“The extensor tendon is cut. Until it heals, the patient’s fingertip will be useless.”
Dr. Hahn nods along. “You could all stand to learn a little something from the occupational therapist,” he tells the medical students. Red winks at me, and it’s as if the world’s suddenly been turned upside down in the best possible way.
Red’s fingers are in my hair, grasping my skull, the pressure making me moan aloud. I can feel the hardness of his body, the firm knead of his muscles underneath his scrubs, the bones of his hips solid underneath my hands. When I slide his scrub top off, I see that he has hair on his slim chest, that it’s rust-colored and that his nipples are the color of chocolate. When I press my mouth against his chapped lips, he tastes like cool water. He puts his hands on me, and we back up, kissing, making out, until I’m hopping up on the medical examination chair and wrapping my legs around his waist.
Yikes. Things had escalated quickly.
Red had come up to me at the end of the day and stared at me. Literally just stared, those blue-green eyes of his burning with excitement.
“You’re staring at me,” I finally said.
He grinned. “I’m staring at you.”
I was packing up my things in the rehab gym; how had he even found me here? “Why are you staring at me?” I asked him.
He was bouncing on his heels, happy as a little boy. “You knew the answer.”
“So?”
“So, I’m pretty damn impressed with you, woman.”
We went for coffee. Talked about his dreams of becoming the best hand surgeon in the state. We talked about how I had gotten into occupational therapy, about how quality of life care was everything to me. I’ve never truly been into the high-impact, high-energy, dealing-with-a-matter-of-days kind of thing. And the whole time, I felt this charge, as if Red was rubbing me with something electrical, and the atrophied muscles of my heart were beginning to twitch again, just like my patient’s.
Of course, it didn’t hurt that he was playing footsie with me under the table.
Seriously. I haven’t played footsie with anybody since I was a teenager, and I’ll be damned if I’ve forgotten how good it feels. The whole time, he’s looking at me with all that ginger stubble on his pointy little chin, those light eyes of his highlighted by his scrubs, and I don’t care that the hospital coffee tastes more like water than anything else. He’s making me feel like I can say anything to him, like I can say the good things that have happened to me and he won’t think I’m bragging, he’ll actually be happy for me. It’s like the world’s longest foreplay.
Oxytocin’s one hell of a drug, let me tell you.
By the time Red has walked me back to Dr. Hahn’s office for the notebook I’ve forgotten, it’s all I can do to keep my hands off him. We’ve got this rapport going, the kind of buildup where all our words are bouncing seamlessly off each other, and everything is bouncing around together—the happy floating feeling in my chest, our sharp, witty banter, and how cute his butt looks in his scrubs. That’s why all it takes is me dropping my notebook, and our fingers brushing as he reaches down to help me pick it up.
Suddenly, we’re scrambling around each other’s bodies, my notebook all but forgotten on the floor.
I’ve got his shirt up over his head, and he’s pushing up my skirt and grasping my thighs as if they’re life rafts and he can barely hold on. His entire face and mouth is so warm that I can hardly believe it, all that life warmth on such a skinny boy, and the taste of him is so utterly excited and male that it’s all I can do to keep from trying to climb inside his skin.
I’m flat on my back in the medical examination chair, and I love the way he looks above me, all bones and knobs in his joints. I love the wiry muscles in his arms and the long ropes of them in his thighs. I love the way he gasps a little when I finally show him my breasts, as if it’s the best present he’s ever gotten. And I love the honesty of his penis, the round, ruddy heady of it that feels no need to make excuses for itself.
We’re even better in bed than we are out of it. How is that even possible? I don’t know and I don’t care. All that electricity in our skin, and the way he feels inside me is completely different. It’s as if I’m being lifted up, somewhere safe, and from the look in his face as he enters me, he feels the same way. His skinny hips buck against me and when I dig my nails into his shoulders from the wild feeling building inside me, I’m afraid I’ll hurt him, but he doesn’t even notice. When he comes, gasping against me, hot breath on my neck, I feel this great wave of tenderness and stroke his hair. He lays against my chest, and I run my fingers through Red’s red, the look of his eyelashes casting shadows on his cheekbones is unbelievably vulnerable. He feels what I feel; that together, we’re somehow protected.
I’d like to say everything spirals out of control, but the opposite is true. When I’m with Red, I feel more in control of my life than before. We study together, and I teach him more about the hand. I teach him about what it is I do, and sometimes, when we’re done with all our textbooks, we talk about opening our own office. His eyelashes casting shadows on his cheekbones is unbelievably vulnerable. He feels what I feel; that together, we’re somehow protected.
I’d like to say everything spirals out of control, but the opposite is true. When I’m with Red, I feel more in control of my life than before. We study together, and I teach him more about the hand. I teach him about what it is I do, and sometimes, when we’re done with all our textbooks, we talk about opening our own office someday and working together the way Elisa and Dr. Hahn do.
“I’ll do the surgeries and then send them off to you,” he whispers against my ear as he nuzzles me, tickling the fine hairs on my neck. “Just remember to dial the right number, okay?”
I laugh and give him a playful shove. “Fine, but you remember to fix the right tendon.”
And so it goes. We’re going to sleep together and waking up together. When we see each other in Dr. Hahn’s clinic, we try to keep it as professional as possible, but even Elisa notices that I’m much more relaxed than I was before. And even though I know she knows it’s not her place to comment, she tells me that she hopes I’m teaching him about the benefits of rehabilitation. I assure her that Red is learning much more about the benefits of occupational therapy than he ever expected to.
Such as, sex truly can be a field we’re quite knowledgeable in.
How we slide into unfamiliar territory, I’ll never know. I suppose, at the time, we were both blinded by the happy hormones of being together with someone who feels so right. Which is why I don’t realize that Red gets his fellowship acceptances about a week or so before my internship is set to end at Middleton.
Elisa Ahmed has already told me that she’d like to hire me after I graduate. How I did it, I don’t know, but somewhere along the line, I managed to impress the Lady of Steel. Maybe it was the day I brought a new splint into the clinic; I overheard her saying to one of the other therapists she manages that I had brought over knowledge from school and applied it in a new setting. All I know is that for the entire time, I have worked my butt off, and the thing is, I’ve learned more than I ever expected.
So during my final review, when Elisa Ahmed tells me that Middleton would be happy to hire me and have me on site with a mentor for more complex tendon repairs, I’m stunned. Because what this means is what she has also just written inside of the evaluation form—that I am to be trusted to treat carpal tunnel syndrome, single-tendon repairs, and even simple neuro cases entirely on my own.
I gape a little at her.
“Are you sure?” I can’t help but ask.
As usual, her baby doll voice fills the room. But now, the emotion in it is real. “Why wouldn’t we hire you? You progressed better than any other intern I’ve ever had, and I’ve been doing this for over twenty years.”
Twenty years? Damn, she looks good.
“Besides, you see the big picture. A tendon repair isn’t just a set of muscles to you—you manage to
see how that fits into a person’s life roles, and that’s not something every therapist gets.”
“Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?” I ask her, and my feigned innocence is only there to hide my furiously thumping heart.
“You’d be surprised at how narrow some people’s field of view is,” she tells me, and that’s when I know that I respect the living hell out of this woman, little girl’s voice and all.
When I tell Red about all this, my voice spills over with emotion, and I wait to hear his soft words, to dissolve in them in sheer happiness. But he is silent. Something is wrong. Red won’t look me in the eyes, and that’s not like him at all.
“Baby, what’s wrong?” I ask, genuinely concerned. Red doesn’t hide things from me.
But instead of answering, he just gets up quietly from the bed and wanders out into the kitchen. I follow him after a few minutes, unsure of what his behavior means.
When I finally find him, he’s sitting at the kitchen table, holding a letter in his hands. Without a word, he reaches it out to me. I read it. It’s an acceptance letter. From a surgical residency.
“Oh wow, you got accepted?” I’d be ecstatic for him, except that I know something is wrong because the date on this letter is from a week ago, and the fact that he hasn’t mentioned it at all is giving me the heebie-jeebies. Still he says nothing, so I scan the letter again. And that’s when I see it.
“Oh,” I say, because that’s all I can say. “Oh.”
He got accepted to a surgical residency, all right. It’s one of the best in the country. And it’s also in Los Angeles.
Which is about seven states and immeasurable miles away.
I sit down across from him, and I feel my mind slip away from my body. I’m hovering somewhere above us both, and I can see the whole scene like I’m not a part of it at all. Red is sitting there in a soft gray T-shirt, holding his face in his hands, wrinkling his eyes with his fingers, and I’m shell-shocked and bottomless, the happy hearts on my panties having nothing similar with the one that’s in my chest.
It’s so quiet you can hear the clock tick.
“I’m not going to take it,” Red finally says, and it’s a relief to hear him speak.
“You have to take it,” I say, because it’s true.
He looks up at me, finally, and his eyes are red-rimmed. “Babe,” he starts, but I cut him off, because I know that if I let him talk, it’s going to melt away all my resolve.
“You have to go because this is your career. And this is the mentor you wanted. And because I can’t have you not take it and then resent me for the rest of your life because you didn’t.”
Red’s quiet again. The truth of my words has sailed sharply into the air and it’s hovering above us both like a guillotine waiting to drop. I wait for the slice.
But it doesn’t come. Red and I make love for days on end, in all the positions imagined and re-imagined, and un-imagined. He takes me from behind, while I’m on all fours, upside down, and swinging from a chair; but it ends the same way, the two of us wrapped in each other so tight that we know we’re terrified to let go.
And then one day, he’s gone.
Red took all his things and left in the night. Gathered up all his hand anatomy textbooks, left me the organic green chai he drinks. Took all his freshly washed scrubs, but left me a dirty sock in the laundry. No note, but left me the memory of his words.
I know what it’s like to blank out in a moment of pressure.
* * *
The room is humming with over three hundred people strong, and still I manage to find him.
Lutheran Saint decided to hold an inter-professional symposium for all its alumni graduates. The idea is, you get a whole bunch of graduates together from all the related health sciences—usually it’s all the social workers, physical therapists, occupational therapists, etc, but since it’s a hand rehabilitation symposium, it’s mostly hand surgeons, splint fitters, and certified hand therapists—and you give them a real case study to work on all together. The idea is to promote the school and make believe all the health professions get along fine and dandy together, which is pretty hokey if you ask me. Because the people who truly want to succeed do so even if they don’t come from the greatest school.
So why did I come?
I’ll admit, I almost didn’t. Because I knew that if I saw him, the ten years that had passed between us would be erased in a second. Not that I’m not a strong, independent woman. I am. And the opinions of others do not matter to me. Plus, I’m like a fine wine—I only got better with age. And yoga.
But the thing is, all my predictions came true.
Soon as I saw Red, everything came flooding back. The pain, the missing him like someone had cut off a finger, a visceral thing. How betrayed I felt.
And oh God, the sex.
The years had been very good to him. He had filled out a little more, even though he still had that ragamuffin quality about his face. But now, he was wearing a clean white button-down and a suit that fit him like a glove. The only thing that was still the same was the damn Converse sneakers on his feet.
You can take the boy out of scrubs, but you can’t take the playful out of the boy.
I wanted him. That was, after all, why I had come to the conference in the first place, I supposed. Because where else could you find Red, L.A.’s most prominent hand surgeon and Middleton’s head occupational therapy manager in the same place, all cozied up together at the same table?
That’s right, we were in the same group together.
He knew it was me, same as I had known it was him. He looked at me with his whole heart in his eyes, millions of sorries, millions of questions, millions of musings of how the years had treated me. But more than that, the old back and forth was back.
“Diagnosis?”
“Proximal phalanx spiral fracture.”
“Treat?”
“Six weeks in a complete immobilization cast, then sent to OT for strengthening, coordination, range of motion, and functionality.”
“Expected range of stay?”
“Two months.”
By lunchtime, he and I had sequestered ourselves in a corner. How we manage to find the only secluded corner I a conference of several hundred people, I don’t know, and the fact is, I don’t care. All I do care about is that we’re talking like we used to, buzzed alive by our earlier exchange. And it doesn’t matter that he still lives in Los Angeles, and that he’s still who knows how far away. It’s been ten years and all I can think about is how close his bony knee is to mine, and how his eyes light up when I put my hand on it. He leans in closer and closer to me, and then finally, our lips are touching, and he still tastes like he used to, like a cool drink of water, like man, and it’s a taste I knew I wouldn’t ever forget—
“I’m with someone,” he mutters against my teeth, and the sound of it makes me freeze. I pull away from him, even though it’s the hardest thing I’ve had to do in a long, long time.
“What?” I ask, so that every syllable is enunciated, so that he hears me, loud and clear.
He clears his throat and flushes a little. “I’m seeing someone right now. Denny. He’s a pretty great guy, you’d like him—“and he stops short at the wicked little grin that is spreading all over my face.
Red. Dirty little Red. Who knew that all these years, he could play both sides of the field?
Look. It’s not like there’s a chance for both of us to upend our lives, toss our careers three sheets to the wind, and make something of this. But everybody knows that it’s all fun and games until someone breaks up with a Denny. And right now, I’m willing to settle for all the fun and games there are to be had with two guys. If I’m anything to judge by, and I believe that I am, Red has great taste, and I’m not going to lie, I’m a little curious to see what this Denny guy looks like.
“Call him.”
Red blinks at me. “What?”
“Call Denny and see if he’s up for some company,” I see, f
ishing around in my purse to readjust my lipstick. I see excitement light Red’s features as he presses the speed dial on his cellphone. H steps aside for a moment, and it’s a tense few minutes as I hear him talking in low, murmuring tones to someone on the other end. When he finally comes back with an answer, the grin on his face matches my own.
“Come on,’ he tells me, offering me a hand. “I’ll drive.”
His vintage little Alfa Romeo befits both his salary and his love of old cars, and there’s not much to be said as he drives with one hand and slowly reaches into the side of my dress to play with my breast on the way back to his apartment. I reach out a hand and fondle him through his pants, and all that we both can hear is the sound my purring and his isolated groans against the silence of the road. It’s a little hard for both of us to walk to the door of his apartment when we finally arrive.
Denny is cute as hell. He’s got these cocoa brown eyes that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Bambi, and a mouth that belongs straight out of a parrying man’s dream. He sees both of our disheveled states and knows there was some hanky panky going on in the car. And to my delight, he looks amused.
Who needs words when everybody already knows what’s going on? Denny offers me a seat while Red goes off to pour me a drink. The living room is cool, and Denny slowly begins to rub my shoulders. He’s quite good, and I feel my muscles unkink, one at a time. I drink the lemonade Red’s brought me, and as soon as I finish the glass and wipe off my lips, he leans over on the couch and kisses me, trying to get the last drops.
I kiss him back, mixing my tongue with his, and Denny walks around the couch to kneel at my feet. Red is fumbling with the straps of my navy dress, all corporate charm and medical professional, and he pushes it down so that my breasts are free to the room. Denny begins massaging my feet, and he’s so good that I moan aloud, and I’m not exactly sure if it’s from his ministrations or Red licking my nipples.
Red stands and we all walk over to what I assume is their bedroom. My dress is all bunched around my waist, and Denny slowly finishes unzipping it, leaving it in a pool at the foot of their posterless bed. I’m excited. I can smell it on myself, the way dew is beading on my skin. Denny takes my hand and leads me over to the bed. He makes himself into a human cushion and invites me to sit against his skinny little body, fragile and agile all at the same time. The mattress gives a little bit as I join him, and while he touches me, I hear Red undressing.
ROMANCE: His Reluctant Heart (Historical Western Victorian Romance) (Historical Mail Order Bride Romance Fantasy Short Stories) Page 52
