Dr. OB (St. Luke's Docuseries Book 1)

by Max Monroe

  It felt good to get out some of the surface rage, so I walked over to the wastebasket, pulled out the bouquet, and slammed it down again.

  The reverberations of the second clang hadn’t even quieted when Melody opened my door, stepped through without asking, and closed and locked it behind her.

  “Will,” she whispered softly, cutting through my anger and using a torch of memories to melt it all into hurt.

  When she didn’t say anything else, and the back of my throat started to tingle with unshed tears, all I could do was raise my eyebrows. What the hell did she want from me? I wasn’t the one with the information.

  God, my brain breathed in panic. Maybe there is no explanation. Last night, the weeks leading up to it, maybe all of it was a made-up fantasy. She hadn’t wanted to stay over. Maybe Melody was just like all the other crazy women out there—out for a night of scandalous fun with Dr. Obscene. Jesus, that’s a depressing thought.

  “I’m so sorry for the scene out there,” she finally apologized. “I can’t believe he came here and did that in front of all of those people…”

  My insides froze, waiting for the rest, unsure whether to prepare for elation or heartbreak.

  “And?” I found my voice.

  “And…I know it’s unprofessional.”

  “Unprofessional?” My head started to pound in time with my heart, and neither of the two took it at an easy pace. The vacuum was strong, sucking me toward despair at a rapid speed and threatening to keep me there.

  “Yes. I wouldn’t want you to see me that way.”

  “That’s it?” I questioned disbelievingly.

  “I…” She chewed her lip nervously and wrung her hands together. “Yeah, that’s it.”

  Every single part of me revolted. My skin tried to shred, my bones turned to dust, and my heart raced to a strain before exploding.

  The memory of the sensation of her so fresh in my mind I could feel it physically, I locked it down and poured virtual salt into my wounds.

  The woman you’re mourning doesn’t exist.

  “Wow.” I shook my head, my voice so thick with disgust it tasted like molasses. “Don’t worry, Mel. The way I’m viewing you now is nothing but professional.”

  Crowding her, I moved to the door and grabbed the handle, hoping she’d get the hint and move out of the way. When she didn’t, I vocalized the implication. “Marlene needs me in exam room six.”

  She didn’t move, so I forced it.

  “Will, wait,” she cried as I pulled the door open a sliver, slamming it closed with her weight and her back.

  “Mel—”

  “No, Will. Wait. Please?”

  I took a deep breath and backed up a step to look her in the eye. If everything I’d felt for her was really going to die, I was going to have to let her hold the hammer for the final nails.

  “I’m not handling this well, I know. But I wasn’t expecting this.” She paused and sighed. “And I wasn’t expecting last night either.”

  A spike of anxiety mingled with hope made a sharp pain contract in my chest. The shock of the defibrillator on my heart.

  “And, what? You just thought you’d have one night with me and then go back to your boyfriend?”

  Her eyes widened in horror. “No! God, no. He’s my ex-boyfriend.” Her voice dropped to a mutter as she spoke to herself. “Christ, Mel. Way to bury the very fucking important lead.”

  Ex-boyfriend. Christ. Well, that was at least a little better. Still, I needed more of an explanation so I pushed on. “You thought last night was what, exactly? Help me get on the same page here, Mel.”

  “I don’t know!” she huffed, frustrated. “At first I thought it was about your reputation, and then when the sex happened, I thought it was more about having fun.”

  “Having fun?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  Is it really possible she didn’t feel what I did? Am I losing my mind here?

  Christ. Maybe I was. I’d only known her for a month.

  Forcing myself to remember what I was like, what I’d been looking for from a woman until Melody had walked into my life about two point five figurative seconds earlier, I took a deep breath.

  I was a player. I slept around, I did it with people I worked with and didn’t, and I did it often. I met women in bars, took them home, slept with them, and never spoke to them again. I wasn’t exactly a pillar of society.

  That, combined with the way I was being portrayed on TV and the fact that Melody didn’t actually know me that well at all suggested it wasn’t only fair of her to think this way, it was pretty much expected. If she were any other woman, I’d be worried if she wasn’t thinking this.

  She couldn’t presume the way she made me feel, just like I couldn’t presume she felt the same. Only time could prove that.

  In the meantime, I would just have to make sure she knew the difference between her and everyone else, that she felt the difference I so clearly did, and it wasn’t going to happen in a conversation. At least, not entirely.

  There was no way I’d say the right thing.

  No, actions were going to have to be my words, and I was going to have to be really fucking eloquent.

  Too bad I’d been nothing but a big bag of awkward since I’d first laid eyes on her.

  Fuck. Make the best of this, Will.

  “You’re right. It was fun.” It was safe to say I paraphrased my inner monologue a bit. “And I want to keep having more of it. But I was kind of thinking our fun would be a two-person, no exceptions kind of activity. Aka, not having guys like Eli—”

  His name reeked of disdain as it rolled off of my tongue.

  “—show up with flowers for you. If you get flowers, they’re from me, and they’re made of fucking tongue depressors, goddammit.”

  Okay. Maybe I should have taken another breath in the middle of that little speech. Seems the good attitude wore off by the end.

  “What?”

  I thought she was confused, naturally, but if I’d been paying attention to her more than my own mental breakdown, I would have noticed she wasn’t confused at all before she moved.

  She pushed me aside, her hand reaching for the garbage behind me, and as I turned to look, I spotted what I already knew was there—the bouquet of tongue depressors I’d made this morning lying almost pristinely on top. Did I mention the five hours of uncertainty I’d had after she left? Well, turns out, I also had an old box of tongue depressors in my home office.

  Goddammit. I would have thought I’d destroyed those things a little more.

  Plucking one from the bundle, she held it up for closer inspection and read aloud the ridiculous words I’d written.

  “There’s nothing depressing about your tongue.”

  I looked away. Christ, that was a bad one.

  “The back of your throat has never looked prettier.”

  Okay, that one was worse.

  “Will? What are these?”

  I shook my head, but the intensity of her stare forced the motion to a stop. “Will.”

  “They’re tongue-depressor-themed affirmations. You said you like to use them—”

  “I know what I said,” she interrupted, her voice dropping to a whisper and her eyes dropping to the sticks in her hands. “I just can’t believe you did.”

  I shrugged and told the truth. “I like you, Mel. It’s not that hard to remember when you say things. It’s not that hard at all.”

  “Hi,” I started to greet, but I had to glance down at the chart in my hand in search of the patient’s name. “Elise,” I finished and gestured her into the exam room. “I’m Melody, Dr. Cummings’s nurse. I’ll be assisting him with your checkup today.”

  “Oh, I don’t think an assistant is necessary for my appointment,” she said and sashayed into the exam room on her black stilettos. “It’s just a yearly pap smear. I’ve done them, like, a thousand times.”

  I internally called bullshit. This woman didn’t look a day over thirty. One thousand pap
smears was either a gross exaggeration, or her prior OB/GYN was giving out pap smears like condoms at the free clinic.

  “It’s actually our new policy,” I corrected and moved toward the cabinet and started to set out the needed sterile supplies on the counter. “Moving forward, all of our physicians have a nurse with them during exams to ensure patients are comfortable and the physicians have all of the assistance they might need.”

  Also, now that I was officially dating Will, having a chaperone in the room with this woman was my policy. She looked like she was ripe for more than a pelvic exam.

  We hadn’t told our coworkers about our current dating status yet, and considering who they were, I honestly didn’t know if I’d ever want to, but things had finally settled.

  Two weeks after the Eli Incident, as we were now calling it, and things between Will and me had maintained a steady pace of getting to know each other in all the ways that included the ah-mazing, toe-curling sex that occurred when we were together.

  Ironically enough, my ex-boyfriend randomly showing up at my place of employment had actually done us a little favor. If I hadn’t been forced to confront Will directly, if I hadn’t seen the look on his face as I blew off our night together as if it was no big deal, I don’t think I ever would have gotten around to facing my feelings.

  I wasn’t making wedding plans or anything, but I didn’t have any doubts Will liked me. In fact, he told me he did.

  I guess you could say he was my boyfriend. Which shouldn’t come as a surprise, I mean, he’d made me a tongue-depressor bouquet and told me it wasn’t hard to remember when I said something, for shit’s sake. I wasn’t one hundred percent emotionally available, but I wasn’t an idiot either. When the object of most women’s fantasies spends his time making you a bouquet of affirmations, you fucking date him. Period. Consequences pending until later.

  “We can just ignore the policy. I won’t mind,” Elise added suggestively. I rolled my eyes before turning back toward the exam table to get her vitals.

  Much to my dismay, Elise had already made herself comfortable—actually, a little too comfortable. Without removing her clothes or putting on a patient gown, she’d hopped up onto the table and placed her feet—still clad in stilettos—into the stirrups. Her panty-less crotch was on display for anyone and everyone to see. If I weren’t certain I was at my job, in a physician’s medical office, I would’ve thought someone had teleported me on to the set of Cocktor Pound, a B-rated porno. Any second the male lead, John E. Deep’s boner would have been popping in for its onscreen debut.

  Holy moly, what is going on here?

  “Knock, knock,” Will said as he opened the door. “All se—” he started to say, but once his eyes made contact with Elise’s crotch, he quickly averted his eyes. “Uh…I’ll give you another minute or two,” he muttered and glanced at me with wide eyes. “Melody, I’ll be in my office. Just come get me once the patient’s ready.”

  “Oh, but I am ready, Dr. Cummings,” Elise purred, but Will continued his path, straight toward the hallway with the door firmly shut behind him.

  The patient sighed in frustration, but I found myself smirking. It wasn’t every day you got enjoyment out of watching your boyfriend get flashed with a crotch shot from another woman. But with the way he’d reacted, I couldn’t help but smile.

  Luckily, Elise seemed to get the picture too—if only temporarily—and took her heels out of the stirrups and sat up straight on the table, legs crossed and hiding what I’d decided to nickname The Beave.

  “I’m just going to check your vitals and ask you a few questions, and then we’ll be ready for your exam.”

  “Whatever,” she muttered, put out with me. She was put out with me.

  Wow. You’re kind of a bitch, I thought to myself, but somehow, I managed to school my face into a neutral expression and move along with the appointment. The sooner I got her assessed and examined, the sooner her stiletto and miniskirt wearing ass would be out the door.

  But seriously, who dressed like that for a doctor’s appointment?

  Especially one where you were going to get a pap smear.

  The last time I’d had a pap, I’d worn yoga pants, a sweat shirt, and Converse. The idea of a physician sticking his hand and a speculum up my hoo-hah had never been a situation that made me feel like getting dressed up like a hooker on a Friday night.

  Either pap smears made Elise horny, or Dr. Will Cummings—my Will—made her horny.

  I had a feeling it was the latter, but self-preservation and jealousy I didn’t expect made me cut that thought off at the knees.

  “When was your last period?” I asked and pulled up her medical file on the computer in the room.

  “Two fucking weeks ago,” she responded in a frustrated tone.

  Yeah, I take that back. You’re actually a total bitch. Not just a little bit, but full-on bitch.

  “And how long did it last?” I questioned in my sweetest voice.

  “I dunno,” she said with a sigh. “Like…five days or something.”

  “Do your periods generally come every twenty-eight to thirty days?”

  Do you know that you’re a total bitch?

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sexually active?”

  Are you pretty much the worst person ever?

  “Obviously,” she answered with another eye roll. HA! Walked right into that one, didn’t you?

  “When was your last pap smear?”

  When was the last time your brain had an intelligent thought?

  “Like, a year ago, I think.”

  I continued the assessment, asking questions and getting bitchy—but quite humorously perfect to my own imaginary line of questioning—responses, and checked her vitals before grabbing the chart and moving toward the door. “Are there any medical conditions Dr. Cummings should be aware of before the exam begins?”

  “I have a very, very tight pussy,” she replied as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

  It’d been a while since I’d been in nursing school, but I didn’t recall “a very, very tight pussy” being a diagnosis question on the NCLEX.

  “All righty, then,” I responded, just stopping myself from losing my mind, and opened the door. “Go ahead and remove your clothes from the waist down and put on the paper gown. Once you’re comfortable and appropriately covered on the exam table, Dr. Cummings will be in to do your exam.”

  “About fucking time,” she muttered and hopped off the table.

  I shut the door behind me, and before I moved down the currently empty hall to get Will, I turned back toward the closed exam room and gave Elise the middle finger. I knew it wasn’t the most professional thing I’d ever done, but holy hell, that chick was a piece of work, and it wasn’t the good kind. If she were a painting in a museum, she definitely wouldn’t be a Monet. No. She’d be that weird piece of art like pictures of toenail clippings or a mummified dog sculpture made out of papier-mâché and cow manure that no one could ever wrap their brain around its actual meaning.

  “She’s that fantastic, huh?” Will said quietly into my ear, and I jumped.

  “Jesus,” I muttered with a hand to my chest. “You scared the hell out of me.”

  He just smirked in response and rested his elbow against the doorway.

  “How long have you been standing here?” I whispered, and his smirk grew wider.

  “Long enough to see you flip off the door for a good ten seconds.”

  “The hallway was empty ten seconds ago,” I said in annoyance and moved toward the small alcove beside the exam room to finish putting Elise’s assessment into her medical chart. “It’s like you appeared out of thin air.”

  “It wasn’t empty,” he corrected and followed me, making himself comfortable in the chair beside mine. “You were just too intent on giving that patient the bird.”

  “Yeah, well, she deserved it,” I added and typed her vitals into the computer.

  “Excuse me,” Elise called out from
behind the closed door. “Nurse Lyric? I’m ready for Dr. Cummings now.”

  Nurse Lyric? Really?

  At least it sounds better than Load-y…

  Will groaned, and I grinned at his anguish. Somehow watching him suffer so adorably made me feel better.

  “She seems real excited to see you.”

  “Jesus,” he muttered.

  “And she would also like you to know about her medical condition.”

  “Medical condition?”

  “Yeah,” I answered, swallowing my urge to smile. “When I asked her if she had any current medical conditions that you needed to be aware of, she said, and I’m repeating this word for word…I have a very, very tight pussy.”

  His jaw dropped, and his eyes narrowed. “Are you fucking with me right now?”

  “Nope,” I said with a little to pop to the p.

  “And she’s a huge fan of your show,” I added. “She wanted you to know that as well.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

  I smiled and hopped out of my seat with Elise’s chart in hand. “C’mon, Dr. Obscene. We’ve got a patient waiting on you.”

  “For the love of God, never call me that again.”

  I just giggled in response and knocked on the exam room door. “All set?”

  “Yes.”

  I opened the door and found that Elise had managed to put on the paper gown but appeared intent on airing out her vagina while her feet were perched in the stirrups.

  “Oh God,” Will muttered to himself as we both entered the room.

  “Hi, Dr. Cummings,” Elise purred with a provocative smile. “I’m Elise,” she greeted with her hand held out in his direction. “Elise Allen.”

  Will shook her hand while simultaneously avoiding the giant beaver in the room. “It’s, uh…it’s nice to meet you.”

  “Oh, believe me,” the patient continued, “the pleasure is all mine.”

  Boy, this chick was laying it on thick.

  “Melody, could you place another gown over Mrs. Allen’s legs?” Will asked, and I nodded. You bet I can.

  “Oh, I don’t mind,” Elise started to chime in, but I ignored her, haphazardly tossing another paper gown over her legs. She flashed a glare in my direction, but I chose to ignore that, too.