apologies for invading my space and sneaking into my apartment start tumbling out of her mouth at a speed and pitch only woodland animals would be able to follow. Her hands are moving with such feeling that I'm afraid I'll be wounded, trying to step any closer to her.

  Emma, the same Emma who still claims that we're nothing more than fuck buddies, is asleep in my bed without me. The knife that lives permanently in my heart twists the complete opposite direction. Then it's joined by another knife in my gut — maybe two or three.

  I love her. Fuck shit damn shit fuck. I love her so damn much it feels like someone is ripping my guts out. I can't be in love with Emma. I have to go home. They need me. But fucking hell, I need her. I'm not sure how I'll take my next breath without her in my arms.

  It feels like an eternity has passed as life-altering revelations zip through my psyche at rapid speed. In reality, she's still sitting on the edge of my bed, spewing apologies for something that's made me happier than I've been in a year.

  Despite the fact that my world is officially imploding in biblical proportions, I can't help the overwhelming joy overtakes me. Coming home after an epically lousy night and seeing Emma in that bed is perfect.

  Slowly, as if afraid of spooking a wild animal, I drop my bag and coat to the floor and bend over to yank on the laces of my boots.

  Emma's rambling slows to a steady stream instead of a hurricane, then to a trickle, and finally stops altogether as I make my way towards the bed. I'm not sure what she was expecting, or if she was even expecting me home at all. But when I don't seem inclined to throw her out of the apartment, she pulls her legs back into the bed and graces me with a tentative smile.

  I can't seem to make my mouth work, afraid of what will come out of it if I do. I keep the smile on my face and strip out of my day-old clothing as I slowly head in Emma's direction. When she makes as if to move out of the bed, I shake my head with a pucker of my lips and walk to the other side. I lift the covers before scooting my boxer clad legs until I'm in the middle of the bed.

  Emma meets me there, and turns to face the window so that her ass is snugly into my crotch. My body responds as it always does when she's withing fucking distance, but I'm too tired and too in awe of the situation to try to get any nookie tonight. This morning? Whatever.

  She settles against me like she was designed for me, and the final puzzle piece slips into place. Of course, she fits against me perfectly.

  It takes us no time at all to get comfortable. My bottom arm stretches out under Emma's pillows, and the other is resting lightly on her hip. She leans against me so that my bare chest is up against her nighty clad back, and her weight is a comfort I didn't know I needed. Her hair tickles my nose for a moment, but then she reaches back and twists it under her head, and suddenly there's a perfect place to rest my cheek.

  The rush I got from finding her here is fading quickly, and I sink into the mattress, tightening my hold on my prize as I do.

  "I couldn't sleep."

  I feel it through my chest more than I hear the words.

  "Mmmmm. What time do you have to be back?"

  Even those few words pull on my strength. I'm so freaking tired.

  "My first surgery is at nine."

  "Mmmmm."

  Several moments of silence pass, before "What am I going to do without you?"

  It's breathy, more prayer than a question. Certainl
y rhetorical. If my body weren't flush against hers, I wouldn't have heard it at all.

  But the truth of the matter is, I've been wondering the same thing for weeks now. What the fuck am I going to do without her?

  Chapter 34

  Emma

  I'd forgotten how peaceful a hot and humid bath can be. I can't remember the last time I was this relaxed.

  Logan is beneath me in the bathtub, his skin slick against my back. Our feet entangle at the bottom of the tub, and his legs are bent slightly. His knees are peeking out of the water.

  We showered first, and he let me wash and condition his hair. He told me he's been contemplating cutting it.

  "It's almost at my shoulders now. It doesn't exactly scream professional."

  I kindly wrapped my hands into his hair and pulled until he was looking me in the eye to tell him if he cut it, I'd never forgive him for it.

  I let him shave my legs. I have no idea why he even wanted to. Lord knows I never want to do it. Much to my astonishment, he was great at it. Logan shaved up my thighs to my hip, which I never do. In my opinion, the hair is light and soft enough that I don't need to bother past a certain point, but he took the razor blade all the way up without a second's hesitation. When I asked him how he got so good at shaving women's legs, he told me to ask Mandy to send me the pictures. I don't know if that scares me or not.

  It's already midnight, so the risk of getting caught by Brandon or one of the other kids in the house is slim, but real nonetheless, so I'm careful not to relax so completely that I stop paying attention to the sounds of footfalls on the carpet.

  We should probably get out soon. I'm as wrinkled as a ninety-year-old grandma. Logan is tracing patterns into my skin with his fingertips. He's sucking on my earlobe and nipping up and down my neck. It's delicious. I'm not sure I could get my legs to work unless the house burns down.