by J. Saman
“I’m quite the catch. Boston’s most notorious bachelor.”
“Nah uh,” she says. “Not anymore. You’re officially off the market.”
She holds up her other hand, the one with my sparkly diamond on it. The sparkly diamond I nearly wish I hadn’t put back on her to if for no other reason than when I do actually propose to her, it might seem anticlimactic. Not as special.
“Does that mean you’ll marry me?”
She laughs. “Not so fast, hotshot. Let’s start by finding a place to live together and see how that goes.”
“You mean something like this then?” I stop, taking our joined hands and pointing to the large brick house set back off the street on over an acre of land—which for this part of the city—is nearly impossible to find. She twists to face it, staring up at it. “It’s big enough for all of us and then some.”
“It’s beautiful,” she says on a heavy swallow. I know that look. I know the fear in her eyes. The dollar signs ringing through her head. It’s why I had to take things into my own hands.
“Let’s go in and check it out.”
I give her a small tug and she reluctantly follows after me, silent. She’s trying. I know she is. In two weeks, we’ve looked at ten places, but none of them were right for us.
Pulling a key from my pocket, I unlock the door and hold it open for her. She gives me a funny look. Her eyebrows knit, and her lips quirked.
“No lockbox? And where is our realtor? Wait. How did you get the key?”
“Just go in and look around.”
I get an eyebrow, but she does as she’s told, stepping into the completely renovated eighteen-hundreds mansion.
“Oliver.” My name is a hushed whisper. Her hand sliding along the smooth railing of the stairs as she walks through the foyer.
“It has six bedrooms. Eight and a half bathrooms. A media room. Two offices. An exercise room. A sunroom and a bunch of other things.”
Her shoes tap quietly along the dark-stained oak floors, her eyes wide and her lips sealed as she moves from room to room on the first floor until she reaches the kitchen in the back. Her hands press onto the quartz counter, her eye gazing out the window, taking in some of the grounds.
“You bought this already, didn’t you?”
I come in behind her, placing my hands on top of hers and intertwining our fingers, my chest to her back. My mouth dips down to her ear and I say, “I might have.”
She sags back into me, her head along with her. “I should have known you’d do this.”
“I already told you, I want to take care of you. What’s mine is yours. There is no shame in letting me provide for us. It doesn’t take away your power. It doesn’t make you less strong. And it’s certainly not taking advantage. This is our home, Amelia. Hopefully our home forever. The home we’ll raise our children in. Throw Layla a sweet sixteen and a graduation party in.”
“I love it.”
“You do?”
She laughs. “Yes. You sound surprised.”
Now I laugh. “More like shocked out of my skull. I was gearing up for an argument.”
“I heard it. It was a good one.”
I spin her around in my arms and hoist her up, dropping her onto the countertop. Our countertop. The countertop I’d make love to her on if that were an option in this moment.
“I love you.”
Her legs and arms wrap around me, dragging me in as close as I can get. “I love you more. I love you in ways I never knew it was possible to love someone. I trust you. I trust you with my heart. With Layla. With all of it. Thank you for buying us this home.”
My lips meld to hers, taking in her breath for my own. Our tongues dance, play, tease, our hands tickling, touching, caressing. “I’m going to make love to you in every room, on every surface.”
“How about we start now,” she rasps into me, going for the button on my jeans.
My hands catch hers, stopping her along with a shake of the head. “We can’t yet. There’s something else I want to show you.”
She groans. “There’s more?”
“There’s definitely more.” Grasping her hips, I help her down, taking her hand and playing with my ring on her finger. “I bought the house two days ago. All cash. It was a flip sale, the house redone by a contractor who gutted it and completely restored it. Including the swimming pool.”
“Pool?” she squeals. “Layla will go batty for that.”
“I know it. She already did.”
“Huh?”
I open the back door, and everyone is already there, waiting on us. Layla and Stella. My parents. All of my brothers. Rina and Brecken. Even Grace is here. My family. Her family.
“Oh my god,” Amelia shrieks, covering her mouth, her eyes welling up with tears. “What is this?”
“A surprise, duh,” Layla says, making everyone laugh. “We live here now, Amelia. Can you believe it? Oliver said we can move in as early as next week.”
The smile on my Sprite’s face is priceless as she comes forward to hug both of us. I squeeze them tight, holding them against me. My heart. My life. Never have I felt this complete.
Amelia and Layla whisper things back and forth to each other, both of them a teary mess, but it doesn’t last long. Their smiles and laughs quickly take over as everyone begins to funnel in, congratulating us. Wishing us well.
Including my father, who strides toward Amelia with determined steps. Shortly after Amelia and I got back together, my father showed up at her house. He asked her out to coffee and apologized profusely. He explained his actions, why he felt they were necessary.
Since then, they’ve become close.
He still feels guilty. I know he does.
My father is not used to being wrong.
“Welcome home, sweetheart,” he says to her, stealing her from Layla and hugging her fiercely. “I know you’ll all be so happy here together.”
Pretty soon we’re all eating—takeout since there was no other option—sitting on the floor of the back deck and patio—because there is no furniture—enjoying the night. Layla and Stella are running around the grass, splashing each other with pool water. Amelia watches it with a contented smile hanging on the corner of her lips. A smile I don’t think I’ve ever quite seen on her before.
“Hey,” I say, whispering in her ear. “You know, I still don’t know your middle name.”
“What?” She lets out a bemused laugh.
“The first night at the reunion when I proposed, I said, Amelia I-don’t-know-your-middle name Atkins. Well, I still don’t know it.”
Her gray eyes meet mine, sparkling against the setting sun. “Sarah. My middle name is Sarah.”
I take both her hands in mine. “Amelia Sarah Atkins, will you do me the incredible honor of moving into this house with me? Helping me decorate it. Furnish it. Make it our own?”
She gulps down a heavy swallow. “Yes.”
An unstoppable smile hits my lips, my forehead falling to hers. “What do you think about a dog?”
“Don’t tell me you already bought us a dog too?”
I chuckle, kissing her sweet lips. “I haven’t, no. I thought that might be overkill.”
“I think a dog would be fun. A rescue dog. One hopefully already housebroken.”
“You can pick out whatever you want.”
“No,” she says. “We’ll pick it out together. With Layla too. That’s what a family does.”
Never has anything sounded so sweet.
Epilogue 2
Unedited and subject to change
Carter
The second my pager goes off; I know it’s going to be bad news. Nothing good is ever paged at the end of your shift. I stop in the middle of the hall, my back sore and my neck stiff after fourteen hours on my feet, to check the pager when a nurse comes barreling down the hall.
“Dr. Carter, they need you in the ED stat. They have a thirty-three week pregnant woman with severe painless vaginal bleeding.”
; “Previa?” I question, reading through the page that says the exact same thing she’s telling me.
“Don’t know. She’s not our patient.”
“Tell them I’m on my way.”
Without another word, or even so much as a complaint since my shift technically ends in ten minutes, I run for the elevator, hitting the button. Just as the doors open and I step on, Grace Hammond, my resident—and my younger brother Oliver’s best friend—steps on beside me.
“You got paged too?” she asks, her voice soft and slightly melodic the way it always is even after the long day of delivering babies and performing surgeries she’s had. She leans back against the wall, folding her arms over her chest.
“Yep,” I reply, shifting slightly so I’m not so close to her. So the scent of her floral, coconut shampoo doesn’t infiltrate my senses. I hate being so aware of her. Still, I can’t help but surreptitiously take her in. Grace’s blonde hair is wrapped up in a tight bun, her blue scrubs a shade darker than her luminous eyes that never seemed dulled by the grueling hours or the florescent lights.
I look away, chastising myself for the tenth time today.
“I thought you were off at seven.”
“I am,” I tell her. “But I got paged so that’s how it goes.”
“Previa?” she guesses, clearly having the same thought I was. Heavy, painless vaginal bleeding in a pregnant woman in her third trimester can be signs of a lot of things, but a placenta previa—where the placenta covers the cervix—is usually at the top of my differential diagnosis.
“Probably, but we’ll see once we get in there. She’s not a patient on our service.”
Just then the doors to the emergency department open and we’re immediately greeted by Margot, my sister Rina’s best friend and a nurse here in the ED. She starts talking a mile a minute, setting off at a good pace as she updates us on the patient while we head toward the trauma room.
“Thirty-year-old thirty-three-week pregnant woman, G1P0 presented complaining of heavy, painless vaginal bleeding. Vitals so far are stable, but she’s losing blood as quickly as we can give it to her, and her heart rate is tachy in the one thirties. Her blood pressure is a little low but holding at 96/62. Stat ultrasound confirms baby is not in any distress, but the placenta presents very low. Likely the cause of the bleeding but since we can’t do a transvaginal ultrasound, difficult to tell if it’s a full previa. Patient reports no prior knowledge or diagnosis of a previa.”
“Alright,” I say, as we approach the trauma rooms. “Have you notified the OR yet?”
“Yes. They’re already on standby and so is peds and the NICU. They’re just waiting on you.”
“You look a little flustered, Margot,” I comment dryly, noting her flushed cheeks and messy dark curls. “All going smoothly down here?”
She flips me off without missing a step. “It’s July, Carter. Do you know what that means?”
I laugh under my breath as does Grace. “New interns,” Grace replies, because yeah, we have them too, though Grace seems to like her newbie, Dylan. I hate July. And August for that matter.
“Yes,” Margot expels dramatically. “New fucking interns who think they’re God’s gift to medicine and that nurses are placed on this earth to do their bidding. I had to literally smack one of their hands away because he was about to attempt a pelvic exam on this woman. Can you imagine?” She looks to each of us, horror in her brown eyes. “Did he not realize that sticking his hand into a bleeding vagina with a high likelihood of a previa could possibly cause a placental rupture?”
This is why Margot is a kick ass nurse.
“Obviously not,” I comment. “He’ll quickly learn that nurses save lives that interns attempt to collect. Thank you for that.” And I mean that genuinely. I can’t count the number of times nurses have not only saved my ass but the asses of fellow doctors.
“Any time though I highly doubt it will be the last today I have to stop one of them from doing something stupid. The patient is in here.” She points to the door, and we stop in front of the trauma room. “Her name is Marissa and she’s scared shitless. Her husband was at a conference, and we were finally able to get through to him. He’s on his way now.”
“Thanks,” Grace says, spinning around pushing open the door of the trauma room with her back as she talks to Margot. “You still coming tomorrow night?”
“I think so. I have to see what time I get off. Rina will be there for sure though. Same with the other girls.”
Grace gives Margot a wink and then we plow through the doors, straight into action. I nearly have to shove two interns out of the way—Margot wasn’t kidding with how fucking inept they are—and then Grace and I get to work. We assess the mother’s condition as well as the fetus’s. Within minutes we determine that yes, she’s losing too much blood from her previa to be stopped down here or even at all.
We have about ten minutes max to get this baby out of her before the mother goes into shock from blood loss and the baby goes into distress.
“Marissa,” Grace soothes, coming right up to the patient’s face, hovering over her and gently squeezing her shoulder. “We’re taking you up to the OR now. You’re going to deliver the baby.”
“No,” Marissa cries through her oxygen mask. “It’s too soon.”
“Unfortunately, we don’t have a choice. We need to do what’s best for both you and the baby and that’s delivering it. I know you’re scared, but we’ll be with you every step of the way. Don’t worry, we’re going to do everything we can for you both. You’re in excellent hands.”
Grace gives her that warm smile, the one that always gets through to patients, and then we’re moving. Margot and another nurse are pushing the gurney as we all head for the elevator at a quick pace.
“You scrubbing in on this or is someone else taking over for you?” Grace asks me.
“I’ll take it. I’ve come this far.” We all step onto the elevator, the doors shutting. “What are you doing tomorrow night with my sister?” I question softly as my eyes cling to the glowing numbers as we ascend.
“Girls’ night. We even managed to force Amelia to come.”
Amelia is Oliver’s girlfriend. Oliver and Grace have been best friends since infancy. And forever, people just assumed they’d be a thing, but it never happened. They view and treat each other as siblings.
You’d think that would have made Grace an unofficial part of the family and I guess in a way it has. But not for me. I went away to college and then medical school. Did my residency down in Virginia Beach, only returning to Boston last year as an attending.
So I wasn’t expecting it. Her.
It had been years and years since I had seen Grace.
I wasn’t expecting her to be… fuck, everything that she is. Smart. Beautiful. An insanely talented doctor. Funny. Sarcastic. Beautiful. I might have mentioned that once already, but hell does it bear repeating. As someone who has already been down the road of wanting someone you know you can never have, craving her the way I do is like a kick in the teeth.
On a daily basis.
“And Tony doesn’t care that you’re having this girls’ night?” I try to keep all the bitterness from my voice. I try very hard but Margot’s head flies sharply in my direction, her gaze discerning as she cocks an eyebrow, so I’m not sure I quite hit my mark.
Tony is Grace’s fiancé, so yeah, again, never gonna happen between me and her.
“He’s got some dinner work thing he’s going to.”
“Right. Of course, he does. Can’t make partner without putting in all the hours.”
Grace rolls her eyes at me, but it’s true. The bastard is never around. At least not that I’ve noticed.
“Uh huh. What time did your shift end this evening Doctor? Fifteen minutes ago, is it now? And you’re, oh look, heading into surgery.”
“Different. Medicine is a noble profession. Chasing ambulances and then going after the doctors who saved the life of the injured isn’t.”
/> Before she can lay into me for that, the elevator doors open and now we’re back in game on mode. We race down the hall while the OR nurses take the patient and prep her for surgery. By the time we walk into that OR, she’ll be under anesthesia because we don’t have time to wait for an epidural or spinal block to take effect.
Grace and I don scrub caps and boots before going about the process of scrubbing in.
“Do you feel you’re ready to take point on this?” I ask, lathering my hands with antiseptic soap, washing every inch.
“Without a doubt,” she answers confidently, scrubbing vigorously beside me and refusing to meet my eyes.
She’s pissed at me for the Tony comment, but I don’t care. I don’t have to. I’m the attending and she’s the resident and that’s how our dynamic works. If we weren’t in the hospital, she’d mouth off back to me until her face was red, but not here.
“I can have that baby out in under ninety seconds.”
“I’m going to time you.”
Now she meets my eyes, glaring blue fire into me. I smirk before I can stop it, thankfully she can’t see it behind my mask.
“You do that, Carter.” She presses her foot onto the pedal, rinsing off the soap.
“If you can do it safely in eighty seconds, I’ll buy you something special for your birthday.”
She shakes her head, her arms bent at the elbow, sterile hands held up and out in front of her. “You’re such a condescending dick,” she murmurs under her breath as she plows past me, headed for the OR.
“What was that? I’m not sure I heard you correctly.”
“I said you’re such a considerate doctor,” she yells at me over her shoulder, and now I can’t stop my laugh.
But the second we meet the OR floor; all humor is gone from my lips.
“Hi, Dr. Fritz,” Angelica, one of the nurses says to me, batting her long lashes up at me flirtatiously as she goes about tying my gown and helping me with my sterile gloves. “I’m so glad you’re in here performing this surgery. I know the patient is in the best of hands with you as her doctor.”
