by Robin Leaf
“Excuse me,” Chelsie, our newest student blushes from the doorway, “Nurse Zills? Some guy is here asking for you.”
The newbies are always shocked with how the veterans talk around here. We’ve seen it all; they haven’t. They often don’t get the humor in certain situations right away, either.
Beckie moves in close to me and whispers, “The way she’s acting probably means your baby stripper is here.”
I walk toward the doorway, and Chelsie bounces a little before smiling and blushing brighter. “I was kind of hoping I could get in on this one.”
“Hey Ember, grab Ryan, maybe as an olive branch,” Beckie says, dumping out the rest of her coffee. “Isn’t he going to be a derm?”
Great. A baby doctor, a baby nurse, and a baby stripper walk into an exam room. There’s the beginning of a bad joke if I ever heard one.
And why does it have to be newbie resident doctor Ryan? Things have been awkward since I turned him down a month ago during his last ER rotation. Yeah, he’s nice enough, and he’s cute. But he’s three years younger than I am. Not interested, dammit. Jeez, at least let me get over the last mistake I made, Ryan, before you ask me to make a new one, please and thank you.
I follow Chelsie to where she left Diesel and plaster on the smile.
Once he sees me, he practically lunges toward me. “It’s gotten bigger,” he whines in greeting, lifting his shirt over his head.
“Whoa, tiger. I’m fresh out of bills this morning,” I say, hoping for a smile. Again, the scowly-worried look lets me know I’m not funny. I turn to Chelsie and whisper, “Let’s get him in a room quickly before random ovaries start to combust.”
Fuck it, she’s a goner, drooling over the abs and the boybies of this child man. He’s not old enough to call his pecs “man boobs,” although they are bigger than my breasts. I have to restrain myself from snapping my fingers in her face.
“Chelsie,” I say rather sharply. “We need to move the patient so I can assess him.”
Her eyes snap to me and she nods, moving in the direction of the curtained off areas we use for our less serious cases.
I head over to wash my hands and grab a pair of gloves before joining them.
“Has it become painful?”
He nods. “When I touch it.”
That’s probably because he hasn’t stopped touching it.
“This is Chelsie, and she will be assisting me. Chelsie, this is…” I trail off, hoping he’ll use his real name to introduce himself.
He holds out his hand, which she looks at with school-girl awe. “Diesel.”
We need to work on this girl’s blushing. She could light up all of Amsterdam’s Red Light District right now.
I step in front of her, hoping to lessen the chance of slipping on a wet spot from her drool… or, you know, other random bodily fluids.
“That’s really your name? I thought it was just a stage name.”
He nods and looks down. “Yeah, my dad is really into cars.”
Damn, I sincerely hope he’s an only child. Next he’ll be telling me he has a sister named Ethanol and a brother named Petrol.
“Is it okay if she takes your vitals? She needs the practice.”
He sits on the edge of the exam table, his back ramrod straight. “Yeah, whatever, that’s fine.”
I watch Chelsie move around Diesel, only needing to direct her in the placement of the blood pressure cuff. He seems to relax as she works, telling him what she’s doing as I’ve taught her to do. She’s really pretty solid at everything I’ve observed so far, you know, besides the blushing.
Once she’s finished, a quick assessment and touch to see if it’s changed is all I perform. It might have gotten slightly bigger, but it’s not much different than it was last night. Maybe a bit redder, but again, it’s probably because he won’t leave it alone.
“I’m going to get one of the attendings in here to take a look. Chelsie, will you come with me?”
She nods, looking back to Diesel and blushing a little more. He’s clueless, thank God.
I drop Chelsie off with another nurse who needs some assistance with a kid, which is Chelsie’s chosen specialty. She seemed relieved, probably due to her blushing problem. I remember being young and getting silly over a patient I found attractive. It’s hella embarrassing.
I take off in search of Ryan, the baby dermatologist. Ever since that pimple doctor started posting the videos, we’ve had an influx of wannabes. I don’t quite get the odd fascination with popping pimples, especially enough for all the gross games that have recently surfaced. I mean, ew.
I find Ryan assessing a head injury of a young woman covered in blood, who seems a bit scared.
“I don’t think you need stitches, but we do need to clean and close the wound,” he tells her.
“What about her blood loss?” a familiar voice says from behind me, familiar because it spoke to me in my dreams all night. I feel that vaginal clenching again, and my face gets hot.
Oh, God. Please don’t be him.
I turn around and come face to chest with the guy I was trapped with last night. In the florescence, he’s way more unsettlingly gorgeous than I remember. And that beanie he’s wearing today? Just another solid check for his bad boy repertoire he’s got going on. I’m sure I’m gawking similar to the way Chelsie was over Diesel, but damn, I’m flashing back to the dream where those bitable lips traveled all over my body.
Yeah, it was a good dream.
His eyes light in recognition. Before he can admit to anyone in the room how we know each other, I speak.
“Head wounds are known to dump what seems like a lot of blood, but she didn’t lose as much as you think.” I turn to Ryan. “Dr. Sellers, can you go check out the PF in three? It requires your expertise. I can stay here and prep your patient for you.”
PF is our code for personal friend.
The tight smile I get in return is strange as he nods. “Is it a boyfriend of yours?”
His attempt at a breezy comment, ridiculously suggesting that I have tons of boyfriends, is an obvious zinger at my expense. It causes the girl with the gash in her head to shoot her eyes toward Ryan; even she can tell that it was meant to be a cutting remark.
“Just a friend.” I bite my lips to stop my snarky comeback. “If you can’t do it, I can ask Dr. Honma to –”
He cuts me off sharply. “I’ll look at him, Nurse Sparks.”
I take a second to blink away his borderline rudeness. “It’s Zills now, remember?”
Nodding, he types something on the computer and signs off. “Ah, so you’re going back to your maiden name once again. Maybe you should just keep your maiden name for the next one, huh?”
Once again? Like I’ve been burning through husbands? And the next one? What the fuck? Man, this dude is really bent that I told him no. Hey, looky there. Bullet dodged. Thank God for his shitty timing of asking me out before I was ready.
He turns back to the patient and forces his smile to return. “Shayla, you’re in good hands.”
Shooting me a fleeting dirty look, he exits the cubicle.
When he’s no longer in ear shot, Shayla lets out a whoosh of air. “Jesus. What a dick.”
I have to pause because I can’t stop my unprofessional spit-take of a laugh all over the gloves I just put on. After trashing the spitty pair, I grab more and pull them on as I turn to her.
“Yeah, hopefully only I bring that out in him.” She shakes her head slowly as I carefully pull away her gauze. I smile and look her in the eyes. “Let’s get this irrigated.”
“Why do you bring it out in him?” Mr. Dreamy, who I almost forgot was here, asks, causing me to shoot saline across the room.
“Crap.” I grab some paper towels and throw them on the floor, mopping up the puddle with my foot and kicking the paper over toward the trash. It’s really none of this guy’s business, but I did open the can of worms by my comment. Damn. I’ll just lie.
“Just some work stuff.”<
br />
I move Shayla into a position, arranging towels around her so that it will not make a huge mess during the irrigation process.
“The way he treated you wasn’t just some work stuff,” his deep voice rumbles over me. “It’s my experience that people act like that when they’ve been personally hurt.”
I choose not to respond to him, focusing on my task. “You okay?” I ask Shayla. She nods.
“I’m betting he asked you out and you turned him down,” he continues. “If he keeps treating you like this, it could be considered harassment in the workplace. If you don’t do something about it now, it could escalate.”
I continue my flushing process, but just to acknowledge his comments, I say, “I’m aware.”
I feel him step closer to me. “Hey, don’t brush this off. That guy –”
“So tell me, Shayla,” I interrupt. “How’d you bump your head?”
Her eyes look Mr. Meddlesome Dreamy guy’s direction. “I got my first tattoo today, and when I stood up, I got woozy and fell face first against the counter.”
I smirk as I dab her wound dry. “Did you hold your breath?”
“Yeah,” she says, looking back at Mr. Dreamy. “He kept reminding me to breathe, but I guess I was a little nervous. He said I should wait to stand up, but I thought I was okay.”
“Yeah, I’m stubborn like that, too.” Smiling, I ask, “So, what’d you get?”
“A small heart of forget-me-nots.”
“It sounds cute,” I admit and smile. “Where?”
She points to her back. “On my shoulder. I’d show it to you, but it’s covered. I’m supposed to keep it that way until tomorrow.”
I remove the gauze over her cut to see if it needs more flushing. It appears to have stopped bleeding, which is necessary for the application of the Dermabond.
“Did you take a picture of it?”
“Oh, yeah,” she says, pulling out her phone and swiping through to find the picture. “There it is.”
Wow. I was right. It is cute, a little flowery vine in the shape of a heart a little smaller than a golf ball.
“I love it. Tell your tattoo guy he did a really good job.”
She smirks, looking over my shoulder and back to me. “You just did.”
Of course Mr. Dreamy’s a tattoo artist. Just another tic to add to the bad boy column, which somehow makes him more attractive. Jeez, vagina, get it through your… whatever. He’s. Not. Our. Type.
Yeah, she doesn’t listen, and my brain is starting to take notice as well. Damn this sudden bad-boy affliction. Or is it simply just him?
I stand, collecting all the gauze and towels so that I can dispose of them properly, trying, and probably failing, to keep my face neutral. I takes a minute to sort through the mess to collect myself.
“Do you have any ink, Blue?” his warm voice asks, making me want to shiver with its silky smoothness caressing my skin. I close my eyes for a second, letting it do just that.
Jesus, what the hell is wrong with my vagina?
“Blue?” I ask, trying to appear like I’m absently doing my job.
“Your last name. You said it was Zills, right?”
I nod, keeping my back to him.
“Zils is Latvian for blue.”
Turning around, I study his face for a second. “How the hell do you know Latvian?”
His smile is glorious, and forget about my underwear, I think my scrubs just disintegrated, like they just spontaneously combusted right off my body. I sniff the air for smoke.
“I went to high school with a guy whose mom was Latvian. She taught me a little.”
I turn back to my task. “Of all the languages to learn, you chose that one? I mean, I could almost understand learning Italian, Russian, or German, maybe even Greek, but I just don’t know too many uses for Latvian in today’s society.” I dispose of the last gauze and turn to face him. “I guess if you ever find yourself on a random fishing expedition in the Baltic Sea, it might be useful to know when the rescue boat full of Latvian fisher people come to your aid after your boat overturns, provided you don’t freeze to death before you are rescued, but other than that, is there any reason to visit Latvia on purpose, besides freezing your ass off?”
“It’s not like I’m fluent. My friend’s mom was a lovely lady, so we had a few conversations while she taught me how to cook Latvian Kartupelu Pankukas.” His eyebrow raises, and I get lost in the crystal clear blueness of them. Damn, they are so vivid and mesmerizing. “You never answered my question.”
He asked me a question? What the hell was it? If I wanted to go into the supply closet and let him violate me ten ways to next month? Because that’s a big yes.
Shit. No. That wasn’t it. Something about…
“No, I have no tattoos. And I don’t plan on getting any.” I rip off my gloves and throw them away. “What the hell are car-too whatever pan-kick-ass?”
His lips twitch, like he’s trying hard not to smile. “Kartupelu Pankukas are potato pancakes sort of similar to hash browns.” His arms cross over his enormous chest, and he smirks. “Tell me, Blue, why no to the tattoos? Are you afraid?” His eyes crinkle around the corners, so I know he’s messing with me. “Seems weird for a nurse to be scared of needles.”
“Pain isn’t the issue. I need to appear professional in my job.” I lean back against the counter and sassily mirror his stance, crossing my arms under my breasts to give them a little lift. Scrub tops are known for accentuating the sexy. Right. “I was raised with parents who preached that tattoos are not something a ‘lady’ should get. I guess I listened.”
He shrugs. “Your argument is invalid. I know plenty of professionals who have multiple tattoos.” When he smiles, I about melt. “I thought you were a rebel. I mean you did marry the man no one thought was right for you.” He winks, and my thighs feel like they ignite.
Shayla, who has been watching us like a tennis match, picks now to ask, “Wait, how’d you know that, D?”
I shrug, trying to hide my smile. “That was enough rebellion for one lifetime, and if anything, it showed me that my family was right.”
A broad grin graces his terribly handsome face, which really makes me want to climb those tree-trunk thighs and test my bitable lip theory.
“They’re not right about tattoos, Fun Size. A little ink may be just what you need, somewhere…” his eyes flash to my breasts, “…hidden.”
Je-zus, did he just offer to see my hidden places? Because I’ll gladly show them to him, as long as those lips are the only things that tattoo my naughty bits. I see myself channeling Monica from Friends, knowing he would make me shout “seven” over and over.
“Nurse Zills,” Ryan bursts in, brazenly interrupting my wicked, sexy thoughts, “if you are done flirting, I need you to get your friend entered into the system.”
Flirting? I am so not flirting. I’m lusting. There’s a difference.
Plus, there should be no reason to enter Diesel into the system unless Ryan is ordering unnecessary lab work. It’s just a fucking cyst.
I bite my lips together and pull Ryan around the corner.
“Why are you ordering labs for a cyst?” I whisper, so Shayla and the hottie won’t overhear.
He raises his eyebrow at me. “I’m not so sure it is a cyst. I’m ordering a culture and a biopsy.”
“Holy shit, did you tell the patient this?” I ask, just a tad bit louder than a whisper.
“Patient? I thought he was just a friend of yours.” The smirk he gives me is about to be punched off his face.
“He is,” I rush out before closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. “Why do you think he needs all of this?”
“He told me that he’s worried it’s cancerous,” he says with fake innocence. “I figured I’d run the tests to alleviate his fears.”
“I thought you were the doctor here. You want to feed his paranoia and not only subject him to tests he potentially doesn’t need, but charge him for them?”
�
��I am the doctor. Not him,” he looks me up and down, “and definitely not you.”
“No, not him, and certainly not me. But I am instructing him to get another doctor to look at him. I’m sorry I asked you, Ryan. Apparently you can’t put your personal feelings aside and do your fucking job.” Taking another deep breath through my nose, I grind my teeth for a second. When I gain a little control, I continue in a softer tone. “Shayla is ready for the Dermabond,” I turn to walk away, “so go attend to your patient and leave my friend alone.”
~ ~ ~
“Thank you so much, Ms. Sparks,” Diesel says, reaching out to grab my hand.
“You’re welcome,” I squeeze his and let go quickly. “And I told you to call me Ember.”
He looks down and blushes, nodding. “Oh yeah, you did, and we’re neighbors, I almost forgot.”
“And I’m sorry Dr. Sellers freaked you out. He’s a good doctor, but he’s brand new. Sometimes the newbies are often a bit overzealous.”
Not sure why I’m making excuses for the jerk, but whatever.
“I’m just grateful you suggested the second opinion. It was just a simple cyst.”
I nod. “See? Just remember to use that body scrub I suggested after your shifts. Hopefully it prevents you from getting any more of those things.”
“Yeah,” he smiles, “and no more unnecessary waxing.”
“I don’t get why you would want to wax a hairless chest, but it seems to be what all the cool kids are doing.” I lead him to the door. “Is that seriously a thing now?”
He shakes his head. “One of the guys said it’s better to wax everywhere for even skin tone. And since I’m new, I feel I have to listen to vets.”
Aww. Isn’t he just the cutest little blind follower ever? This kid is growing on me. I feel like his wise, older cousin, twice removed or some shit.
