In Stitches (Rose Valley Hospital Book 1)

by Sarah Collins

  “No. It wasn’t bad. It was…fine,” Olivia gave a little half-smile, almost as if she felt uncomfortable talking about something that she practically lived for. “He was attractive enough. Wealthy, interesting. We shared a bottle of red, which you know is my favorite.”

  Roya felt her stomach do a full flip. “But?”

  At this point, Olivia had already averted her eyes. She shrugged slightly. “I simply…couldn’t get aroused by the thought of him.”

  Roya could barely believe what she was hearing. A small flicker of hope welled up within her. She cleared her throat. “Well. Didn’t think I’d ever hear you say that.”

  Olivia tilted her head, brows scrunched. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Roya’s dark eyes widened into nearly perfect circles. She floundered at the accusation in Olivia’s voice. “I don’t know. You usually… go on dates and then have tantric sex all night. There’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s predictable. I’m just surprised you were uninterested.”

  “Are you saying I’m easy?”

  Roya felt very confused. Arguments were rare between them. They usually agreed on most topics, whether surgical or otherwise. Even a glance could be deciphered with ease between them. They simply clicked. Roya didn’t know how to react to this newfound discomfort. “What? No. That’s not what I mean.”

  Olivia crossed her arms. She looked pissed beyond anything Roya had ever seen before. “Well what do you mean?”

  “I already told you,” she countered. Her voice sounded higher than usual. “You usually go for it. I was just a little shocked when you said you didn’t take him home.”

  Instead of calming Olivia, she only served to make the growing valley between them explode into a gorge. The neurologist began breathing heavily, causing blotchy patches of redness to form wildly across her chest. She looked around them, gauging if anyone was close enough to hear their conversation before finally funneling her words through pursed lips. “Surprised I don’t screw every person who takes me on a date? That’s a low blow, especially from you.”

  Roya watched, mouth agape, as Olivia stopped away down the hallway in her penchant pink tennis shoes. She was still watching her friend disappear when Taylor stepped directly in front of her. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  Roya shook her head slightly. She took the manila envelope forced into her hands by the other doctor. “What? Why?”

  “I’ve been up thinking about ways to approach Savannah’s surgery. I think I have it figured out. Well, mostly.”

  Roya opened the file, but the words looked foreign. She couldn’t absorb the meaning of a single sentence. Thoughts of her early-morning masturbation session to Olivia, working a double, fucking an intern—a female intern, all sat heavily in her mind. She had been fucked by Norah, and then fucked her back. Touched her, teased her, reveled in her taste. She felt more sexual and erotic than at any other point in her life. Then the mere mention of sex had caused her best friend to run away. Literally.

  “Roya?”

  She shook her head, clapped the envelope shut, and forced a smile towards Taylor. The black-headed woman was new to Rose Valley, but quickly became a friend when they began collaborating on Savannah’s case. Taylor also happened to be a lesbian on the pussy trail full-time. She would surely get a kick out of what happened last night with Norah. She probably also had a lot of great advice that Roya wanted to tap into.

  “Sounds great. Hey, do you want to grab dinner tonight? I need to take my mind off…everything.”

  “I feel that. They need to fix this staff shortage, and they need to fix it quick.” Taylor laughed and checked the calendar on her phone. “Damn. I won’t be off until eight. Maybe I can catch up with you ladies for a latecap.”

  “Oh. It’ll just be me,” Roya explained. “Like you and me, going out like a couple of friends.”

  Taylor narrowed her eyes in suspicion. Roya and Olivia never went anywhere without each other. Something definitely felt off here. She leaned forward and faux-whispered, “Is there some drama happening that I don’t know about?”

  Roya shook her head. She didn’t want to start drama about herself and Liv, but she also couldn’t keep everything crammed down inside any longer. “I wouldn’t call it drama. I’m just having one hell of a week.”

  “Smells like drama to me,” Taylor retorted, but a smile stayed on her lips. She took backward steps down the hallway after checking her beeper. “Sorry, Roy. Gotta go. Push your lady problems aside and read over that file for me. I need to know what you think.”

  “I don’t have lady problems,” Roya called, but the words fell on deaf ears.

  She couldn’t be further from the truth.

  Chapter 6

  Roya entered the surgical suite with slight apprehension later that day. Not because of what she had to do—resetting broken bones came second nature to her. She felt uneasy because of who she would be working with.

  The patient, involved in a four-car pile up, nearly flat-lined from a transected femoral artery and brain compression against the skull. It had caused numerous aneurisms, causing Olivia to start on his head injuries nearly ten minutes ago. There were no other orthopedic surgeons working today, so Roya knew that Olivia would be waiting for her inside.

  After disinfecting and gloving and sanitizing every crevice of exposed skin, Roya walked through the parting nurses and interns to stand by the patient. Olivia was peeling away a section of his scalp already. Normally the sensitive surgery wasn’t combined with something like orthopedics, but if they didn’t fix both issues at once, there wouldn’t be a point in fixing either.

  Roya peered into the gaping space on the man’s thigh. The flesh had been transected and held open with splints. Damn. She loved it when the interns prepped correctly. It made her job easier. That didn’t happen very often in the life of a surgeon.

  The sound of Roya and Olivia talking nonstop usually filled the room when they worked together. Not today. The interns shuffled awkwardly as minutes ticked by in strained silence. Roya caught some looking at each other in confusion. She wanted to speak up and break the strain, but she caused it. Olivia had to be the one to forgive her for it.

  She pulled out tiny chunks of femur hidden grotesquely in all the wrong spots in order to fix the ruptured artery. The gnash looked long and deep. He had already lost too much blood for comfort. Her hands worked effortlessly, fluidly despite the commotion towards his head. At the same time, Olivia deftly pulled away a circular section of his skull. Interns pushed inward to watch the demonstration firsthand. They were almost always drawn to the softness of a wrinkled brain, the pulsation of a live heart, or the craze of childbirth. That was to be expected. But when it came time to pull apart a ribcage or break bones—all eyes were on Doctor Bahar.

  She enjoyed the thrill that comes from the perplexity and acknowledgment of those surgeries, but she enjoyed the predictability of simple surgeries like this just as much, if not more. Her eyes easily zoned in on the problem, began corrections, and directed her team of interns accordingly. This group felt younger than all the ones before them. Maybe I’m just getting older.

  Eventually Olivia cleared her throat and tilted her head in Roya’s direction. “I’m having a hard time patching an aneurysm,” she explained. “I should be finished by now.”

  Roya took it for what it was: an excuse for the silence. That was better than nothing. “You want to talk me through it? Sometimes it helps me to pretend like I’m explaining it to someone else.”

  Olivia looked up at her briefly then. Roya could see the smile in her eyes, even behind the goggles. “I’m laterally approaching the posterior temporal lobe…”

  Roya smiled. Olivia wasn’t just some pretty face and fine ass. She was talented—no, skilled. She worked hard to be as good as she was now. Olivia was caring, sensual, and an odd paradox of soft-spoken and sexual. She acted meticulously, logically. She rarely let her heart lead, but Roya knew more about that walled-off heart than any
other person on the planet.

  The cessation of Olivia’s voice jerked Roya back to the present. “Got it?”

  Olivia nodded as she began to search for any more abnormalities within the patient’s brain. “Should be ready to close soon up here. What about you?”

  “Almost done here.” Roya had already begun suturing the thigh back together. She would usually leave this up to an intern, but she desperately wanted to make things right with her best friend. “About this morning…I’m sorry.”

  Even though the room had several other interns and nurses, the two doctors felt comfortable enough to speak freely. Sometimes their conversations and drama leaked out into the rest of the hospital, but most colleagues understood that the words shouldn’t leave the confines of the four sanitized walls around them.

  Olivia stepped back from her spot at the man’s cranial cavity to oversee a third-year student suture the skin together. “I should be the one apologizing, Roya. I blew everything out of proportion.”

  “What made you go off like that?” Roya asked with the gentlest tone she possessed. “Was it something I did?”

  Olivia corrected the intern’s grip on the tools before refocusing back to her best friend. “Both yes and no.”

  Roya furrowed her brows. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I heard about last night.” Roya felt the air suck from her lungs. Their eyes met knowingly. “I’m upset you didn’t tell me. I thought we were friends.”

  Roya focused extraordinarily hard on tying off a stitch. “Of course we’re friends.”

  Olivia paused long enough for Roya to make eye contact. “So why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want you to judge me.”

  “For sleeping with someone?”

  “For sleeping with someone I shouldn’t have,” Roya corrected. She didn’t dare look up from her task, though she could throw a stitch with her eyes closed.

  Olivia shrugged one shoulder. “Well… did you enjoy it?”

  Roya felt the tips of her ears ignite. She made eye contact with one of the interns. She could tell he knew what (and who) they were referring to. They could talk about many things in here, but she wasn’t going to rate an intern’s sexual capabilities in front of that intern’s coworker. Olivia caught on and quickly deflected. “I mean… Is that the type of thing you’re interested in now?”

  Roya decided that enough was enough. They could only beat around the busy for so long. “Do you mean having a one-night stand or having sex with women?”

  An intern dropped a tray of tools at that, causing them to all jump when it scattered across the hard floor in a loud clatter. Olivia playfully scowled at Roya. “That was hardly appropriate.”

  Roya cracked a smile behind her mask. “Why not? It’s fun. But yeah, I wouldn’t mind doing either again.”

  “I’m not surprised actually,” Olivia said casually, “That you’re into women.”

  Roya didn’t know whether to take that as a compliment or something worse. Her brow furrowed, but she pretended a whipstitch needed twice as much attention as it really did. When she spoke, she tried to sound nonchalant. “Why’s that?”

  “Remember Eric Tillman? The orthodontist?” When Roya nodded, Olivia continued. “He was perfect for you. Attractive, smart, loved cats…but you weren’t into him.”

  “So I’m gay because I didn’t like a self-absorbed prick?” Roya laughed then. “I’d hardly call that gaydar. But I guess I see your point. I never did like any of the men you set me up with.”

  “And many were near perfect,” Olivia answered. She tilted her head to the side. “Well, as perfect as a man can get.”

  Roya paused. What exactly did Olivia mean by that? She quickly decided not to dwell on it. “Oh well. Thanks for trying.”

  When they finally finished and the patient stabilized, they walked side-by-side to decontaminate themselves. They simultaneously washed their hands at the sink, tucked away from prying ears. Roya watched as Olivia stripped off her gloves and lathered her hands. For as many times a day as they did this, the neurosurgeon never had dry hands. It was as close to a miracle as Roya had ever seen.

  Now that things were mostly back to normal, Roya decided to pry about something that had been nagging her since this morning. “Anyway, you never told me about your date.”

  “Yes I did,” Olivia refutes, nodding. “I said it was okay.”

  “But I need you to expound on that.”

  With a sigh, Olivia leaned against the lip of the sinks. “It means he was a very attractive man, but he was definitely a different man than the one I matched with online.”

  Roya knitted her forehead as she tried to comprehend. “Seriously?”

  “Yes, it was quite unnerving. I went home and studied the picture to be sure. He didn’t look anything like the original.”

  “Is that illegal? He could be doing that to all kinds of women.” Roya gasped. “And why would he have to do that? Do you think he’s a criminal?”

  “My thoughts exactly.” Olivia sighed. “I think I went on a date with an actual outlaw.”

  Roya leaned in conspiratorially. “Or someone in the mafia.”

  “Wouldn’t that also make him a criminal?”

  “Hmm. Guess you’re right.” Roya shook her head in disbelief. “Call me next time something weird like that happens. I’ll come get you.”

  “I hope there isn’t a next time,” Olivia pursed her lips together in a tight smile. “But I appreciate the offer.”

  Roya brushed Olivia’s arm as a condolence. A usually friendly gesture. But it felt like more than that. When it came to Olivia, every look, every touch felt like something more flowing between them. It was powerful, consuming. Roya took an imperceptible step backwards. As if that could actually protect her. Olivia was a force to be reckoned with.

  Chapter 7

  Roya stood in front of a mirror in the otherwise empty staff bathroom. She looked at herself with unfair scrutiny. Another 18-hour day left her feeling older than she really was. She noticed slight furrows forming between her eyebrows that weren’t there only months before. The staff shortage caused more of a pain that she imagined it would. But she knew that she couldn’t go on like this forever. She’d have to quit if she didn’t get a break soon. Silver Lake Medical was just down the road and wanted to improve their surgical program. They’d scoop her up the minute she expressed interest. It would mean leaving Olivia behind, but with the way things were going…there wasn’t much chance of a happy future panning out for them anyway. Maybe as friends, but certainly not as lovers.

  Roya glanced towards the door as someone stepped inside.

  “We meet again,” Norah said. A smile crossed her lips. She came to stand beside Roya at the counter. “Am I interrupting anything?”

  “Nothing important.” Roya realized she was wearing wrinkled scrubs, her old smelly tennis shoes again, and strands of her hair were sticking out precariously from her ponytail. If only she had the time to take care of herself. She didn’t understand how this woman could possibly find her attractive right now. “Working late?”

  “Just got off actually.” This time, she smiled with a purpose. Roya hated the way it made a rush of electricity pulse through her body. “It was my third double in a row.”

  Roya scoffed, all too familiar with that situation. “Hell. We may as well start living here.”

  “I will be for the foreseeable future. The perks of being an intern,” Norah answered with a wry laugh. Something about her caused a noticeable intrigue. Maybe it was her above-average face, or her eagerness to please. Either way, Roya was hardly upset that this was the first woman she ever had sex with. The woman curled a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Are you staying tonight?”

  Roya looked down at her watch. Ten o’clock didn’t sound late, but it felt late after such a long shift. Driving home was out of the question again. But staying meant staying in the same space with Norah. All night. They both knew what that slippery
slope would lead to.

  And it looked like Norah anticipated it.

  Wanted it.

  She watched Norah bite her plump bottom lip. Wasn’t this what she wanted too? To finally be with a woman? Norah wasn’t Olivia, but she was still a very hot and desirable woman. Pushing all ethical boundaries aside, this was the closest thing to a miracle she had ever experienced. It would almost be immoral to turn down this gift from above. Besides, she deserved to catch a break.

  Roya grinned. “Looks like I am.”

  “Good,” Norah answered, stepping forward into the doctor’s personal space. Roya felt the counter press into her lower back. Instead of fighting against it, she let her body use the ledge for leverage, pushing back into Norah with equal fervor. Norah pulled her in for a kiss. Their tongues tentatively slid against one another at first, exploring, until Norah moaned into Roya’s mouth. “You taste good.”

  Roya felt her cheeks warm up and hoped Norah didn’t notice. It was risky doing this in here, but she didn’t want to stop this just to move to the cots. Though not versed in the land of lesbianism, she knew that would probably break the mood. That’s the last thing she wanted. Instead, she spread her legs into a wider stance, allowing Norah’s hand to roam up to press against the warmth between her thighs.

  It felt good, and she let her body sink into it without shame. But when she came, she had to bite back Olivia’s name.

  It was both the best and most guilt-ridden orgasm of her life.

  Chapter 8

  Roya sat in the upstairs observation room with a handful of other doctors and surgical interns. It wasn’t often that such a unique procedure came through the hospital, so everyone took advantage of the opportunity anxiously await the outcome. One of the best feelings at a learning hospital was actually getting to learn something new from an experienced surgeon. The interns loved it and so did Roya.

  She especially loved it when the surgeon in question was Olivia. The blonde had her hair pulled back into a bright purple surgical cap. Only her goggle-encased eyes were visible from here. Her hands worked deftly within the cranial cavity. An overly eager intern stood at her side trying to both watch and supply Olivia with whatever tool she needed at a moment’s notice.