Off-Limits Box Set

by Ella James

  One brisk walk across the street and two stairwells later, I’m behind the wheel of my maroon Subaru Outback, exiting the parking deck and heading toward my apartment. It’s not far from here: less than a mile, in Denver’s Cherry Creek neighborhood.

  I’m at the first red light on my trek, at the corner of the sprawling hospital campus and the children’s hospital next door, when I see him through my frenzied wipers—some poor guy getting splashed by passing cars as he strides down the sidewalk. One blink and my body lights up: Landon.

  Shit. That’s Landon right there, walking down the street in drenched business attire, clutching a dripping leather briefcase.

  My light turns green, and I have just a second to decide.

  I pull over. One smooth move, and not a second thought.

  I roll my window down and lean toward it, cupping my mouth before I yell, “LANDON!”

  The monsoon drowns out my voice. I drive a few feet closer to him and try again. “LANDON!”

  I’m not sure if he notices the idling car or me yelling—but Landon glances over his shoulder. I wait for him to recognize me, but he doesn’t. Not until he takes two long steps back, lifting a hand up to his eyes.

  I watch his face morph in surprise as he leans down partway into my passenger’s side window.

  “Evie? Is that you?” His voice rises above the clapping rain.

  “Get in!” The storm has picked up even as I’ve idled here. It’s raining cats and dogs, and the car behind me has shimmied up right on my tail.

  I see the tension in features, in the temporary stillness of his sculpted chest and shoulders. Then his mouth relaxes and he reaches for the door handle. I blink, and Landon’s in. He’s in my car and oh my gosh, he’s really drenched.

  I can’t help laughing as I pull off from the curb. “You look like you went for a swim.”

  He wipes a hand over his forehead, where water drips down from his hair in rivulets that glow green as I pass under another light. “I kind of did.” His voice is lower, but the same.

  “Hey, you know, there’s a blanket in the backseat.”

  He glances behind him, but looks back at the road. “Thanks, but I’m okay.”

  I reach down to the console between our seats and flip a switch to turn on his seat’s heater right about the time it starts to hail. “These summer storms are crazy,” I say as we pass through another intersection.

  “Where are you taking me?” His brows are arched. His rumbling voice sounds skeptical.

  I laugh as I press the brakes. “Where do you live?”

  He smirks. “You passed the turn.”

  It’s so surreal to be here with him. For an aching moment, I feel as if we’re floating down the flooded street. As if the rain encapsulating my car is soapy water at a drive-thru car wash, and it’s 2006.

  I struggle to find my voice. “I did?”

  “You did.”

  I get into the left lane, making a U-turn when I can. The roaring rain is all we have between us. That and eons. “So, a left up here?” I make a guess as I approach the area’s main drag.

  “Yeah. It’s down two blocks.” He crosses his arms, clasping his big hands over his triceps.

  “Here—” I turn the dial to make the heat hotter. “You must be freezing.”

  “Nah. I’m used to cold.”

  I think of Landon jogging in a Johns Hopkins T-shirt: a sight my sister thought she saw near our parents’ house at Thanksgiving in 2015. After Em thought she had seen him, I got out and drove around in search of a car with Maryland plates. When I couldn’t find one, I went down to his old room and sobbed. Remembering this while he sits next to me makes my face and neck flush with self-conscious heat.

  “Oh yeah. You went to Hopkins.” Not for undergrad. He went to UNC for that…but Hopkins after.

  Landon nods.

  “And then you moved to another cold, snowy locale.”

  “Colorado’s not that cold.”

  I snort. “Says you. It’s pretty cold. Which I actually love. I love the cold. And snow—yes, please. People talk about summer here being the bee’s knees, but I like fall and winter. I think it’s better when the weather fluctuates when you’re inside all day, living life through windows.”

  He regards me for a moment with his eagle eyes. “You feel like you live your life through windows?”

  My heart pounds. “Not really. Kind of, though. I mean, it’s like a bubble, work is. You can be there twenty-four hours and it feels like five…or four hundred. Sometimes I look outside and see the Front Range, and I’m surprised it’s even there.” I laugh. “Happens mostly when I haven’t slept for days.”

  The corners of his lips turn up just slightly: one of his old, familiar, measured smiles. “Did you enjoy rotations?”

  “Surgery, yes. Psychiatry and pediatrics, not so much.”

  His smile widens. “Don’t want to save the children, Evie?”

  Hearing his voice say those words…it makes me falter. “No—” I start. My tone is normal, and I’m going to play it off—God knows, I’m a good faker by now—but my foot falters on the brake as we approach a red light, and the car slides. Not by much, but just enough to make your stomach flip.

  I can feel the burn of Landon’s gaze as I laugh self-consciously and move my hands to ten and two.

  “No,” I carry on, “I want to save them in that I want them to be saved. But they’re so difficult as patients. Like, not only do they fail to tell you the important things, they tell you things that aren’t even true. Case in point: I had a kid come in with a nasty sinus infection, and some really weird-looking stuff on the scans. Asked him what it was, he told me tiny ants had crawled into his nose when he was sleeping. Then he said his brother put cupcake sprinkles in his nose. Like, what is that? So random. Finally I found out he had snorted glitter. Like, a ton of glitter. I could see the little particles on the scan and anyway…yeah. It’s just harder. They’re really cute. I like to babysit them, but for colds and things like that, maybe they can see a different doctor.”

  Landon tilts his head. “And neuro kids?”

  “Oh,” I wave, “I’ll take them. Tethered cords and Chiari Malformation, tumors…that stuff is my jam.”

  “So it’s not the sad shit you dislike,” he says. “It’s the tedium of diagnosing pediatrics. I’m going to guess you’re not a fan of geriatrics either.”

  “No, I like the old folks fine. So long as they’re coherent, which they almost always are. More so than most people, in fact. I wouldn’t specialize in Alzheimer’s, though. I don’t think I have the stamina for it.”

  He’s quiet at that, and I’m surprised to find that I feel something coming from him. I can’t help but hyper-focus on my comment. Memory and stamina: does he think I’m bad at both? Why wouldn’t he? I forgot him. That’s what he thinks, of course.

  My heart aches so fiercely, my chest hurts as I glance over at him.

  “Hey, Ev…”

  I swallow, frightened by the softness of his tone, and what he called me.

  “Yeah?” I murmur.

  He points behind him. “I’m back that way.”

  “Oh my God!” It’s been forever since we turned onto this road. I’ve gone way past two blocks. “I’m sorry. I…wasn’t thinking.”

  His smile is small but gentle. “Understandable. How was your first day?”

  I pause to regroup as I make another U-turn. “So tiring. And wonderful. And tiring.”

  “I hear that.”

  “How was yours?”

  “Good. And tiring.”

  And he sounds tired. His subdued tone brings a deluge of memories. I can’t help but wonder how he sleeps now. What his bedroom looks like. What he’ll do when he gets home.

  He may have a girlfriend waiting at his place.

  I swallow. “Denver is a nice place. I hope you like it.”

  “Won’t be forgetting the Front Range quite yet.” He smiles. I laugh. “It’s that street,” he says, nodding at
the next light. “Take a right.”

  The light turns green, and I don’t even have to slow.

  “It’s this second complex.” He points. “Grandview.”

  I turn slowly by the big sign, behind which are three towers.

  He says, “Thanks for doing this,” as I start through the parking lot. “I would have been fine, but this was nice.”

  My head spins slowly as he adds, “I’m in the rearmost building.”

  I pin my gaze to the slick asphalt, taking a deep, strained breath so I don’t freak out—or pass out.

  “Just right in front?” I ask as we glide up in front of the last tower.

  “Perfect.”

  Landon starts for the door handle, then hesitates and turns, surprising me by delving into my backseat. Half a second later, he turns back around, and I feel something on my arm. I blink down at my blanket.

  “Cover up,” he says quietly.

  He raises one hand in a low-key wave, and disappears into the dark.

  I drive two blocks home, where my roommate, Alyssa, is waiting with a piping cup of my favorite chamomile tea and a new, fluffy, gray robe.

  “You made it home,” she squeals as she gives me a crushing hug.

  I nod—and start to sob.

  Two

  Evie

  After that night—that awful night when Alyssa tucks me into bed and I watch rain slide down my windows till the sun rises—I see him everywhere.

  In patients’ rooms as we move down our rounds list at 5 a.m., always with two other residents—and almost always with each other. In the donut room at odd moments, when Landon’s at the table tackling a BLT, which seems to be his go-to. In the ER as we frenziedly evaluate two best friends with a matching set of spinal injuries after a hiking fall. As I scrub into surgery and he scrubs out, he lifts an eyebrow and deadpans, “I hear it’s dicey in there.”

  I get paged to room 310 on Thursday, and Landon’s there already, rocking on his heels beside a little girl, who’s laughing her face off in the railed bed. “No, hear this one,” she cries, waving her arm.

  He grins. “Okay. Hit me.”

  “What do you call cheese that isn’t yours?” she asks him, beaming.

  He raises his brows. “Nacho cheese?”

  “Noooo! How did you know,” she groans.

  He laughs. “Bad jokes are my thing.”

  “That wasn’t bad,” she insists. “It was awesome!”

  I look on like a voyeur as he says, “How do oceans say hello?”

  The girl, six or seven, tilts her bandage-wrapped head. Then her jaw falls open. “They wave!”

  Landon’s fingers snap. Boom. “Why did the math book look so sad?” he fires off.

  She mulls it over, then lifts her gaze to me. “Do you know?”

  “’Fraid not.”

  “Because it has so many problems, of course.” He must have a silly expression on his face, because the girl gives him one of her own.

  Damn. When did he become so outgoing?

  “I don’t want to have more problems,” the girl says suddenly. She looks on the verge of tears. “I want to go home now!”

  I watch his shoulders tighten as he pauses for a brief moment, before he says, “Already? But you’ve only been here five days.”

  Tears fill her brown eyes. “I want to see my puppy. Her name’s Gertrude.”

  “Why would a puppy be named Gertrude?” Landon asks her in a funny voice.

  “Because she is! Gertrude was my mommy’s puppy’s name, and her mom’s puppy’s name. It’s a family name, that’s why.”

  Landon chuckles. “I like that. Do you have a picture of her?”

  “It’s a him.”

  Now he’s really laughing. “A him? Gertrude? What kind of dog is this? Now I really need to see this picture.”

  I can’t help but smile at his broad, coat-clad back.

  “My mommy has it,” she says, looking torn between pouty and pleased at the attention Landon’s giving her.

  He looks over his shoulder. “You can go if you’d like, Dr. Rutherford. Meghan’s mom went to run an errand, so I’m staying till she’s back.”

  I nod slowly, feign a polite smile. “Okay,” I say as I leave the room. “But I’m going to have to hear some more about this Gertrude.”

  Outside in the hall, I take a few deep breaths before I get another page, this one for a new admission.

  Later in the evening, I wind up with Landon in the donut room. He’s standing at the fridge, crooked-smiling down at his cell phone with a charmed look on his gorgeous, five-o’clock-shadowed face. For a sick second, my stomach curls into a ball as I imagine who he might be texting. Then he lifts his head and nods me over.

  I step closer to him, and he turns the phone to me. I blink at a picture of a Welsh Corgi.

  “Gertrude.” He grins.

  “Oh my goodness. She’s— he’s…very pretty. Total Gertrude right there.” I smile, because the dog really does sort of look like a Gertrude.

  “I know, right?”

  I laugh. “Oh yeah. Do you think she’ll get to see Gertrude soon?” I ask, meaning the patient.

  “What do you think?”

  I brushed up on the girl’s charts after our earlier encounter. She had a benign brain tumor removed. I shrug. “As long as there’s no infection, I’d presume so.”

  “Would you?” he asks.

  “Would I what?”

  “Presume so.”

  Is that the ghost of a smirk? I give him a brows-raised look. “Are you making fun of me, Dr. Jones?”

  “Who, me? Never.” But he can’t resist: his mouth curves up on one side.

  “Was it the word ‘presume’? I would presume you’ve heard it before.”

  He smiles, then tries to stifle it, and then succeeds. “It wasn’t that,” he says softly.

  “What was it?”

  “I just felt like teasing you.” His face is solemn. It’s the face of someone who’s done something wrong. Who should be pledging never to do that thing again—but isn’t. As I look at him, the air around us simmers. It’s making my pulse race, so I step closer to him.

  I brush his coat collar, and Landon looks down. When he does, I thump his nose.

  His jaw drops in mock fury.

  I dance over to the door, and Landon stalks me, even as I wrap my hand around the handle.

  “I know you didn’t thump me on the nose, Evie. Presumably, you know that’s not a smart idea…”

  I laugh. “Well, I’m not that smart.”

  I press myself against the door, and Landon closes the distance between us.

  “Oh, I beg to differ,” he says. “I think you just want a fight.” His eyelids are lowered, his jaw tight as he reaches out and tugs a strand of my hair. “Am I right?” He presses his thumb to my lower lip.

  I whisper, “Yes.”

  Then the door behind me shakes.

  “Hello?” a voice says. I move away from the door, and Audrey Kim, our fellow first-year resident, comes in, bearing a heaping plate of cafeteria spaghetti.

  She looks from me to Landon. “What’s up?”

  I laugh, because it’s what I do when I’m uncomfortable.

  “Did I miss something funny?” she asks.

  Landon shows her the picture of Gertrude and tells that story, and I notice Audrey’s eyes flit to him as she sits down to eat her dinner.

  “Sounds like you have a new patient friend,” she says. “You must be good with kids.”

  My stomach bottoms out.

  “I think they’re little snots,” she says as she chews.

  Landon shrugs. I watch him as he turns and grabs a bottle of cold brew coffee, downs most of the bottle, and tosses it into the garbage on his way out the door. He doesn’t look back.

  I’m still feeling shell-shocked when Audrey murmurs, “He’s a catch.”

  I blink. “Who’s a what?”

  “Jones. Who else? That man is hot as fuck. The stubble…” She runs he
r hand over her own face. “Mmm-mmm, come to mama.”

  I swallow, careful with my face as I delve into the refrigerator. “Yeah, a man with some stubble is my favorite.”

  “He’s my favorite. I’ll have our babies. He can raise them. I want like, one kid. That’s it. Just the token doctor’s snot, and that’s it.” She holds her hands up, and we shoot the shit for a few minutes while I inhale a chocolate chip muffin.

  That night as I drive home, I look for Landon on the empty sidewalk.

  I try to accustom myself to his presence. I start counting, and I find I see him an average of nine times every day. He smiles, tells jokes, charms patients, and moves in and out of the OR, just like I do. I hear other people talk about him like he’s theirs instead of mine. Because he isn’t mine.

  One night, as I walk past the donut room, whose door is open, I hear one second-year resident tell another: “I heard that new guy, Jones, got in on Eilert’s big craniopharyngioma resection. Helped with the endoscope. Eilert said he has great hands.”

  “So fucking jealous,” the other one says.

  “You can tell he’s the kind of dude who—”

  That’s all I hear as I pass by them, rushing to check on a patient with a leaking stent. I’m helping stabilize her for half an hour before she goes into surgery with Squires, one of the older attendings. By then, it’s almost 9 o’clock in the evening, so I take a seat in the donut room and start tackling my twenty-some remaining floor notes as fast as possible.

  I’m on the fourth note when my primary pager buzzes. It’s an emergent summons to OR 4. I grab my stuff and race over. When I reach the area, I find it packed with residents—including Landon.

  I watch as Dr. Kraft, one of our two chief residents, raises his arms and looks around the room, at the six of us.

  “We’ve got something rare right here in OR 4—a microvascular decompression being performed by our attending, Dr. Nate, on a five-year-old girl with intractable hemifacial spasm. Nerve and vessel will be separated by a tiny Teflon sponge. These surgeries are not common and complications from them are. Pediatric HFS is exceedingly rare, and even more complex than usual. Bettie and Stern, scrub in. The rest of you, you’ll want to watch footage of the procedure at your leisure and follow-up with Dr. Nate with any questions. He’s one of the best so pick his brain before he retires.” Kraft looks down at his own pager, then back up. “Jones and Rutherford, you’re wanted down in the ER.”