by Teresa Roman
The coldness in his voice threw me off. I shut the door to the office behind me and crossed my arms. “Um, yes, it has to be now.”
“Fine.” He tossed his dictation device onto the desk. “What’s up?”
“Did you get my message?”
He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Look, I’m sorry. I know I said I would call, but things came up, and I figured you’d understand seeing as how it’s not like we were ever officially dating or anything.”
My brows furrowed in confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that things have . . . sort of changed since the last time we saw each other.”
“What things?”
He hesitated before replying. “Natalie and I got back together.”
I tasted the bitterness of dashed hopes in my mouth and felt my face turn beet-red at his confession. How had I been stupid enough to think that whatever had happened between us after the Christmas party meant something to him? Sure, we’d been working together for almost a year and were supposed to be friends—at least that’s what he’d always claimed, that I was more than just a co-worker to him—but that obviously hadn’t kept him from using me for rebound sex. And now he didn’t need that from me anymore because he was back together with his perfect ex-girlfriend.
“You could have told me.” Instead of purposefully dodging my calls for the past week.
“Well, I was hoping to avoid this awkwardness.”
Did he really think I was never going to ask why he hadn’t bothered to call after he said he would? “Maybe you should have thought of that before you kissed me and then invited yourself inside my apartment.”
“It’s not like you said no.”
“Well, I would have if I’d known you were still hung up on someone else.”
Eric sighed and shook his head. “We’re at work, and cornering me to discuss personal issues is completely unprofessional.”
My face heated again. I was mortified by the way he was speaking to me. “If you would have picked up your phone or bothered to return a call, then I wouldn’t have had to corner you,” I said, on the verge of tears. I couldn’t believe I was being dumped right before Christmas. “But you don’t need to worry about it. I won’t bother you again.”
I turned and walked away before Eric could reply, slamming the door behind me, feeling completely and utterly humiliated.
Chapter 4
I was almost grateful that I got stuck working on Christmas Day. With everything closed, and my parents and little sister too far away for a quick visit, I would have wound up spending the day on my couch watching crappy holiday movies and consoling myself with junk food. I was an idiot to have allowed myself to believe that this Christmas would be different, that this year I’d be spending it with someone special.
Last year Nick and I had still been together, but he’d managed to ruin the day for me by getting into an argument with a stranger at Starbucks that he swore was looking at me. I’d vowed then that next year would be different. And I supposed it was, but not in the way I’d hoped.
I arrived at the hospital with my potluck contribution in hand and deposited it in the break room before clocking in. Christmas in the ER was always an adventure. We didn’t get many patients checking in for minor things like their dry skin condition they’d had for years or their foot fungus that just wouldn’t go away. Instead, the patients who came to the ER on Christmas were either really sick, badly injured or mentally ill, which could make for a stressful day if it got super busy.
A few hours after my shift started, two police officers arrived, bringing with them a man who looked like he hadn’t showered in a month. He was shouting obscenities and all sorts of racial slurs to one of the police officers, who was Hispanic. I was impressed by the way he kept his cool. Officer Morales was one of a handful of officers who came by the ER with patients on a regular basis, and no matter how agitated or rude some of the people he arrived with behaved, he always kept his cool.
“We’ve got a 5150 for you,” one of the officers, whose last name was Gunn, told the charge nurse, using the lingo for a person with mental health problems who was deemed a danger to either themselves or others.
“Put him in room E,” she said.
I grumbled. That was one of my rooms. Normally I wouldn’t have minded. I felt nothing but sympathy for people who suffered from bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, but by the smell that filled the corridors of the ER, it was obvious that this particular patient had just urinated all over himself.
He seemed to calm down as I helped him onto the gurney in his assigned room.
“That’s the first time he’s shut up all day,” said Officer Gunn. “You must have the magic touch.”
“He probably just wore himself out.” I reached for the paperwork that his partner, Officer Morales, held in his hand. “So what’s his story?”
“He was found wandering in the middle of the road, so someone called 911. When we arrived on the scene, he wasn’t making much sense. Kept telling us that some Mexican gangsters were after him. He got real agitated when we told him he had to come with us,” Officer Morales explained.
“So that’s why he was calling you all those names,” I said.
Officer Morales shrugged. “It doesn’t bother me, I’ve heard worse.”
I tried to think of the right response to that. Something along the lines of I’m sorry, or that’s messed up, but before I could say anything a tech showed up to bring the patient to the decontamination room for a shower. I turned to my computer-on-wheels workstation and started working on my nursing notes.
“So you got stuck working Christmas, too,” Officer Morales said taking a few steps closer to me.
I shrugged. “Yeah. I don’t mind, though. It’s not like I have kids or anything.”
“Oh yeah? No boyfriend either?”
“Nope,” I replied, suddenly suspicious of where this conversation was headed. I made a point of not getting too chummy with the officers and paramedics who came by the ER, preferring to keep things professional, but Officer Morales hadn’t really picked up on that. Every time he came in, he tried getting me to chat and insisted that I call him by his first name, Jude, instead of Officer Morales. That was something I had yet to feel comfortable enough to do even though most of my fellow nurses had no problem with it.
“A pretty lady like you, that’s hard to imagine.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. The last thing I was in the mood for was some guy trying to hit on me. Especially if that someone was a police officer. I’d heard enough stories from some of my co-workers about being burned by paramedics and cops that I’d sworn off dating all men in uniform. Too bad I hadn’t included doctors on that list.
Before I could reply, the Vocera communication device I had clipped to my scrubs dinged. It was the charge nurse, letting me know I needed to be ready for a stroke alert that was about to arrive.
“So, um, are you working tomorrow, too?” Officer Morales asked.
“I’m sorry, but I gotta go,” I said, without answering his question. “I have a stroke patient coming in.”
I ran out of the room before he could say anything else, ready to meet my patient as the paramedics brought him in. There was a long list of things I needed to do whenever a patient with a suspected stroke came to the ER and by the time I’d finished both officers had already left.
I arrived home at just after eight that night, thoroughly exhausted. It had wound up being a busier than usual day despite also being a major holiday. Since I was still full from all the food my co-workers had brought in, I threw my scrubs into the laundry and hopped into the shower. After slipping into some comfortable pajamas I got into bed and turned on the TV. I had planned on calling my family to wish them a merry Christmas, but halfway through an episode of House Hunters, I fell asleep and stayed that way until my alarm blared at five thirty the next morning to wake me up for yet another twelve-hour shift.
Instead of ge
tting out of bed, I groaned and hit snooze on my alarm, which was how I wound up arriving a few minutes late for work. I ran right into Eric as I rushed to get to the time clock. We worked in the same place, so there was no way to completely avoid him, but still, the sight of him made my blood boil. We both did our best to avoid one another for the rest of the day. When we had no choice but to speak to each other, instead of joking around like we normally did, we stuck to the essentials, which consisted of him giving orders and me following them no matter how badly I wanted to tell him to go screw himself.
Tracey must’ve noticed the expression on my face because just as Eric finished telling me I was taking too long to discharge one of his patients, she walked up to me. “Geez, you’d think he’d be nicer, considering that he was the one that led you on.”
“I know,” I said, furious. “And if he keeps acting like that, I’m seriously considering transferring to another department.” Having to see him at work was bad enough, but him treating me like I’d been the one who wronged him was seriously pissing me off.
“You better not do that.”
“Why not?”
“First of all, because I like working with you, and second of all, you can’t let Eric push you around. It’s not right. He should be groveling at your feet and apologizing for leading you on, instead of treating you like his personal secretary.” She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was in earshot before continuing. “I bet I know what his problem is. He feels like a shit-head for what he did to you, but he’s got too much pride to apologize, so instead he’s being an ass.”
She was giving him too much credit. I doubted he cared about my feelings at all. “If he’d been upfront and told me the truth, I’d be over all this by now.” That wasn’t exactly true, but I was trying to put on a brave face for Tracey. “But instead he dodges my calls and then has the nerve to tell me I’m being unprofessional when I ask what’s going on.”
“I still can’t believe he did that.”
I shook my head. “I thought he was different. Guess I was wrong.”
“Well, he was,” Tracey said, realizing I was referring to Nick. “But not in the way you hoped.”
“You know what I’ve come to realize? There’s two kinds of guys in this world. Ones that want to own you and ones that want to use you, and I’m done with both.”
“That’s not true. Not all guys are like that,” Tracey said. I gave her a skeptical look. “Well, regardless, you’re not transferring, because there’s no way I’m working in this madhouse without you.”
A transfer wasn’t really what I wanted either. Emergency nursing was what I was good at, no matter how stressful the job became. I thought about asking the charge nurse not to assign me to any patients Eric signed up for—that would keep me from having to interact with him—but if I did that, she’d want to know why, and I wasn’t about to tell her.
Later that afternoon, just as I was sure my day couldn’t get any worse, Eric’s girlfriend stopped by the ER with a bag of Chipotle takeout in her hands. I watched out of the corner of my eye as she strolled into the office where he was sitting, gave him a kiss and handed him his lunch. A big smile spread across his face, and for a moment I thought I was going to be sick. Their short-lived breakup must’ve been just the thing to get her to realize how much she missed being with him. I could not remember a single time she’d stopped by the ER to visit Eric, much less bring him lunch.
A few minutes later, she walked out of the office and down the corridor that led to the main part of the hospital. Her blonde ponytail swung from side to side with each step, and all I could think as I watched her was that I couldn’t wait for this day to be over.
Chapter 5
Over the next week, Tracey made it her personal mission to get me out my funk. After insisting for what felt like the hundredth time that I accompany her and a few other co-workers for dinner and drinks, I finally agreed. It was only because Amigo’s, one of my favorite Mexican restaurants, was in walking distance from my apartment, which meant I could drink as many of their amazing margaritas as I wanted and not have to worry about how to get home after.
By the time I arrived, everyone else was already seated and the server had just finished bringing over the first round of drinks along with chips and salsa. I sat down and ordered a margarita.
When it came, Tracey was the first to lift her glass. “Let’s toast.”
I lifted my glass along with everyone else. “What are we toasting to?”
“To Maria,” replied Hannah, another nurse who worked in the ER. “She just got engaged.”
“What? When did that happen?” I asked.
Maria held out her hand so we could all admire her ring. “New Year’s Eve,” she said.
Well at least someone had a good start to the year. I’d spent it alone, watching the ball drop on TV and stewing over Eric, then Nick, then back to Eric again. Sometimes I felt like the only woman who had no luck when it came to love.
“Congratulations.” I clinked glasses with everyone else seated at the burgundy, vinyl-covered booth and then took a sip of my margarita.
Besides Tracey, Hannah and Maria, also at the table was Liz, a monitor tech who worked in the ER with us. I didn’t hang out with any of them except Tracey all that often because they were in serious long-term relationships and spent most of their time off with their boyfriends. Tracey and I were the only single girls. At twenty-six, I was seriously beginning to doubt that was ever going to change. After being burned by Nick, then by Eric, I had zero interest in putting myself out there again.
“Jaimie totally surprised me,” Maria said. “I was beginning to think he’d never get around to asking me.”
“Have you guys set a date?” Hannah asked.
“Not exactly. We’re still trying to decide if we’re going to have the wedding here or back home.”
Like many Los Angeles residents, Maria wasn’t from here. She’d moved from Texas with Jaimie after the two of them got accepted to the same college. Having grown up in Northern California, I was also a transplant.
“You should have it here, by the ocean,” Liz said. “It’ll be amazing.”
“My parents really want us to have the wedding in Texas,” Maria said. She shook her head. “I’ve been engaged less than a week and I already feel like telling Jaimie that the two of us should just run off to Vegas.”
“Let’s talk about something else then,” Tracey said. “Like who here wants to help me fix Dawn up with someone?”
I nearly choked on the tortilla chip I’d just put into my mouth. “Who told you I wanted to be fixed up?”
“Dawn, you haven’t gone out on a date in forever.” Even though she knew about Eric, no one else did. “It’s time you start putting yourself out there again.”
“No thank you.”
“I know the perfect guy,” Liz said.
“Who?” Tracey asked, intrigued.
I narrowed my eyes at her.
“There’s this cop that’s been asking about you,” Liz said. “He seems like a nice guy. And he’s really cute, too.”
“Really?” Tracey’s expression brightened. “Tell us more.”
“Hello. I am not dating a cop.”
“His last name is Morales,” Liz began, ignoring me.
“Oh, I know him,” Hannah said. “And you’re right, Liz, he is cute.”
“I think his first name is Jude,” Liz added.
“I know who you’re talking about, too,” Maria said. She turned her head in my direction. “You guys would look so cute together, Dawn.”
“It doesn’t matter, because I’m not interested.”
“How do you know you’re not interested?” Tracey said. “You don’t even know the guy.”
“I do too know him.”
“I would hardly call a few conversations while you’re in the middle of work knowing someone.”
“I don’t believe what people say about the cops and paramedics,” Liz said. “I’m
sure some of them are players, but not all of them. My friend Giselle married a cop she met working in the ER at County, and they’re about to have their second baby.”
“Listen, I’m not going out with Jude, or anyone else. I’m perfectly content with the way my life is now.”
“Right, whatever,” Tracey said.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the server and flagged him over to ask for another drink. It was obvious my friends were not about to let this subject drop, which meant one margarita wasn’t going to be nearly enough.
Chapter 6
In the strangest of coincidences, early into my next shift, Officer Jude Morales wound up strolling into the ER, along with his partner, Officer Gunn. The man in handcuffs who stood between them had his head lowered as if he was staring at something on the ground. I ducked into one of my patient’s rooms to check another round of vital signs, hoping Jude hadn’t spotted me so I could avoid another one of his attempts to strike up a conversation.
I was in the middle of helping my patient figure out how to use the remote control for the TV in her room when my charge nurse paged me to the nurses’ station.
“You have a new patient,” she said, tilting her head in the direction of the man in handcuffs.
Tracey grinned as she sat there, typing on one of the computers at the nurses’ station. I got the feeling she was the reason I suddenly had a new patient to take care of when there were at least three other nurses who didn’t have as many patients as I did. I glared at her before walking down the hallway pushing my computer on wheels in front of me. I stopped in front of the room Jude had just brought my patient to and looked around, wondering where his partner was.
“Hey,” Jude said. “How’s it going?”
“Good. What do you have for me this time?” The patient he’d brought was already lying down on a gurney, staring up at the ceiling, his handcuffs removed.
“Another 5150,” he said. “This one was waving a gun in the air a few blocks from here. Thankfully, it was a fake. Apparently he’s convinced someone’s been breaking into his house and spying on him.”
