by JD Hawkins
This evening, my guilty pleasure is almost making me late for work. It’s a particularly engrossing episode of Real Housewives.
I get dressed in front of the TV in my living room, watching as I button my shirt and smooth down my hair. We’ve all got our sins, and Real Housewives is one of my safest. My phone rings, and I turn the TV down before checking the name carefully; when you’ve got as many exes as I do, you never know who’s calling.
“Jake! What’s up?” I say, relieved it isn’t my most recent—and most psychotic—ex.
He’s one of my oldest friends. Old enough that I can’t even remember all the times we rode around L.A. on our bikes looking for trouble as kids, or all the times we hit the bars and hit on girls as young guys. While I kept my head in the books and worked my way through medical school to a prestigious job at Dunhill, Jake spent most of his time trying to turn his passion into pay. From extreme sports to playing drums, he’s never been afraid to put himself fully out there, even if it means failure—and I respect him all the more for it.
Over the last few years, he’s finally settled in as a surfing instructor, and it suits him. “I need a job where I never need to put on a shirt, dude,” he told me once.
He’s tall and sinewy. All tattoos and tanned skin. On the surface, we’re completely different, but like brothers those differences don’t matter. All the stuff we’ve been through, as well as a shared love of women, soccer, and laughing when the chips are down, bond us.
“What’s up is the match tonight,” he says. “We’re playing those guys from Pasadena, remember?”
“Yeah,” I say, half distracted by the show. “Yeah. Of course I remember. Their center-half nearly broke my fucking leg last time.”
“Well you scored the winner at least.”
“I’d still have preferred you letting me knock the son of a bitch out.”
Jake laughs, and the show cuts to a break, so I click off the TV, grab my wallet, and make for the door.
“So you’ll be there, right? Pumped up and ready to take down these assholes again?”
“Absolutely,” I say, jangling my keys until I unlock my car and get inside.
“Great. I was getting worried you might blow the team off now that you’ve got a whole new bunch of nurses to work your way through.”
I groan at him, setting my phone on speaker and starting up the car. “Like I keep telling you, man: I’m keeping my hands to myself now. After what happened at Dunhill, I’m done with women. I’ll look, I’ll flirt, but when it comes down to it, I’m off the market. Out of the game. I’m a celibate man. A monk. For a while, at least.”
For some reason, Jake laughs like I just delivered an entire stand-up routine in five seconds.
“Sure, Colin. And I’m never watching porn again. Seriously, tell me about the new job, dude. I’ve seen some of those Santa Teresa nurses at the clubs and they make me wish I had a terminal illness. You met any cute ones yet?”
For some reason, a brief memory of that messy-haired doctor with the dark eyes flashes into my mind when Jake asks. I let it disappear as I concentrate on pulling out of my parking spot.
“I’ve got to go, Jake. See you at the game tonight.”
“Celibate… Ha! You’re a genius, Colin. I’ll bet that line drives them crazy…”
He hangs up and I set the stereo to blast music all the way to the hospital, though it doesn’t drown out my thoughts. Jake’s got a point.
As much as I like to think I’m a new man after everything that’s happened, as much as I’d like to believe I’ve learned my lesson, it’s been weeks since I’ve been with a woman and I feel like there’s a bomb ticking inside of me. Smiles and laughs and naïve optimism can soften the edges a bit, but seeing that blonde nurse swing her hips when she walks, or having Alison do that whole “shy and quiet” thing is getting my blood up. And then there’s that damned redhead doctor who keeps inserting herself into my thoughts randomly…
Without realizing it, I start speeding, revving the engine until it sounds like the dark energies swirling in the recesses of my mind, as tense as the hard stone in the pit of my gut.
Maybe celibate is a bit too much. Maybe I should just hit the bars with Jake after the match, find a cute little thing to help me get the tension out of my system. Just as long as it’s not somebody I work with…
The idea alone sets my mind at rest a little, and I ease up on the gas before I get a ticket. I make a quick stop at the florist and then head on to the hospital. Once there, I grab my files—and the flowers I picked up—from the passenger side and then head on in.
“Morning, Doctor Pierce,” the three nurses say in unison, like some sixties girl group.
“Morning ladies.” I smile back as I approach. When I reach the desk I hold the flowers out to them. “Here. For making me feel so welcome on my first day.”
They look at me, then each other, and then Paula snatches the flowers from my hand like they’re a wedding bouquet.
“Doctor Pierce, they’re lovely!”
“Just a little thank you. Oh, Alison, I’ve got a young girl with scoliosis at ten—could you keep a spot with the X-ray machine open for about midday?”
“Of course, Doctor Pierce.”
“Great. Thanks a lot.”
I step away but Jessie quickly calls me back. “Doctor Pierce, I just wanted to remind you: there’s a mandatory staff meeting tomorrow. At seven p.m., after your shift.”
“Got it.”
“There will probably be drinks afterwards—there usually are when Bob schedules night meetings,” she adds.
“You girls going to be there?”
She looks flustered. “Oh, it’s just for some of the doctors and nurses.”
I shrug and say, “Sounds a little less fun then, but I guess I’ll survive.”
I get a few appreciative looks as I make my way to the locker room, but I’m getting better at ignoring them now. Once I get to the room, however, I stop dead in my tracks.
I’m not alone.
She’s pulling a sweater off over her head, nothing but a bright blue tank top underneath. Everything within me focuses on the line of her waist, the swell of her breasts, the hard beads of her nipples visible through the fabric. I’m so caught up that time seems to slow. Some things are so incredible you don’t need to take a photo to remember them.
Curves so beautiful they draw the eye, invite it to follow the sweeping lines. The arch of her back looking empty without my hand pressing against it. The round slope of her ass almost makes me growl. The taut skin of her arms and neck, stretching as the sweater slips off, sets fires in my mind. She’s a work of art. The kind of thing that would inspire poets to do their best work, drive warriors to kill, and make other men crumble into dirt.
I feel my muscles pump like I just beat my bench record, feel a surge of lust that makes everything else seem inconsequential. In those few split seconds, my imagination runs wild with all the possibilities of a body like that. Of tracing the shape of those breasts with my tongue, grabbing that waist in my palms, pressing those nipples against my chest…
And though the burning hardness within me makes the glorious moment last a little longer, it doesn’t last forever, and she gets the sweater over her head. Red curls fall past her shoulders, that delicate face revealed like an unveiling. I almost feel like applauding.
There’s a moment of elegant innocence as she tosses the sweater onto the bench in front of her locker, and then those beautiful eyes fix on me. She lets out a little surprised yelp then clutches her forearm to her breasts, maybe forgetting she’s still wearing the camisole—or maybe she knows that with tits like that, it barely matters.
“Morning, Doctor Taylor,” I say, dragging my eyes from her as I move to my locker. “Looks like we’re gonna be on shift together today.”
“Great. I’m looking forward to it.”
Her voice quavers like her breasts as she grabs her scrub top and pulls it on. When I glance back, I can’t h
elp feeling like a tragedy has taken place, hiding a body like that under it. I look over a few more times in my peripheral vision as she shrugs into her doctor’s coat and then ties her hair back into a tight bun. On most women it would look merely professional, but on her it only reveals the erotic line of her neck. The skin looking so soft it makes me clench my teeth.
Somehow, I manage to get on my own scrubs. She takes a step to leave but stops.
She says, “You’re in the closet, aren’t you?”
I look up at her in a daze, mentally repeating it to be sure I heard her right. I break into a mischievous smile. It’s a strange line, but then again, it’s all about the destination—not the departure.
“Just because a guy wears nice shoes—”
She interrupts me with a laugh. Pearly teeth and a coquettish duck of her head. I was a fool to think she couldn’t get any cuter.
“No, the closet—that’s what we call the small office without any windows.”
I laugh along with her. “Ah, I see. Yeah. I’m there.”
She sighs through her nose and shakes her head. All signs of embarrassment and informality gone now that she’s talking about business. For the first time she looks almost comfortable talking to me, and I can tell immediately that this is the kind of woman who works too hard, pouring herself into perfectionism, because she thrives on routine and control, while everything else in her life probably scares her.
“That’s not acceptable,” she says. “It’s one of the reasons the last pediatrician left. It’s not right. Especially when you’ve got kids coming to see you. There’s a perfectly fine office that’s only being used for consultations that you should be in. It’s further from the children’s ward, but it’s better than the closet. You should bring it up at the meeting tomorrow.”
“It’s fine. I’m not gonna kick up a fuss ten minutes after I’ve been here. Wait, you’re going to be at the meeting tomorrow?”
A little of her formal composure fades. She shifts on her feet. “Of course. It’s mandatory. Not that some people won’t weasel out of it, but—”
“Good,” I say. “Maybe you can guide me through it.”
She laughs gently, touching a delicate hand to the soft skin under her ear. A gesture that should be casual, but makes me feel almost horny enough to forget words and let my body explain exactly what I’m thinking.
“I’m sure you know what you’re doing,” she says, before stepping past me out of the locker room, and I’m left wondering if it was a brush-off or flirting.
I almost hope it’s the former, because as much as I’m trying to hold myself back, something about Mia is magnetic enough to make me forget my promise to myself—to forget all the things I came here to leave behind.
There’s no denying it…that woman is trouble. My kind of trouble.
4
Mia
I’m good at my job, but now I’ve got the entirely novel challenge of avoiding Colin completely during my long shift. It’s only at around midday that I realize I’m doing it, and then I internally interrogate myself as to why I’m being so silly.
You’re acting stupid, Mia. He’s just another doctor, a colleague. Just a really attractive guy. Well…okay, so not just attractive… There’s something a little dangerous about him. It always seems like he’s smiling at a thought he wouldn’t allow himself to speak aloud. Or maybe it’s just that I know so little about where he’s from or what he’s all about… There’s something guarded about him, his eyes…
“Ow!”
The woman whose blood pressure I’m checking yelps and I snap back to the present.
“Gosh, sorry,” I say. “This old thing is broken, I think.”
So much for finding him less attractive than before. And he smelled so good when I walked past him in the locker room…
No. That’s just pheromones, Mia. Just a biological imperative. Maybe my hormones are a little imbalanced. A lack of magnesium causing me to become hypersensitive. I should go in for a blood test myself. Get all my levels checked out. That’s probably all it is…
I mark down on the chart and then turn to the woman.
“Your blood pressure’s fine, Martha. One-ten over eighty is just about perfect. One of the nurses will call you when we get the test results and we can chat more then, okay?”
“Is everything all right, Doctor Taylor?” she says as she gets up.
“For now, yes. But if there’s anything else, we should see it in the results and—”
“No, I meant with you.” She smiles gently. “You seem a little distracted.”
I return her look of concern with one of mildly amused surprise. “Do I?”
“Yes. Are they working you too hard?”
I laugh and put an appreciative hand on her shoulder as we walk out of the exam room. “I’d be more surprised if they weren’t, Martha. You let me do the worrying, though. I’ll see you back here next week.”
Even my patients are noticing something, I think as I get my papers in order and set off for the obstetrics department. Maybe Martha’s right. Maybe I am just overworked and overstressed. Maybe I just need a vacation… I guess a beautiful man giving me a moment of attention is the closest thing I’ve come to one in years.
I turn a corner and see him, crouched before a young boy, pulling a quarter from his ear as his mother looks on happily. It’s such a sweet scene it looks like a street painting, and I watch him for a few seconds before noticing that there are two nurses watching with just as much rapt attention from behind a ward window, their faces like swooning groupies. I instantly feel judgmental of them—and then realize I probably looked just as ridiculous.
Immediately, I turn and head in a different direction so as not to walk past him, then chastise myself.
Come on, Mia, you weren’t even this immature in high school. Am I going to let myself start slipping just because Colin’s around and I’m too…too what? Too self-conscious? Too intimidated? Too scared that he’ll flirt with me? Is he even flirting with me? A guy like that probably doesn’t have any mode other than “flirtatious.”
But the way he looked at me in the locker room…
Or did I imagine it? Asking me if I would be at the meeting…
Christ, Mia, get a grip. He’s just being friendly.
After seeing a few patients I decide to drop by my office, which is more like a dumping ground for paperwork than an actual workplace. I do most of my consultations in the exam rooms, and usually spend the rest of my shifts somewhere in the vicinity of the maternity ward. I take a few swigs of caffeinated sludge as I hurry there, wincing more than if it were cheap whisky, and head through the door.
The second I step inside, I freeze. A teenage girl with dark hair and olive skin jumps out of a chair, then stares at me with wide brown eyes.
“Doctor Taylor!” she blurts, as if surprised to see me in my own office. She’s wearing an army jacket and skinny jeans.
I flick through the sheets on the clipboard in my hand.
“Hmm. I think you might be a bit early,” I say as I rustle the pages. “I don’t have any appointments until later this afternoon.”
“I, umm, don’t have an appointment, actually,” the girl says quickly, guiltily. I can hear nervousness in her voice. “If you want me to go, I’ll go.”
I put the clipboard away—it can often feel like a barrier for patients, and she looks defensive enough as it is—and put my hands in my pockets. “What can I do for you?”
The girl hangs her head. “I don’t even know where to start…”
“Your name would be a good place,” I say with a smile.
“Rosa,” she says. “Rosa Va—” She stops herself. “Just Rosa.”
None of this is uncommon to me. The nerves. The fearful looks. The sense of something secretive. I’ve seen it all before, but it still takes some effort to handle delicately. I close the door behind me and then gesture for her to sit while I speak.
“You’re pregnant, yes?”
> Her eyes get even larger and she puts her hands over her abdomen. “Am I—”
“No,” I say quickly, “you’re not showing. But that’s a pretty easy conclusion when a frightened young woman seeks me out.” She calms a little, forcing a dimpled smile through her anxiety. “And I’m guessing that you’re worried your family—or boyfriend—might find out. Hence the secrecy and the lack of a formalized appointment.”
“Yes. Actually, no…not exactly,” she says, and now my attention is a little piqued. “Let me start over. My dad’s an oncology nurse here, so I came to have lunch with him today…but also because I was hoping we could talk. But really this isn’t about what my parents would think of me or anything. It’s more than that.”
“Okay,” I say, nodding as I follow along. “Go on.”
She takes a breath and then the words spill out in a rush again, even more rapidly than before. “So I’m studying to be a doctor. I’m in my third year of medical school, just about to start my first clinical rotations. And to be honest with you… Basically, I… What it comes down to…” I wait patiently while she searches for the words. “I know that I can’t do both.”
Her eyes search mine, as if she’s waiting for me to give her all the answers she needs. Third year of medical school—she’s older than she looks, then. Early twenties, just baby faced. I suppose her anxiety is making her seem younger as well. My heart goes out to her.
“Rosa, listen,” I say as empathetically as I can, “I’m a gynecologist—not a counselor. I wish I could help, but this is really not my area and—”
“I read your paper on calcium supplements in the first trimester,” she interrupts, her large eyes showing a little more awe than fear now. “You’re incredible. You’re, like, one of the best. I couldn’t believe you worked at the same hospital as my dad.”
