by Carly Keene
“Psoas sign positive,” Alison says. “Pain in the right lower quadrant, increasing over the past several hours. Abdominal rigidity. Decreased bowel sounds.”
I eye the patient. It’s that guy from the waiting room that looks like mythical Apollo, all wavy blond hair and chiseled features. I already fucking hate him, and I can’t even look at her.
Apollo is sort of grayish-green. Which fits with the diagnosis I have in mind.
“I’d like to see a white count and check if it’s elevated,” I tell Alison, “but I think you’re on the right track here.”
“Still waiting on the labs,” she says. “I don’t know why they’re slow tonight. I’ve ordered a CT scan, and we’re waiting on that too.”
“McBurney?” I ask.
“Haven’t checked yet.”
“What the hell is McBurney?” Apollo, the patient, asks. “Ow. And who are you?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Alison says. “This is my colleague, Dr. Gunn.”
“Shouldn’t that have been Dr. Knife?” Apollo says. “Ow.”
The beautiful girl sort of snorts through her nose, obviously trying not to laugh. I look into those melted-chocolate eyes for just a second, and then have to wrench my eyes back to the patient. I get a whiff of alcohol and one of vomit, and rub my nose unobtrusively.
“Dr. Sadler, you want to go ahead and test McBurney’s Point?” I step a little closer to watch her do it. She puts her splayed hand on the patient’s abdomen from belly button to hipbone, then taps a finger on his belly.
Immediate pain makes the patient howl, jackknifing his body almost in two before he collapses back onto the bed, panting and swearing.
“I’m really sorry,” Alison says. “It’s an excellent diagnostic for appendicitis.”
With the patient’s noise there’s a bigger whiff of alcohol in the room now. I mention to Alison that she might want a BAC as well as the white count.
“Already asked for it,” she says, typing into his chart. She looks up at me. “That’s what I needed the advice on, actually.”
“Have you been drinking, sir?” I ask.
“Two margaritas,” the patient says, “which I threw up.”
I find it’s easier if I don’t think of him as her boyfriend. If I don’t think of him as her boyfriend, I don’t want to throttle him. As much.
“You didn’t eat anything,” Beautiful Girl says.
“I’m not drunk,” Apollo says. “I’m a little bzz—um, buh—um, a little tipshee. I mean tip. Sy.”
“Well, that’s kind of a concern for us,” Alison explains. “I’d like to order an appendectomy as soon as possible, so we don’t risk the appendix rupturing. But in order to operate, we would need his blood alcohol content to be lower than it is right now.”
I lean over to speak softly to her. “Shoot him upstairs to Surgical. Then he’s their problem.”
“They’re going to want to see labs.”
“Their problem.”
Alison nods. “Okay, let me go light a fire under the lab then.” She goes out, tossing a glance over her shoulder at me that says she has no idea why I’m not rushing back to my next patient.
I’m wondering that, too.
“Not literally,” I say to Apollo and his (I wish it weren’t true) girlfriend.
She snort-laughs again.
She really is gorgeous. Those melting eyes, the shiny hair, the luscious body. Her mouth is as soft and full as I remember. I check out her hands: long fingers, beautiful dark pink nails that match her scarf, and no rings. I want my hands on her. I want to rip that rose-patterned scarf right off her neck and give her a damn hickey, in front of everybody.
“Don’t make me laugh,” Apollo snarls. “It hurts!”
“Poor baby,” she says, and bites her lip.
“We were wrong,” he says to her. “Weren’t we, Dr. Knife?”
“About what?” Belatedly, I offer my hand. “Finlay Gunn.”
“Finlay Gunn?” Apollo repeats. “Did your mother hate you?”
The beautiful kiss-cheater looks embarrassed. “Wade. C’mon, be nice.”
“He’s too fucking good-looking to waste time being nice. Which just goes to show you where we were wrong.”
I’m confused.
Beautiful Girl tilts her head at me. “We were watching Grey’s Anatomy reruns and saying that no real doctor would be that attractive in real life.”
That might be a compliment. Unless they’re talking about Alison, who has nice long legs and a stunning head of thick, curly, dark hair. “Who, Dr. Sadler?”
“No, you,” Apollo says. “Doc McKnife.”
I’m beginning to think he’s getting drunker by the minute, as the alcohol works its way into his bloodstream.
Apollo points at me. “You’re not gay, are you? I couldn’t be that lucky.”
Holy shit, he didn’t just say what I think he said.
But he did. Beautiful Girl’s cheeks have flushed poppy red. It looks sexy on her. And now that I’m noticing, she has beautiful tits, too, under that scarf she’s wearing. Round and generous. I tell my dick to shut the fuck up. Holy shit, do they think I’m gay?
I am SO not gay.
Was she kissing me last week because her boyfriend is gay and she’s his beard but she really wants out? Because if so, I would get her out. The reckless mood, in this exam room that I should have left five minutes ago if I was really doing my job, seems to be infecting me. “I’m not gay.”
“Wade, you’re drunk,” Beautiful Girl says. “You should shut up now.” She eyes him. “You don’t even recognize him, do you?”
“Nope.”
“That,” she says, pointing at me, “is the guy you pulled me off of last weekend in Lonnie’s.”
“Nooooo,” Apollo groans. “The great kisser?”
Huh.
“He is. And you should be ashamed of yourself. I’m not your girlfriend.”
“Well, I was having an emotional emergency!”
My girl rolls her eyes, but Apollo ignores her. Now that I know, I can see they act more like siblings.
“Fix it now. Ask him out, June.”
June. What is so rare as a day in June?
She holds out her hand, her face red. “June Rose Parker. Named after my grandmother.”
“I was named after my grandfathers,” I say. “Both of them.”
“Did their mothers hate them too?” Apollo asks.
“Shut up, Wade,” June says. “God, you are so drunk.”
“It’s really hitting me now,” he says in a pitiful tone of voice. “Wouldn’t be so bad if my stomach didn’t fucking hurt so much.”
“About that,” I say. “If it gets a lot worse, very suddenly, yell. We’d want to get you into surgery regardless of your BAC if rupture is imminent.”
“Shit,” he says.
I’d better go. “Let me know if I can do anything for you, okay?”
“Okay.” June Rose Parker and I stare into each other’s eyes for three full seconds, long enough for my dick to start making escape plans again. I shake myself out of it, and make tracks for the door.
Not her boyfriend. Thank god.
FIVE
June
OMG.
This is my real-life Dr. McDreamy, and I’m more than a little bit smitten.
The first doctor who came in to help Wade seemed to know what she was doing, even though she’s only a little older than us. But then my kissing buddy from Lonnie’s last weekend came in, and I swear my ovaries are begging for mercy now.
Tall, dark, and handsome. No big bodybuilder muscles, but like I said, he’s tall and he looks really strong. I like his face. And those wicked, amused, sinful, hot eyes. They’re very dark brown, almost black, and they always look like he’s either laughing or thinking deliciously naughty thoughts.
Of course I’m probably not his type. I’m not tall, I’m not elegant, and I don’t have eight million college degrees or whatever it takes to be a doctor.
/> But he keeps staring at me.
Like he’s starving and I’m a whole plate of tiramisu. It’s very unnerving.
OMG OMG OMG. My body is responding to that look in a way that normally takes lots of kissing and hands in the right spots. But Hot Doctor’s bold eyes are making my nipples hard and my ladyparts sweat. Seriously, my panties are damp already. I’m so overheated that I pull my scarf off, waving my hands to get some air to my face.
The second he’s out the door, I turn on my bestie.
“I’m going to kill you,” I hiss at him. “I’ll wait until you’re feeling better, but could you be any more embarrassing?”
“Sure.”
“That was not a challenge!”
“Ha. You like him. June and Fin-lay, sittin’ in a tree,” he sing-songs, and I smack his shoulder. “Ow! Don’t hit me.”
“Don’t make me look stupid,” I snap.
“He’s interested,” Wade says. “Probably because you were swabbing each other’s tonsils like champs last weekend.”
“Oh, he is not interested!” If he was, he wouldn’t have let me get away. “Please can we just stop talking about it?”
Because he’s Wade, he manages about six minutes of quiet before he says, “Did you check out his ass?” My face gets hot, because of course I tried.
“Unfortunately, his doctor coat was too long,” I admit.
“But you looked.”
“I thought we weren’t talking about this.”
“I’m talking. You don’t have to talk,” Wade says.
I roll my eyes. Good thing Wade has no idea what’s been going on inside my panties.
Then Hot Doctor comes back in with the girl doctor from before. “Got your labs back. We’re admitting you,” she says. “We’ll send you upstairs to the surgical ward, and they’ll monitor your blood alcohol and get that appendix out as soon as they can.” Then she starts explaining to Wade exactly what they’re going to do to him, something about laparoscopic this and anesthesia that, and I tune it out to stare into Hot Doctor’s eyes again.
They’re so dark. And hot. I’m too young for hot flashes, but damn, I’m having one now.
Somebody says my name. “What?” I mumble, tearing my gaze away from those naughty eyes.
“I said you would take care of me when they let me go home after the surgery,” Wade says.
I blink, trying to refocus. “Oh. Yes. We’re roommates so I’ll be there anyway.”
“You sure?” Girl Doctor asks.
I reach over to hold Wade’s hand. Hot Doctor or not, Wade’s my best friend to infinity and beyond. “’Course I’m sure. I wouldn’t just leave him.”
“She’s my ride-or-die,” Wade says.
“That’s right. Thick and thin, besties forever, no matter what.” We squeeze each other’s hands.
Girl doctor says they’ll tell me about aftercare upstairs in surgical. I nod. I look back over to Hot Doctor, just to get another hit of his eyes on me, and my knees get weak again.
I’ve got to quit doing that.
And then a bunch of nurses or whatever come into the room and they’re making plans to move Wade up to the surgical floor right now. I grab Wade’s clothes and my purse, and follow them down the hall.
Hot Doctor follows me. Somebody says, “Fin, what are you doing?” and I realize that this is not standard procedure. My whole face feels hot and red, but I don’t dare let Wade’s gurney get so far ahead of me that I lose it. I keep walking fast.
Hot Doctor stops, and lets me go. Again. Dammit.
SIX
Finlay
Surgical takes my beautiful girl’s friend Apollo upstairs, and she follows. So do I.
That stuff she said, about “ride or die” and “no matter what” and “best friends forever” sounded real. Given what Apollo said about his personal interests, they’re not together-together, thank god, but that kind of loyalty has just sliced me open, straight to the heart. If they’re that tight, no wonder she just went with him last weekend. I want that kind of loyalty, so much. I want her.
She drops that rose-print scarf and doesn’t notice. I stop to pick it up, but Alison grabs my arm in time to keep me following them onto the elevator. “What the hell?” she mutters under her breath to me, and I suddenly get another view on what this looks like, me having the hots for somebody I just met while I was being a doctor. It’s ethically gray, I guess. Well, shit. I have to pull it back a little.
“I don’t know,” I say to her. “I have lost my damn mind.”
She stops grabbing me and pats my shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s not like she’s your patient.”
“At least you noticed that part.”
Alison laughs. “Come on, we got work to do. Friday night, remember.”
Oh yeah. Right, the job. Right.
Get your shit together, Fin.
I shove the rose-print scarf in the pocket of my lab coat, and then I think better of it and stick it in my locker. I ignore the raised eyebrows. And then I get right back into the Friday night rush. It’s late enough now that the waiting room is packed full, and it’s super busy.
Every time I have a second to myself, I think about June.
When things finally slow down, sometime after 4 a.m., I get into Mr. Wade Howell’s chart and see the latest notes in his chart. He’s out of surgery. Back in his room, vitals good, sleeping as of ten minutes ago. I tell Noah and Alison I’m taking a break.
In the elevator, I’m alone. So I can take that girly rose scarf and hold it up to my nose and inhale . . .
It smells so good. It smells like June: like a whole garden of flowers plus cake and something really fucking sexy. I don’t know this perfume, but I feel like I know her from smelling it.
June.
June Rose, with her old-fashioned name and her squeezable ass. Her adorable puppy eyes. Her shiny hair and her soft full mouth and her rose-tipped fingers and her unshakable loyalty. Her damn sexy mouth.
I’m so fucking dead.
Elevator stops on the fourth floor and I’m out, stopping briefly at the nurses’ station to tell them I’m checking in on a patient I saw earlier in the ER. Sure, no problem. At Room 427, I ease the door open. The person sleeping in the reclining chair beside the bed stirs. It’s June, of course. I hate letting go of her scarf, but I reach over and place it on her lap.
“More meds?” June mumbles, and then I see her really wake up. “Oh. You.”
“It’s me. McKnife.” She laughs softly. “Just checking in. The info in his chart says he’s doing well.”
“Good to know.” She stretches. “What—oh, my scarf.”
“You dropped it earlier.”
We’re whispering. It’s dark. She smells good. I sit on the windowsill and tell my damn dick to calm down.
“You sure you’re okay to do the aftercare?” I ask. “You looked a little confused earlier.”
“I’m good. I was . . . You distracted me earlier.”
I distracted her. I grin to myself in the dark.
“He’s gonna be so pissed at me,” June sighs. “I called his mom.”
“Sounds like a reasonable thing to do. Why wouldn’t you?”
“He doesn’t really talk to his parents anymore. His dad kicked him out of the house after he caught Wade with a guy.”
I take that in. “That’s pretty ugly.”
“But Wade’s mom calls me every week to ask how he is, and she always tells me not to let him know. I think I’m ready to break that rule, though. She cares about him, and I feel like he ought to know that.”
“I’d want to know too.”
“I don’t understand his dad,” she says. “Family is family. You never turn your back on family.”
“You close to yours?” I ask her.
“Tight. I see my parents every week. My sister’s in Boston, or I’d see her every week too.”
“My family’s in Florida,” I offer. “I try to get down there every couple of months.” There’s a little paus
e. Maybe I should let her get back to sleep.
“Thanks for bringing my scarf.”
“No problem, June Rose.” Another little pause. Should I ask for her number? “I guess I’ll get out of your hair. But if you have any questions, I’d be happy to give you my number. You know, like if his incisions get inflamed or anything.”
“I’d love to have your number,” she says shyly.
Hallelujah.
“Give me your phone and I’ll put it in.” I hold my hand out.
Her phone’s warm from her pocket, and my dick starts pushing against my scrubs again. Damn, I want to be in her pocket. In her pants, in her bed, shit, Fin, get a fucking hold of yourself. It’s a good thing it’s dark and she can’t see what she does to me. I enter my phone number and start to give her phone back.
Except that, trying to hide my stupid hard-on, I drop her stupid phone.
I lean over to get it, she leans over to get it, and in the dark we bump heads. “Ow,” she says.
“I’m so sorry!” I whisper-yell, rubbing my own forehead.
“Kiss it better?” she says, and my poor prick starts having a pep rally in my pants. Finlay, Finlay, you’re our man, if you can’t kiss her, no one can . . .
(Look, I never said I was a grown up. I said I was old.)
I touch her forehead. “That the spot?”
“Uh-huh.”
I drop a feathery kiss there. “Better?”
“Well . . . It hurts a little lower down too.”
“Oh?” I touch the bridge of her nose. “There? I don’t think it’s broken,” I tease.
“No, a little lower.”
“Show me where,” I whisper.
She takes my chin in her hand and pulls my mouth to hers, for the second time in our lives. And we start a fire.
She tastes delicious. Sweet and hot, a taste all hers. I take half a second to worry that I taste like leftover pizza, and then I can’t think at all. She’s too much, she’s so incredible, it’s too deep, it’s too intoxicating, it’s like striking a match and throwing it into a barrel of gasoline. I kiss her, and she kisses me back, and at some point when I’m starting to reach for her breast, my phone beeps with the five quick tones it uses when I get a message coded “emergency” from any of the ER phones.
