Dirty Pool

by Bethany-Kris

  Confused and then chaotic.

  His first need was to make his wife happy—always. But she was not going to be happy when Michel did the dumb man thing when all else absolutely failed.

  He knew how this worked.

  Gabbie’s footsteps pattered above Michel’s head as he quickly finished what was left of his coffee. He needed to get that into him now if it was going to do him any good when he finally arrived back at the hospital. With only ten months left to his residency, Michel was looking forward to really starting his career as a doctor.

  He had options. Continuing in the trauma bay was high on his list, but so was not spending every waking hour at the hospital. Despite finding all his life that he worked best under intense pressure, Michel knew it couldn’t last forever. Someday, he was going to burn out, and he didn’t want that to be the day he lost a patient not because nothing had worked, but because he made a mistake.

  He planned to spend two weeks in the hospital working trauma, and two weeks in the clinic he wanted to open up as a private practice for … well, he’d not decided on that quite yet. Possibly a second, shorter residency was in order if he wanted to focus elsewhere.

  He had options.

  That was the thing.

  People asked him often what he planned to do once he was finished with his trauma residency, and Michel liked to joke private practice. Even to his own mother and father when they asked, followed up with a statement about more money. Which wasn’t entirely a lie, but really, he was just telling people nothing.

  Because options.

  And he’d never been one to do what others expected.

  It was Gabbie’s footsteps echoing in the stairwell of their three-level Long Island home that finally drew Michel’s attention away from the only thing keeping him awake after two weeks of twenty-four-hour shifts in the trauma bay. His wife came to stand in the entryway of the kitchen, but she didn’t look happy to be there.

  She was still wearing that over-sized sweater, too.

  One she stole from his closet the night before.

  Because it hid what she thought was—

  “Another pound this morning,” she said.

  Michel arched a brow at that. “Does that make ten, now?”

  “Total, Michel.”

  His gaze shifted to the cabinet in their kitchen where Gabbie kept all her diabetic supplies to manage her disease. Just as fast, he looked to the fridge where her exercise and diet plan for the next month was pinned there by a magnet.

  She never diverted.

  She took her heath most seriously.

  “Ten pounds in three weeks?” he asked.

  Gabbie gave him that look. The one that said her emotional side was about to come out and take a bite out of his stupid man ass if he didn’t cut that shit fast. Although, she’d call it shite and when he got a chuckle out of her Irish accent still showing itself after almost a decade living in New York, she’d add on that he was a feckin’ gobshite, too.

  All in love, though.

  And he loved her for it.

  He needed that sass in his life, and her fire. Some people might raise an eyebrow at a woman like Gabbie, but he adored her most of all for her quick wit and dark humor. Not to mention, the way she sometimes showed affection.

  This was not one of those times.

  “Gabbie—”

  “Don’t even,” she snapped, ready to turn around and leave him alone in the kitchen.

  “I’m asking as a doctor, not because you think I’ve noticed the weight gain in a bad way, before you try to bite my fucking head off, here.”

  She tensed all over.

  Maybe that’d been a little strong.

  “I have noticed it,” he added, shrugging, “but it’s not been a bad thing. I love you at two pounds underweight, or when you’re at the best you’ve ever been, and I love you like this. I will love you at your worst, too, but I would rather you not get to that point at all. Not for your weight or the way you would look, but because I fucking love you, and we both know what could happen if your diabetes goes out of control.”

  The tension softened.

  Michel breathed easier.

  It was funny.

  But it wasn’t, too.

  “Something is wrong,” she said. “It’s been six years since I had a significant weight gain like this, and we know that was because I went a little off track because of everything going on with college and—”

  “Something is wrong,” he agreed.

  “You’re not going to ask at all?”

  “Ask what?”

  “If I ate like I was supposed to, or kept up my exercise routine?”

  “No.”

  Because he knew she did.

  Simple as that.

  She was an adult, and he didn’t need to chase after his wife when she knew very well how to take care of herself. Unfortunately, she was so accustomed to someone checking over her shoulder all the time that they still found themselves like this … her, out of habit, thinking he was going to question her because he didn’t trust she could handle her business.

  Michel checked the watch on his wrist, and scowled. “Cazzo. I have to get out of here, or I am going to be late at the hospital.” He didn’t want the lecture for it, either. Moving to his wife in the doorway after discarding his mug to the sink, he pressed a fast kiss to Gabbie’s forehead, murmuring, “It could be anything—a hormonal shift, a developing allergy, or even your cycles changing, right? We’ll figure it out.”

  She stiffened.

  “What?” he asked.

  Just as quickly, Gabbie shook her head and glanced up at him. “Nothing. You should get to the hospital, and I managed to get that appointment with my doctor today.”

  “Oh, good. Maybe we’ll get an answer, then.”

  “Maybe.”

  He kissed her mouth next, giving her a lazy smirk as he said, “And get that fucking sweater off—I love you in my clothes, babe, but not when you’re trying to hide something that looks great in anything.”

  Gabbie grinned.

  Michel winked.

  • • •

  “GIVE ME THAT GAUZE!”

  With his legs straddling a man on a gurney—who’d been brought into the parking lot by his friends who basically shoved him out of the back of their car with a fucking hole in his chest that looked like a bullet wound—Michel’s hands trembled from the force that he was putting into keeping pressure on the wound.

  “The gauze!” he snapped again.

  They had four minutes going full speed to get this man from the parking lot, to the trauma bay so that he could get in and figure out what was causing the bleed to be as bad as it was. So bad, in fact, that they were leaving a trail of blood in their wake that looked more like a river than dribbles.

  Everybody’s hands were full.

  Except the new, and young resident who had apparently never been faced with a trauma quite this violent and serious if her very white face was any indication, was lingering behind. He’d had that moment, too, once. Every trauma surgeon faced their moment. That one split second where everything fucking changed about what they thought regarding this career, and what they could handle. His had come when someone brought in a three-month-old baby that had been badly burned in a house fire and didn’t have a pulse.

  It was a burned baby.

  A fucking baby.

  He had nightmares for weeks.

  He didn’t remember snapping out of the moment, either, because the next thing he knew, he was doing chest compressions on the infant. Because that’s what the trauma bay did to a doctor—everything became instinctual. Even if a doctor wasn’t all there because something set them off balance, their brain and body still knew what they had to do. The world might feel like it had stopped, but the doctors kept moving.

  They had to.

  Or people died.

  So, no, he didn’t fault the woman for finally having her moment, he really just wished it wasn’t right now when everyone
else’s hands were full, and he needed hers on deck. The doctor in question finally snapped back into reality, and tossed Michel the large roll of gauze to him. He began to stuff as much of the unrolled gauze as he could into the chest wound of the man who was now choking out blood under the mask the nurse was pressing against his face.

  Staunching the wound was important, as much as pressure on it was, anyhow. And he just needed to get control of this goddamn bleed as much as possible.

  “Three minutes to trauma bay,” Michel snapped, his hands working faster than even his mouth. “Bay three. Call it down!”

  “Got it.”

  “Michel!”

  His head snapped up at the call of his name at the same time the gurney rocked when it rolled over the small ledge leading into the trauma center. They were finally leaving the parking lot—they hadn’t even gotten in the hospital yet. He hadn’t realized that until just then.

  That ran through his mind at the same time the fact that his wife was watching him from just beyond where an ambulance was parking with its lights flashing. Her wide eyes drifted from him to the gurney, and his bloody hands at the man’s chest.

  All at the same time, he kept drifting further away from her.

  It was just a split second.

  The doors were closing.

  Still, he heard her shout, “I’m pregnant!”

  His first thought?

  That explains a lot.

  His second?

  He’s lost too much blood.

  And that was how Michel found out he was going to be a father.

  • • •

  Eight months later …

  Antony Dante Marcello didn’t have a concept of bad timing. In fact, he decided to make his way into the world when his father was working during one of the worst emergencies New York had faced in several decades. An improper discharge of dynamite on top of a bridge overpass that needed replacement before it was intended to detonate, and while vehicles were still driving underneath on the freeway.

  Twenty cars.

  Most had two people inside each vehicle.

  Eight dead on arrival.

  Three air lifted out.

  The rest … under the rubble.

  So was Michel. Because if they couldn’t bring the injured to the hospital, then he was going to them. Along with the rest of the trauma team. They would do what they could on the road under the sections of rubble that had been lifted enough to find the injured. If they could be treated on site, then they were. If they could be brought out safely without causing death, then they planned to do that.

  Assessment was crucial.

  That was when he got the fucking call, too.

  “Gabbie’s in labor.”

  Michel’s whole world stopped.

  Except it didn’t.

  That was the thing about being who he was—nothing stopped for him. He couldn’t walk out of a disaster where his skills were needed simply because his private life stepped in the way to throw him a curveball.

  “Why are you not in your car right now?” Dante demanded.

  “Because I can’t. She’ll understand.”

  “Michel—”

  “I’ll be there,” he barked into the phone at his father, “tell her I’ll fucking be there, Dad.”

  It was a first birth—so the labor could take hours. Days, even, for some women. Michel knew that, so he didn’t rush, not that he could have, anyway. He worked with the trauma team and the rescue crew to pull the victims out of their crushed cars without losing their life.

  It didn’t work for all.

  They lost three more before it was said and done.

  Michel was on route to the trauma center with one victim who had been flattened under a large piece of cement that fell directly on top of his car—his body was crushed, and somehow, the man was alive. They couldn’t say the same for his wife, but they hadn’t told him that yet. It was better he didn’t know in the current state he was facing, and everything was literally second by second.

  It all counted.

  That was thirty-six hours after the first call about his wife.

  “Michel, you’ve got an emergency family call!”

  That was thrown at him as he slipped into trauma bay one to start one of many surgeries that would hopefully save the crushed man’s life. It was a long shot, but nobody wanted to say it out loud. They had to try—it’s what the patient asked.

  “Michel!”

  “Put them on the speaker for the bay,” he shouted behind his mask, hands up and safe from touching anything as he backed through the door being held open for him. “That’s the best I can do right now.”

  Time was still crucial. The more seconds they wasted, the more likely it was that they would lose the man on the table.

  The speakers for the trauma bay crackled as Michel glanced at the monitor tracking the man’s vitals—the numbers weren’t great, but that’s about what he expected. It was going to be touch and go for this first surgery, and it would determine if they would be capable of taking him in for the second, too.

  Then, the room went quiet as the speakers suddenly got loud.

  Michel glanced upward.

  So did everyone else.

  A baby cried.

  Strong, and beautiful, and perfect.

  He didn’t need anyone to tell him. A part of him just knew—deep in his fucking heart, so visceral and raw—that it was his son’s cry. He made that child; that boy came from him, and he knew the cry belonged to what was his.

  Quietly, Michel said, “Tell my wife I will see her soon.”

  And then, to the rest of the room, he added, “Let’s get to work—call cardio again. They should have been down here already. I want Jessi on this man’s heart while we have his torso opened. Two minutes.”

  • • •

  Twelve hours later …

  How long had Michel been awake?

  He didn’t know.

  Too long, maybe.

  The smart part of his brain knew this was bad. He couldn’t function on so little sleep that he was almost falling over as the elevator continued climbing. Somehow, he managed it, but he wasn’t at all sure how.

  It felt like he blinked, and he was standing in front of his father. A door was opened, and despite the light shining in from the windows inside the private hospital room, it still seemed like he was in a sleepy daze.

  And then he saw her.

  And him.

  His son swaddled in light blue, and his wife holding the baby close to her chest where she sat on the edge of the hospital bed. He didn’t remember how he crossed the room, but the next thing he knew, little Antony was in Michel’s arms, and he was kissing the top of his wife’s head.

  “I’m sorry,” he heard himself say.

  Gabbie shook her head. “Don’t ever be sorry for that, Michel.”

  The patient was still alive. After twenty-four hours, Michel had to go back in for another twenty-four-hour shift. He knew he should put those thoughts aside, so he did for the moment. It allowed him to focus on the baby in his arms as he settled into a chair in the corner of the room.

  Antony slept on.

  God, he was small.

  Peach and cream skin.

  “He looks like you,” Gabbie said in the background.

  He did.

  Michel whispered, “I know. He’s perfect, Gabbie.”

  And then he fell asleep like that, reclined on the chair with his newborn son tucked safely into his arms. He didn’t wake up again until the baby needed to feed, and it was only long enough to hear his father tell someone that a visitor would be arriving soon.

  Who the hell was coming?

  It could be anybody.

  Their family was huge.

  It was not who Michel expected.

  • • •

  “Da,” Gabbie whispered.

  Michel’s back stiffened at his wife’s soft exclamation, and he spun fast on his heels to find a man he never expected to see again stan
ding in the doorway of the hospital room. Another three hours, and Michel would have to head back to the hospital he worked at across the city.

  Seeing Charles Casey standing there made him want to say fuck those plans in a big way. It was hard for Michel to feel like … he could trust Charles, not after everything. The man had promised, as he said, Gabbie was “dead to me.”

  Exact words.

  And yet, there he stood.

  Next to Dante.

  Michel gave his father a look, and subtly moved sideways to stand in front of his wife and child. “What is he doing here?”

  “Michel, now—”

  “No, I asked a fucking question.”

  Dante cleared his throat. “This is his grandchild, too. His only grandchild, and that woman is his only child, Michel. I extended the gracious offer when I first got the call that Gabbie was in labor for him to … make his way here and share in this joy with the rest of us. If, of course, we were all willing to let the bygones be bygones. That’s what good men do, son.”

  Michel was a good man.

  He still didn’t like this.

  “It’s been almost ten years,” Charles said, “and I would like it if it wasn’t one more, lad.”

  “Michel,” Gabbie said behind him.

  He felt her hand graze his back. It wasn’t much. The soft sweep of her fingertips, but it was all she needed to do. It really wasn’t about him, when it had always been about her. He didn’t have to like it as long as she wanted it.

  Michel nodded, and stepped aside a bit to let Charles see his daughter and grandson. “We named him Antony … for my grandfather.”

  “Strong name,” Charles replied.

  “I missed you, Da.”

  Charles swallowed hard as he took a step further into the room. And then another and another until he was in front of his daughter, and bending down to hug her. “More than you know, Gabbie. I have missed you far more than you know—I’m sorry.”

  Always the sweet one.

  Always the loving one.

  She was far too forgiving, his wife.

  But Michel was grateful.

  She was perfect for him.

  “Let me see this wee lad,” Charles said, taking the baby from Gabbie’s arms to hold him high. Awake and blinking with hazy, dark eyes, Antony stared at his grandfather. The Irish side of him—the colorful bits that made him special, Michel thought. His son was not one thing, but many things. “You look just like your da, child.”