Unexpected Love Story

by Natasha Madison

  “You can go now. She just needs her family, not a stranger.” Walker says to Hailey, who doesn’t look at him.

  Gabe orders an X-ray, and I’m listening to him when Walker dismisses Hailey without a second thought. I walk Hailey out with her feet bleeding all over the floor, and her shoulders slumped.

  “I guess your daughter gets all her manners from her mother,” I hiss right before she walks out of the room to the sound of Gabe whistling.

  “What the fuck were you thinking?” I ask her as I pull gloves on and walk over to her, picking up her foot. “I need to clean this up, and then see if there is any more glass in there. I’m guessing not, but you can never be too sure. You will definitely need stitches.”

  I clean up her feet when Ava walks in. “Gabe was calling for you; I’ll finish here,” she tells me as I take off my gloves and toss them in the trash.

  Finding Gabe in the hallway, he looks at me. “You ever do X-rays before?” I almost roll my eyes at him.

  “Yes, Dr. Walker.” I nod. Going into the examine room, I tell Mila we will be doing X-rays and lead her out to another room. The whole time I remain professional and don’t tell her father that he’s a fucking douchebag.

  “You are a champ, Mila.” I smile at her as she nods and asks me about Hailey. “She needs stitches, but she is going to be just fine. How about we get you all better?” Finishing up with Mila, I walk back out to see Gabe talking to a woman and smiling. “X-rays should be done, Dr. Walker,” I tell him as the woman approaches me.

  “You must be Crystal. I’m the third Dr. Walker.” She holds out her hand, and I now see the resemblance. This is Gabe’s mother.

  “So nice to finally meet you.” I smile at her, holding out my hand.

  “Word on the street is that you’ve hit the ground running.” She puts her hands in her pockets and smiles. “I hope we get to work together soon.”

  “I do as well,” I tell her and then excuse myself to take a breather. Walking to the nurses’ desk, I pick up my water bottle, draining it.

  “Crystal.” I hear my name being called. “Room four,” Gabe says, and I walk in with him. He looks at the X-rays and tells us what we already know. I help him cast Mila’s arm. By the time they leave, it’s almost four o’clock.

  Mia and Emma have already punched out, and Olivia’s coming out with her lunch bag. “There’s the city girl.” She smiles at me. “I hope to see you in action more often. It was great seeing you just fly around and handle the trauma without a second thought.”

  “Thanks,” I tell her as I walk to the nurses’ station. “Now the best part of the day. Chart follow-ups.”

  Ava and Corrine are the next ones to leave. “Want to come have drinks with us?” Ava asks.

  “Thanks for the invite, but I have about an hour of charts left, then I should go home and check on my cousin.” We say goodbye, and I return my attention to filling out the charts. What was supposed to take an hour takes much longer, and when I look up, I see it’s almost fucking six.

  “Fuck,” I say when I see Gabe walking in, surprised to see me.

  “What are you doing here?” he asks.

  “Charts,” I tell him, looking down at the last chart. “I should be done in about five. Do you want me to leave these charts in your office for you to look over?” I don’t look up at him, and he tells me yes.

  Walking into his office five minutes later, I see he has taken off his white lab coat and sits behind his desk looking through charts. “Here you go.” I hand him the pile. “If that’s it, I’m gone.”

  “I get it,” he finally says right before I’m about to walk out the door. “Why Dr. Mawlings didn’t want to let you go.”

  I cross my arms over my chest. “Are you giving me a compliment?” I ask, my eyebrow shooting up.

  “Take it as you want to.” He looks down. “See you tomorrow.” I turn to walk out the door, something lingering, but I chalk it up to being tired.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gabe

  It served me right for waking up in the middle of the night on Walker’s couch after storming out of the house because of how Crystal wanted to put the bed. I walked out and was surprised to see that Darla had come to get her car and dropped off mine. I tossed and turned the rest of the night and knew I would end up with a throbbing headache as soon as I started my day, and boy, I wasn’t wrong.

  “Good morning, Debra,” I tell her, walking back to my office. I noticed that Crystal was already there, stepping into the nurses’ station, and calling her back to my office, I didn’t know what the fuck would happen. The last time I saw this woman I wanted to throttle her. But seeing her in her blue scrubs and black Crocs with her hair piled on her head, the last thing I wanted to do was throttle her. Then my day got a shit load worse. “Um, Dr. Walker, Bethany is on the phone.” My stomach sinks, and I nod at Crystal to leave.

  Picking up the phone, I grip it like my life depends on it. “Hello,” I say gruffly.

  “Gabe,” she whispers, “um, I didn’t think you would take my call.”

  “Well, I guess we are all surprised. What do you want, Bethany?”

  “Well.” She clears her throat, and her voice returns to normal. “First, I was wondering how you were doing?”

  I laugh out bitterly. “You mean from when you left me at the altar with five hundred of our closest friends and family? I’m doing fucking fantastic.”

  “Gabe,” she says, “I’m sorry.”

  “What do you want, Bethany?” I’m tired of the bullshit right about now.

  “Well, they gave me your account, so I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be your representative from now on.” We learned the day after she left that Bethany took a job from one of the pharmaceutical companies as their representative.

  “Great, fantastic, I’ll spread the word. Oh, and you’ll deal with my father from now on.”

  “Gabe, we can still work together,” she says softly.

  “Oh, we can, I just can’t stomach looking at you or hearing your voice for that matter. I’ll let my father know. Take care.” I hang up the phone without even giving her a chance to answer. I don’t want her answers; I want nothing from her. I get up and walk out, looking at Ava. “Where is Crystal?”

  “She is already in with Mrs. Brewster.” She smiles at me as I turn to walk in the exam room. I look at her notes in the chart, perfect and precise. We work side by side perfectly for the rest of the morning, and I know now why she was so highly regarded. She is the best you can get. And when Mila comes in with an emergency, I get to see her spring into action. I don’t know if the other nurses would have cut it. She was two steps ahead of me by the time I finally walked in to see Hailey.

  “There she is, wonder woman.” I smile as Crystal glares at me. “Hey”—I raise my arms in surrender—“I’m not the bad guy.”

  “Whatever,” she says as she gathers the supplies to start the stitches.

  “How is Mila?” Hailey asks me as Crystal prepares to give her a shot to numb it. “Motherfucker, that hurts.”

  I watch her with perfect hands. “She’s fine. Listen, about my cousin,” I start to say, but Hailey raises her hand to stop me.

  “Don’t even bother.” That’s all she says because then she starts to hiss under her breath while Crystal works on her foot. I walk out of the room and see Ava.

  “Can you finish the stitches on Hailey? I need Crystal to do Mila’s X-rays.” Nodding her head, she walks into the room, and I see Crystal walk in the exam room and lead Mila down the hall to perform the X-rays.

  By the time the afternoon finishes, the headache I had at the beginning of the day is still lingering, so I sit down to check my emails and find an email from Bethany. I just forward it to my father, explaining what happened this morning. I also CC Debra on it so she knows not to transfer her to me. I get up to get some coffee, and I see that Crystal is still here, soft music coming from her phone. She remained professional all day, calling me Dr. Walker and nev
er once slipping. Now I watch her as she turns, walking out and leaving me with the charts she just handed me. I check her notes, and I’m not surprised to find I don’t have to add anything in. Everything is point form and perfect.

  “Fuck,” I say to myself, leaving right after her to go home.

  Getting to the clinic the next day, I see Crystal sitting behind the desk with Ava, Olivia, Emma, Mia, and Corrine. “I can’t believe you guys never did team building.” She looks around.

  “What are we discussing?” I ask them.

  “Crystal’s emergency team used to do team building exercises,” Olivia fills me in.

  “It just helps the team to work together,” Crystal points out. “Know your weaknesses and your strengths and it helps your co-workers to jump in to make it better.”

  “That sounds like so much fun,” Emma says. “I would totally do it.”

  “What about this weekend?” I suggest, not expecting them to accept. “We could go camping. In the wild.”

  Corrine looks at Ava. “Tent or cabin?” they ask at the same time.

  “Cabin,” I say, definitely cabin.

  “Are we really going to do this?” Corrine asks.

  “I mean, I’m game if you guys are.” Crystal looks at me. “I mean, Dr. Walker doesn’t look that much like a camping kind of guy.” She smiles big as the other nurses look at me, almost like she’s baiting me.

  “I camp.” I throw down and hope to fuck my father doesn’t come in right now and tell them that they had to pick me up when they sent me away to sleep-away camp. I was fucking nine, and it had rained nonstop.

  “Do you?” Crystal says, getting up from the chair. “I’d like to see that,” she murmurs under her breath, and I don’t have time to counter because an emergency comes in. Mrs. Peterson fell in the shower and is now being transported to the hospital with a fractured hip. Once she came in, Crystal was there front and center, putting on gloves, and was one step in front. But when Mr. Murphy came in, that is when it started.

  “What seems to be the problem?” I ask him.

  He looks down at his lap and then up again as Crystal finishes taking his blood pressure. “All good,” she says.

  “Well, you see,” he starts saying, “it burns when I …” He lowers his eyes and then back up again, and I sit on the stool in front of him, waiting. “When I pee, it burns.”

  I grab his chart and see he’s just turned thirty. “UTIs are very uncommon in young men,” I tell him while he looks down at his hands.

  “Well.”

  “Have you had anal sex lately?” Crystal asks as my eyes pop almost out of my head.

  “Um,” I try to say.

  “It’s not uncommon to get a UTI when you have anal sex and the cavity isn’t clean.” Crystal looks at Mr. Murphy.

  “We tried it last week,” he whispers. I sit here shocked while Crystal hands him a cup for a urine sample.

  “Totally normal,” she says, and he looks up with a sigh of relief. “All we need is a little sample and you can be on your way.”

  She smiles at him when he gets up and goes to the bathroom.

  I wait for the door to close. “How in the fuck did you know that?”

  She shrugs her shoulders. “It was common in the city.” She leans over. “If you ever try it,” she whispers, “use a condom.”

  Her hair falls a little on the side, her face free of makeup, her scrubs molding her … who the fuck knew that scrubs could be so sexy?

  Mr. Murphy comes in carrying his sample, and Crystal puts on gloves when she takes the sample from him. “I’ll be right back,” she says, walking out.

  “Besides the burning, is there anything that seems to be bothering you?”

  “That was it,” he says when the door opens.

  “So it’s positive,” Crystal says, coming in, smiling.

  “I’ll prescribe you something.” I nod at him, take out my pad, and write the prescription. “There you go. It’s an antibiotic for ten days.”

  “Thank you so much.” He smiles, grabbing it. “And for not making it awkward.” He looks over at Crystal.

  “Anytime.” Crystal smiles, watching him walk out. “That was fun.”

  “You like this, don’t you?” I cross my arms over my chest. “One-upping me?” I walk closer to her, and her smile turns into a smirk.

  “It’s not my fault you don’t know the signs of men and UTI or”—she leans into me—“that you don’t know about anal sex.”

  I push into her. “Make no mistake, I’m fully aware of the ass.” Her breath hitches. “In fact”—I twirl her hair around my finger—“I seem to remember turning a certain ass so red, I’m surprised she was able to sit the next day.” I press her into the wall. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing because I never even kissed Bethany in the office. But something bigger is pulling me. With her looking in my eyes, her chest rising and falling, I frame her head with my hands. My head just has to dip to taste her lips—they’re right there. I can feel her breath on my lips, and I’m that much closer to having her lips on mine. Her breath hitches, and then my phone rings. We both snap back, the spell broken.

  “I have to …” she says softly, walking out of the room. Looking down at the phone in my hand, I see it’s Bethany, so I send it straight to voicemail and then block her number.

  “Fuck,” I say, rubbing my hands into my hair. “That can’t happen again,” I vow to myself.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Crystal

  I walk out of the room and head straight to the bathroom with my head down. Closing the door behind me, I fall back on it, letting out the breath I’d been holding since he pushed me against the wall. Since he came so close to me I could smell his aftershave, so close I could almost taste him. One move, it would have taken one inch for my lips to touch his.

  Walking to the sink, I turn on the cold water, never looking up. If I look up, I’ll probably see my cheeks pink from the heat that spread through me the minute he mentioned smacking my ass. I shake my head, trying to push the memories of that night away. Except I can’t. It lingers there, replaying every single time he moves next to me. Every time I see his hands, I remember the fingerprint marks he left on my thigh. I cup my hands to fill it with water and splash it on my face—one, two, three times.

  This time, I look at myself in the mirror, and the pink hasn’t gone away. Turning back, I grab a brown paper towel to wipe my face. “Get it together,” I whisper to myself, tossing the paper into the trash can.

  Opening the door, I come face to face with Emma. “Are you okay?” she asks, and I nod. “Good. Dr. Gabe. is looking for you.”

  “Thanks,” I say, going to the board to see what room he’s in. My hand wraps around the door handle, and I take a huge breath. Opening the door, I see him on the stool with a little girl on the table, sitting on her mother’s lap.

  “This is my nurse, Crystal,” he tells them while he looks in the little girl’s ears. Her pigtails, perfect ringlets, her blue eyes crystal blue. She gives me a gummy smile.

  “Hello.” I smile at the baby and then at the mother who looks like she hasn’t slept in three nights. “Aren’t you the cutest?”

  “Oh, she is, except when she decides she is going to sleep most of the day and party at night.” She leans down to kiss her head.

  “One ear looks a little red,” Gabe says right when the little girl pulls at her ear. “Has she run a fever of any kind?”

  The mother shakes her head. “Nothing. She is perfect except for the not sleeping through the night.”

  I grab the file and open it to see that she is about seven months old.

  “She could also be teething.” I look down. “Sometimes when these little angels start teething, they like to pull on their ears.”

  “Really?” the mother asks, and Gabe looks over with a raised eyebrow.

  “Yes, it’s pretty common with teething. Besides, she must have drooled right through that bib around her neck.”

  The li
ttle girl claps her hands, saying, “Dada, dada, dada.”

  “I’m going to hold off giving her anything for the next couple of days, but I want to see you in two days to make sure the ear isn’t pinker.” He smiles at the little girl, and my heart drops and sinks. I picture him with babies of his own, and it’s too much.

  So I do what I do best; I disconnect myself. I watch from afar as he says goodbye to the mother, and when he rubs the little girl’s cheek, I turn away. I smile and wave at them when they walk out, and once they are gone, I open the door faster than my heart is beating.

  “You okay?” he asks with his hand on my lower back.

  “Yeah.” I walk forward so I don’t feel his touch. “It’s just warm in here today,” I tell him, walking to the desk to grab my water bottle.

  “Can someone check the thermostat please?” Gabe yells from his spot, looking over at me. My eyes go to the desk, and I avoid his stare.

  For the rest of the day, I never make eye contact with him again. We make our way from patient to patient, and I’m one of the first ones to leave. Getting home, I turn the car off, leaning my head against the headrest and closing my eyes. When my heart finally slows down and my breathing returns to normal, I get out of the car. Walking into the house, I yell, “Lucy, I’m home!” and put my bags on the table. No one answers me, so I walk to the back bedroom and don’t find her there either. I walk to her back porch, and there she is, sitting in the swing with her legs stretched out as she watches the waves crash into the shore.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” I say, and she turns around. “You look a million miles away.”

  She shakes her head as she rubs a tear away. “Just thinking,” she says. I walk over to her, picking up her feet and placing them on my lap as I sit down. We don’t say anything as we both watch the waves. “You know, if you think about it,” she starts, her eyes never leaving the water, “the signs were all there that something was going on.” She laughs a hurt laugh. “All there … I was just too blind to see.”

  “If you were blind, then I guess we all were. None of us suspected anything.” I squeeze her leg.