Fever

by Carnal, MJ

  “I had a fight and the guy kneed me in the ribcage.”

  She grimaced and sighed. “Men. I’ll never understand them.”

  “Doc.” I placed my hand over hers, stilling her movement before I pitched a tent. “It was a pro fight. I don’t do street fights and I’m not into barroom brawls.”

  “Not much difference in my eyes when someone ends up here. Violence is violence.”

  I said with a grin, “Oh, come on. You’ve never hit someone?”

  “Not unless I was defending myself.” She pulled her hands back and picked up the chart from the table next to the gurney.

  “Well, I was defending myself from his damn knee.” I laughed. “Ouch, fuck.”

  “Did you win?” Raising her eyebrows and cocking her head, she stared at me with parted lips.

  I wanted to grab her and sweep my tongue inside her mouth. Show her how a real man does it. My strength wasn’t only good in the ring, but I could hold her against the wall and make her dirty with barely any effort. “I always win.” I grinned, winking at her.

  “Cocky bastard,” she muttered under her breath.

  “My ribs hurt, but my hearing is fantastic, doc.”

  She ran her hands down her face to hide her smile. “I’m sorry, that was rude of me.”

  “Make it up to me with dinner.” I touched her hand and saw her body twitch from the contact.

  She felt it too—the connection, the spark between us.

  “I don’t date men who use their fists, Mr. Gallo.”

  “My hands have many other uses that you’d quite enjoy.”

  She swallowed hard enough that I could hear it, before she looked down at the chart and back at me. “I don’t date patients or cocky bastards.” She chuckled.

  “Don’t know what you’re missing.”

  “I have to go order your x-ray, Mr. Gallo, and I have other patients to see. I’ll be back to see you as soon as I get the results.”

  “Just think about it, please? You’ve wounded my pride.” Pretending to be hurt, I gripped my chest.

  “Your pride is just fine, it’s your lung I’m worried about. Stay put,” she said as she started to walk away.

  “Where would I go? I can’t even sit up without your help.”

  “Good, then I’ll know where to find you.” She laughed and walked out the door.

  Reaching down, I adjusted my dick in my shorts. Fuck, just talking to her made me semi-hard. The half-pitched tent vanished when a burly man walked through the door with an x-ray machine. Never thought I’d be happy to see a man.

  His size made it easy for him to move me. After a few shots, he helped me sit up before he left.

  I started thinking of all the lines I’d use on her. I wanted that date, but how could I get her to say yes?

  My heart sank when I heard, “Well, Mr. Gallo, it looks like a clean fracture.” It wasn’t the sexy doctor, but a man that spoke.

  “Where’s the other doctor?” I asked, wanting to see her before I left.

  “She’s busy and asked me to give you the good news and get you checked out.”

  “Fuck,” I mumbled. She’d foiled my plans. I sighed. “So I’m good to go?”

  “It’s going to take about four to six weeks to heal. You can tape them to relieve some of the pain if you’d like.”

  “I know. It’s not the first time I’ve cracked a rib.”

  “Here’s the paperwork with instructions, and make sure to follow up with your family doctor in a week or so.”

  “Got it,” I said as I took the paperwork from his hand.

  Grabbing my shirt, I stalked out of the room to find Izzy. The doctor had brushed me off, and I was pissed.

  Chapter 1

  Summer

  Human life seemed to be worthless to most people. That was what I’d learned during my time as an emergency room physician.

  I’d wanted to help people for as long as I could remember. My mom said I raided the medicine cabinet to fix my Cabbage Patch Kids as a little girl.

  Each day as I stood over my patients, trying to revive their lifeless bodies, my education and training felt meaningless. Medicine is still referred to as a practice. It hasn’t been perfected, and even with today’s advances in medicine, not everything can be fixed.

  It’s a hard fact that I don’t always want to accept, but have no choice.

  The hardest part of my job, the thing I dread most, is informing a family that we were unable to save their loved one, despite our best efforts.

  Those words left my mouth twice today, and it had been soul crushing.

  “Call it, Dr. Greco,” Dr. Patel said as he stood next to the gurney.

  I couldn’t stop myself from pushing down again. Sweat trickled down my cheeks, as a lump had formed in my throat. Maybe if I pushed one more time, I could get his heart to beat again.

  “I can’t. Just give me a couple more minutes.” I pushed with such force that I knew that a few ribs had cracked under my palm.

  His life hadn’t even begun and I would be the one that called his time of death.

  “Mia.” Dr. Patel placed his hands on mine, snapping my mental focus—to save the boy’s life. “He’s gone. You’ve been working on him for over thirty minutes. His injuries are too grave. Call it, or I will.”

  Dr. Patel had been by my side today, and knew the devastation that we were unable to repair—two car accidents, a gunshot victim, and the little blond-haired angel in front of me—a victim of a hit-and-run driver.

  How could someone hit a child and leave him in the street to die?

  A child…a goddamn innocent little boy.

  I looked at Dr. Patel and was struck by the weariness on his face. His eyes were bloodshot; the tiny creases around them looked deeper with big, dark circles. I could see that the day had taken a toll on him too. I wasn’t alone in my despair.

  I rested my palms against the boy’s chest and felt the silence within, there was no life left to save. “Time of death: seven twenty-one p.m.” I closed my eyes and took a couple of slow, steady breaths before I removed my hands. I wanted to run to the bathroom and throw up.

  A third life I couldn’t save.

  “I’ll go tell his parents, Mia. You’ve done enough today,” Patel said, placing his hand on my shoulder, giving it a tiny squeeze.

  “Thank you, Eric.”

  I usually argued with him. I wanted to be the one to talk with the families and help console them, but today, I had nothing. He patted my shoulder before leaving me with the boy that would never age or have the opportunity to experience all the joys in life.

  I collapsed in the chair against the wall; pulling out my ponytail, I let my hair fall free. Placing my head in my hands, I ran my fingers through my hair as I tried to collect my thoughts.

  More patients needed me, but I had to take a moment to myself. I couldn’t take another loss; I didn’t have anything left to give. Each time I lost someone, a small piece of my heart died.

  Light footsteps broke my moment of serenity as I questioned my decision to work in an emergency room instead of an office practice, like most of my classmates.

  “Sorry to interrupt, Dr. Greco. I need to prep the body for the family to say their goodbyes,” the nurse said as she grabbed a damp cloth to wipe down his bloodied face.

  “It’s okay. I have patients to see. I just needed a moment to myself.”

  She gave me a weak smile before beginning to clean the body. I couldn’t watch. I couldn’t take the sounds of the cries and utter grief that would fill this room. It took everything I had to climb to my feet and pull myself together. The ER had an endless stream of people.

  I had one hour left until I could go home and crawl in bed.

  I had thought about moving back to Minnesota after I finished my internship, but Florida had become a part of me. I wanted to wear sandals year round, feel the sunshine on my face, and watch the sunset over the Gulf of Mexico from my beachfront home. I couldn’t go back—snow and I never go
t along.

  My work had become my life, especially in the summer months when my parents went back home. They were snowbirds, and came to Florida to enjoy the sunshine and warm weather when the deep freeze hit up north. They’d been gone a month, as spring had arrived back home. The quietness of my life had become almost deafening when I wasn’t at the hospital. Today I was thankful I didn’t have to go home and put on a cheery smile for them.

  I felt needed here. I had something to contribute, something that many people didn’t. The local population was poor and I wanted to help. It had become my calling. I spent my spare time helping at the free clinic in town and helped raise money for the homeless youth that plagued the county.

  I stayed for the clinic, where I volunteered, and the chance to make a difference.

  Chapter 2

  My muscles revolted with each kick; every single one screamed for me to stop, but I couldn’t. I worked too damn hard to get to this point in my life to give up now. Sometimes I questioned my sanity for waking up at three in the morning to work out for hours at the gym, but my body had to be strong and I had to be ready to win my next fight.

  “Pansy ass,” Rob yelled. “Harder. Your ribs have been healed for weeks. Show me what you’re made of already, Mike.”

  He egged me on and did everything in the world to piss me off. Rob had been my trainer for two years. Most days, like today, I wanted to knock his fucking lights out, but I knew his methods were right in the end.

  “Your sister hits harder than you,” he teased, a shit-eating grin on his face.

  My sister, Izzy, was where the friend-trainer line crossed with Rob and me. They dated for a short time. When Izzy dumped him, I didn’t think we’d continue working together. In typical Rob fashion, he brushed it off and moved on to the next notch in his bedpost.

  “Cocksucker,” I said, hitting the target in his hand hard enough to cause Rob to stagger backward.

  “Better,” he said as he regained his stance. “Ten more minutes and then we’ll call it a day.”

  My drive to be the champion was so strong that I could almost taste the next victory. I wanted to show my family that I had talent and the ability, even though at times, at least in the beginning, their support had been questionable.

  I won my first two matches, and with each victory, their support grew and my pop finally started to believe. When my ma said he was bragging to his friends, I knew I had him.

  I grew up watching the fights with my pop and his buddies. They yelled at the television and made side bets. He liked to call my fighting career a hobby, but I needed to show him that it was more than that. I was meant to be the champion.

  Wanting the gym all to myself when I trained, I paid the owner to wait until six in the morning to open the doors. He liked the idea of the publicity my victory and career would bring to his small-town gym in the middle of bum-fuck Florida, and it didn’t hurt that he was Rob’s brother, either.

  “Bodies” by Drowning Pool pumped through the speakers, and it gave me the last push of motivation I needed. Sweat dripped from my brows and stung my eyes. Doing a roundhouse kick, I almost missed the target, nearly hitting Rob in the head.

  “Maniac. I’ll knock you on your ass if you do that again.”

  “In your fucking dreams, buddy.” I laughed before landing a solid blow.

  My forearms burned, my thighs trembled, but I wouldn’t quit.

  I had this shit.

  “Time,” Rob said, putting the targets down.

  “I could go another hour,” I said.

  I knew that shit was a lie.

  I ran for an hour before I walked in this morning, and my legs were shaking to the point of weakness.

  “Sure you could, tiger.” He laughed, holding his stomach. “Your muscles need to rest and recoup. We don’t want to overdo it with the match coming up.”

  “Thank Christ,” I mumbled under my breath.

  “What did you say?” He cocked his eyebrow as he crossed his arms.

  “Nothing.”

  “Why do you seem so fucking pissy today, Mike? Couldn’t get it up last night?”

  “That would seem like a fuckin’ blessing right now.” I sat on the bench to give my legs a break as I pulled the tape off my hands. “Tammy. What a fucking pain in my ass.”

  “I told you she’s a crazy bitch. Stop thinking with your dick so much and use what brain is left in that thick head of yours.”

  I snorted. That had been the funniest damn thing to come out his mouth in a long time—he sure as fuck wasn’t Dr. Ruth. “When did you become a relationship expert? Your shit isn’t all together in the lady department, Rob.”

  “Maybe not, but I told you Tammy was a hot mess. She’s got the cling thing going on and is crazy to fuckin’ boot.”

  “Crazy is an understatement, man.” I shook my head. I had a silent debate with myself on if I wanted to share the details of the entire fuckedup situation. “I went to her place last night to get a piece of ass.”

  “And?” He leaned against the wall and listened.

  “And the crazy bitch had a scrapbook on her coffee table. Do you know what the cover was?”

  He started to laugh as he pulled his lips in his mouth to stop from breaking out into hysterics.

  “You do, don’t you?” I glared at him.

  “I’ve heard stories about her, but I thought they had to be made up.”

  “She had a picture of a bride and a groom. Somehow, she’d put our faces on their bodies. I opened it when she went to her room, and the book was filled with her version of our future. It was beyond fucked up. Gave me the fucking creeps.”

  Page after page contained images of our children with names and photos. Little hearts in all colors surrounded the pictures. She had our life planned out, and all I wanted was a little pussy.

  She didn’t have the brains to hold my attention, let alone make me want to spend an eternity listening to her chatter on about the Kardashians. Tammy wanted status and money, and they were two things I wasn’t willing to share with a woman like her.

  Tammy knew her role in my life—she was my late-night hookup. I never took her out, never led her on, and never promised her happily ever after.

  She always replied, “You’ll change your mind,” but that never happened.

  “Wow, I don’t know what to say,” Rob said as he walked toward the door to unlock it.

  “I ended that shit right there. She cried like we’d been dating for years. What a fucking mess. I don’t need the bullshit in my life, especially not now.”

  “Keep your eye on the goal—fighting, not bitches and pussy.”

  “Didn’t you learn not to use that term when talking about women?” I laughed.

  His cheeks turned pink as he looked away from me. “She’s your sister, and I have nothing more to say about the experience.” He drew the last word out. I knew he had a million things he wanted to say about her, but he kept his lips shut because he knew he’d get a beating.

  Rob was crass. He referred to women as bitches once in front of Izzy, and she caught him off guard and knocked him on his ass. It was a proud brother moment. She took down a man double her size, and for one hell of a good cause. My baby sister has bigger balls than most men I knew. Growing up with four brothers made her rough around the edges and not willing to take shit from anyone.

  “Good choice.” I finished drying the sweat from my body. Grabbing my phone, I threw my bag over my shoulder. “Tomorrow, same time?” I asked.

  “You got it.” Rob reclined in the chair at the front desk, kicking his feet up and putting his arms behind his head. He looked like he was ready for a nap.

  That shit wouldn’t fly at Inked.

  The screen on my phone lit up.

  Tammy—there were at least a dozen text messages from her since I’d walked in.

  Tammy: We were meant to be together.

  Tammy: You’ll come back to me.

  Tammy: I miss you.

  I told her las
t night we were through, even though we never really began.

  I never asked her to be my girlfriend.

  Fuck her and her insanity.

  I turned the screen off as I reached for the door. The top of my head hit the door before my chest connected with the glass. I saw stars from the impact. I blinked a couple of times before I noticed a woman on the ground. She was picking up the contents of her purse that had spilled.

  “Fuck,” I muttered, as I opened the door to a very pissed-off female. “I’m sorry; can I help you with that?” I asked, bending down in front of her.

  “Why don’t you fucking watch where you’re walking?” she seethed, as she placed her wallet and other tiny items inside her black handbag.

  “I didn’t see you.” I grabbed her lip-gloss that had rolled away, and held it out to her.

  She grabbed the tube from my hand and glared at me with the most mesmerizing hazel eyes. “Obviously.” She scanned the ground.

  Instead of helping her, I stared at her like an idiot.

  Her hair was an amazing shade of brown, with glints of red that sparkled in the light. The straight, smooth locks hung just past her shoulders. She had a small nose, full red lips, high cheekbones, and large hazel eyes with flecks of gold.

  “Hey, I said I’m sorry and I am.” Standing, I tried to be a gentleman and held my hand out to her.

  Her eyes moved up my body, slowly at first, before she stopped on my face with scrunched eyebrows. Her skin felt like silk against my rough palm as she placed her hand in mine. In one quick motion, I pulled her to her feet. Her crinkled forehead and hardened expression disappeared and were replaced with softness. She pulled her hand away from mine with a weak smile and a reddened face.

  “How can I make it up to you?” I asked, still staring. It wasn’t her beauty that had my attention, but something about her eyes—a familiarity that I couldn’t place.

  She used the back of her hand to brush the dirt off her yoga pants. “I’m fine. No need to make it up to me. Just maybe watch where you’re walking next time. You’re kind of like getting hit by a Mack truck.” She laughed. “Hey, I’m sorry I was such a bitch. Just a bad night and shitty morning and you’re the icing on the cake.”