She knew that many surgical techs had arm and shoulder problems because of it, and many of them had UTIs or kidney stones from the length of time they had to hold their bladders. Surgeons were responsible for subbing out when they were physically exhausted during a long surgery. But surgical techs just stayed and stayed.
“I’m alright, Dr. Camellia, thanks for asking.”
Tia nodded and cracked her neck. “Todd? Robert? Everybody alright?”
The other two people in the room nodded. The hospital was spread thin today. It was always like that on the first few warm days of spring. People got restless and wild. Had barbecues and drove fast and rode bikes. Let’s just say there were always more than the usual number of trauma cases in the ER around this time of year.
When Tia finally sutured the wound in the woman’s arm and stepped back from the table, her back ached, her feet were screaming, and her eyes felt like they were filled with sand. She felt like a million bucks. She knew that most people in the world would rather chew glass than do what she just did in that emergency room OR. But damn. Tia loved her job. There was nothing like it.
She scrubbed out, changed her scrubs, and headed to the waiting room to speak with the patient’s family.
She’d just saved that woman’s arm. It wasn’t bragging to acknowledge to herself that a lesser surgeon may have been forced to amputate. Of course, the patient wasn’t out of the woods yet. The recovery was up to her, her doctor, and her physical therapist. But Tia had set her up for success. She’d done her royal best and set her up for success.
Tia stepped into the waiting room and her stomach dropped. Crap. Owen was across the way talking to another family. She’d known they were busy today, but she and Owen usually worked opposite schedules and she generally didn’t worry about running into him at the hospital. She turned away from him, but got the skittery feeling that he’d seen her anyways.
“Mr. Grant?” Tia asked an older, white-haired gentleman sitting with his head in his hands on the other side of the room.
“Yes?” The man’s head popped up and he jolted to his feet, unsteady.
Tia reached out her hand to steady him and quickly assessed him for signs of intoxication. Yes, his eyes were red, but that seemed to be from crying.
“I’m sorry,” he said, leaning on her for a second. “I’m dizzy. I’ve been so scared. Karen. Please tell me about Karen.”
Tia eased Mr. Grant back into the chair and sat next to him to make sure that he stayed there. “Karen came through the surgery well. Smoothly. But as you know, the damage was very extreme, much more so than we realized when we first started the surgery. And it took much longer than we thought it would have to.”
Tia took a deep breath. “She’ll be able to keep the arm.”
Mr. Grant went white. “I didn’t know she might be in danger of losing it.”
“She was,” Tia said, gentle but firm. “For most of the surgery. But my team and I were able to save it. There were bits of metal lodged and parts of her bone and muscle were severed, almost completely in some cases.”
Mr. Grant nodded, one hand over his mouth.
“It’s going to be a long way toward recovery. She may need follow-up surgeries from a specialist. And it’s possible she may never regain full control of her hand.”
He nodded again, his face white as milk. “Can I see her?”
“They’re taking her to recovery now. A nurse will come out and get you when it’s alright for you to go back.”
“Thank you, Doctor. I never thought—I didn’t think this could happen. I—”
His voice cracked and Tia automatically gathered him toward her. He went willingly to her shoulder and rested his forehead there. She patted his back.
“Dr. Camellia.” Owen’s voice came from in front of them and Tia looked up at him.
“Yes?” He was interrupting her with a patient? What the hell was that?
“You’re needed back in triage.”
Yeah, that wasn’t real. But she didn’t want to cause a scene in front of Mr. Grant.
“Of course,” Mr. Grant said, sniffing and rubbing a hand over his eyes. “Please, don’t let me keep you, Dr. Camellia.”
Tia rose. “I’ll come by to check on you and your wife in the morning, Mr. Grant. If you have any additional questions, I’ll be happy to discuss them then.”
She shook his hand and followed Owen out of the waiting room. As soon as they were back through the sliding doors and walking toward their offices, Owen turned to her.
“You’re welcome.”
She recoiled from him. “For what?”
He smiled. “For rescuing you from the clinger. I hate the families that fall all over me.”
Tia frowned. “I didn’t mind that at all. He needed me. Neither of them have much family, and his wife is going to be out for hours. I can provide a little comfort.”
“Always with the bleeding heart, Dr. Camellia.” He grinned again, but this time there was a little something sharp in it.
Tia studied his face. The bland handsomeness. Hair somewhere between blonde and brown, the innocuous blue eyes. She’d found him breathtakingly handsome when they’d first started dating all those years ago. But now when she looked at him, she saw emptiness. A face devoid of any strong anything. No strong emotions. There weren’t even any interesting facial features to make him more distinctive. The man was practically a white square painted on a white wall.
“You haven’t returned any of my calls or texts.” A frustrated tic appeared in his left cheek. Something that he’d developed near the end of their relationship. Or maybe he’d always had it; she just hadn’t annoyed him enough at the beginning to bring it out of him.
Tia sidestepped a group of nurses coming down the hall, laughing and chatting. Two of them goggled at Owen and turned back to one another whispering and giggling. She didn’t really want to have this conversation out in the open hallway, but she also really didn’t want to go into her office or his.
“I thought it was ultimately kinder that way, Owen,” she said, opting for honesty.
“You thought it was kind to completely cut me out of your life?” His eyes were the muddy blue of a lake after a storm. And as much as there was annoyance and frustration and hurt pride in there, there was also sadness and genuine pain as well. Tia softened.
“Of course I don’t want to cut you out of my life completely, or forever. But the way you talk to me when you call and when you text, it’s like you’re waiting for us to get back together. And I don’t want to lead you on.”
His eyes iced over and the genuine sadness and pain dissolved in the heat of his anger. “Because we’re not, according to you, ever getting back together.”
Tia paused, pursed her lips. “I think I’ve been very clear about that, Owen.”
“All because I made a mistake.”
Tia’s mind went blank for a moment. He had the gall to reclassify an entire six months of treating her like shit as a single mistake. She cleared her throat and counted backwards from ten. “No. Because the last months of our relationship taught me that we’re not meant for one another. Not compatible. Not in the way that really counts.”
“Because I wasn’t more involved when your parents were going to the home?”
And because you acted like my sister was a burden, an impediment to our lives together. And because you were threatened by my success as a surgeon. And because you never once kissed me the way Eli did. “That was a big part of it.”
Tia’s phone buzzed in the pocket of her scrubs. She pulled it out of her pocket and couldn’t stop the effervescent rising of joy inside of her. Like the bubbles in a glass of champagne. Eli was calling her.
It had been a week since that night at his house. When she’d curled into his side while they’d watched some movie or another, she’d barely been able to pay attention. Because his cheek had rested on the top of her head, his large hand had drawn circles on her shoulder.
The next day she�
��d spent with her parents and with Laura. And since then she’d been working like an absolute dog. There hadn’t been time to see one another again. Nothing more than a few texts here and there. Which, of course, had thrilled her almost as much as kissing him had.
But now, here she was, the shift from hell almost over, and Eli’s voice about to speak in her ear. She couldn’t have been happier. Except for the grumpy ex-boyfriend currently staring daggers at her phone.
“Who’s that?” he asked, squinting at the emojis that danced across her screen.
Tia couldn’t help the smile that bloomed as she followed Owen’s eyeline. Football, biceps, flame. Her hot, buff, football player was calling her.
“I’ve got to take this. Have a good night, Owen.”
Tia stepped into her office and closed the door gently behind her, well aware that she was basically closing it in Owen’s face. She didn’t want to be a jerk to him, but she also wouldn’t mind if he started steering clear of her.
“Hello?” she answered the phone, her stomach in knots.
“Well, well, well. Fancy meeting you here.” Eli’s voice had Tia grinning into the dim twilight of her unlit office, and she sank into the chair under the window.
“Fancy meeting me on this phone call? The one which you placed to me?”
“Yeah. Ain’t life grand?”
Tia laughed and she could hear the smile in his voice. “I wasn’t sure if you were gonna call me,” she said.
He paused for a second. “I wasn’t sure if you were gonna call me.”
“I didn’t.”
“Yeah, I know. Which is why I had to wait a few days so I didn’t seem too desperate. How am I doing?”
“You definitely don’t sound desperate.” He could never sound desperate. He always sounded so effortlessly cool. Happy and free. She envied that.
“What are you up to?”
“I’m sitting in my dark office about to go home from the shift from hell.”
“Perfect!”
“Perfect for what?”
“Well, I was hoping you weren’t working tonight. Because I called so that you could ask me on a date.”
Tia laughed again. “I’m sorry?”
“Yeah, I already asked you on the grilled cheese and movie date. So now it’s your turn.”
“Oh, are we taking turns?”
“Yeah, isn’t that how it works in high school? To be honest, I can’t really remember.”
Tia smiled even more. “So we’re officially doing this the high school way, huh?”
“Seems like our style, you know?’
“Yeah, it kind of does.” Inwardly, Tia thrilled over the word our, but she batted her bubbly feelings down. It was totally fine to flirt with Eli, to make date plans with him, to maybe make out some more. But there was no our. They weren’t together. And they weren’t going to be. She needed to keep a lid on those feelings. It couldn’t move much past where they already were. Which meant that all she could really do was appreciate where they were. “Alright, then. You wanna come over and help me with my homework?”
“Hell yeah.” His voice was gruff and humored at the same time. How did he do that? She marveled again at that potent mix of friendly and sexy that he had going on. She didn’t know any other person who could be so yummy while being so disarming at the same time.
“Well,” she reconsidered. “Maybe I should come over to your house. How are you feeling?”
“Good enough to drive. That’s for sure.”
“Are you sure? No fevers, minimal aches, you’re able to stand for periods lasting up to ten minutes, and you can walk around the house without getting lightheaded or dizzy?”
“I went to the beach this morning.”
“Eli, you didn’t!” she gasped. “Do you know how much bacteria is in the water?! If your incision isn’t completely healed yet, you could have a terrible infection from that. And you’ve had your spleen removed! A main organ in the immune system. Okay, I’m gonna stay here and the new plan is for you to take a cab to the hospital, I want to make sure you’re alright.”
She could hear the grin in his voice. “As much as I wouldn’t mind a physical exam from you, I think I should tell you that I didn’t get in the water. I wore a sweatsuit and kicked back in a beach chair while Jay and Marcus surfed. I didn’t even drive. I just laid there like a lump and watched the sunrise.”
“Oh. Well. That actually sounds really relaxing.”
“It was,” he sighed. “And I’m bored as hell of relaxing. So come on, let’s make a plan and you can help me get my heart rate up.”
She smiled again. “Okay, well, if you’re sure you can drive then why don’t you come over to my house. We can eat some take-out.”
“Perfect. When?”
“Gimme an hour to get home and get showered. I’ll text my address.”
“Tia.” His voice was doing that gruff thing again.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For waking my heart up. Damn thing is about to beat out of my chest right now.”
Tia was still smiling when she hung up the phone. If he was playing her, if this was all just part of the way he bagged a woman, then Tia decided that maybe she wouldn’t mind playing the game.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Oh,” Tia’s eyes softened from silver to a soft heather gray when she opened the door to her apartment. “You look handsome.”
His stomach flipped at her compliment. He’d tried to look handsome. So he was pleased that he did. But it was the first time in about a decade that he’d actually prepped for a date and it was getting under his skin a little bit. He’d showered and shaved and tried on two different shirts before he settled on this one. Who did that? Not Elijah Bird. Effortless was kind of his calling card. And yet, here he was on her doorstep, flowers in one hand, take-out Chinese in the other, and practically dripping in effort.
She stepped back to let him in but held up a hand to stop him when he leaned down to kiss her.
“Wait. I haven’t showered yet from the hospital. I’m sorry. I know I’m late. But I got held up after our phone call and I raced home but—”
“That’s okay,” he shrugged. “You wanna shower now? I can entertain myself for a little bit.”
“Yes,” she answered immediately. “I really, really do.”
She stepped back and gestured around at her house. “Make yourself at home.”
She scurried away to the back of the house and Eli was thrilled to have a little time to himself in her house, amongst all her pretty little things. It had jumbled him up to see her again. More than he thought it would. He set the Chinese food down in her kitchen and took a deep breath. Turned and started to look around.
There were a spray of odd magnets and wrinkled photos on her fridge, most of them featuring Tia and Laura together, laughing, dressed up for clubbing or Halloween. There were a few herbs on the windowsill above her sink and mismatched mugs hanging on hooks from the underside of the cabinets.
The wood floors were worn and scratched but obviously well lived in. Eli liked the array of kitchen chairs around the breakfast table that was about an inch deep in newspapers on one side and had her car keys and a pair of earrings on the other side.
The many windows were slightly open, letting a good breeze work itself through her house. Something he noticed was true in every room, as he wandered through. She liked the night air on the inside of her house, apparently. And she liked white, gauzy curtains.
The house was fairly small. Just a little living room connecting the kitchen to the back hallway she had disappeared down. But it was homey and inviting. There was a framed Van Gogh print on the wall and two of Georgia O’Keeffe’s cow skulls framed side by side. She’d painted the walls a good, strong blue. Her large sectional couch was puffy and comfortable looking, and there were pillows in every color imaginable tossed over top of it. She had shelves and shelves of books, just like in her office. She us
ed all manner of things as bookends. A little copper apple, small potted plants, just another book, balancing diagonal to keep the rest from tumbling. There was a thin layer of dust on her shelves and on the ornate, iron mantle on one wall, as if she usually cleaned but hadn’t gotten around to it that week. And, as he turned and grinned, he saw that there was a huge flat screen TV peeking out from behind the slightly ajar doors of an entertainment hutch.
He saw that something was flickering over the screen and when he got closer, he instantly recognized ESPN. She must have been watching it when he’d arrived. It made him grin even more.
Man. He really liked her. He really, really liked her.
Just when he thought he had her figured out. The prim and proper Dr. Camellia: everything about her perfectly ordered and in its right place. And then he sees her house and it’s colorful and a little messy and totally relaxed. He just, really, really liked that.
Eli turned at a small noise and grinned at the chubby little dog that waddled out to greet him, curly tail wagging like a maniac.
“Well, hey there.” Eli went down to a knee, wincing just the tiniest bit at the pain in his ribs, and reached a hand out to the dog.
Who apparently could come no further. As soon as Eli bent down, the dog flopped over onto its back instantly, still wagging and presenting a perfectly pink little belly.
“Ham, you’re giving it up too easily!” Tia’s voice came from the back hallway as she stepped into the living room.
Eli literally lost the breath out of his chest. She wore leggings and a large blue t-shirt, her damp hair piled on top of her head, and spring green glasses. She looked so cute. And about fifteen years old.
“You named your dog Ham?”
Tia walked over and joined him on the floor next to her dog. “Don’t you think it suits him?” Giving in to temptation, Tia bent over her lovable little puppy and scratched the heck out his belly, cooing the whole time. “You’re supposed to make him work for it, you little floozy. You can’t give up the belly on the first date!”
Eli was so charmed his eyes nearly crossed. Professional, competent Dr. Camellia was dressed like a teenager and making kissy faces at her dog. Yes. Just yes. He slipped an arm over her shoulders and when she looked up at him, he simply pressed his lips to hers, unable to wait another second.
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