Two
Zion
It was already lunch hour, and I still felt disoriented. My bear kept grumbling. I felt like my time working the night shift in the Pediatric Department had turned me into a vampire instead of a shifter. Not that vampires even existed but still. All it took was one day, in the ER at that, to recall why I had previously vowed to stick with the night life.
One day and one nurse…
“Good job earlier today, Dr. Bradford,” one of the emergency department nurses said to me in the break room as I fixed myself an umpteenth cup of coffee. I glanced up at her, not recognizing her name or face. She blushed under my gaze, and I had to wonder if her compliment was genuine or sarcastic, given that my performance earlier had been far from my ordinary standards. When I offered her no response, she quickly got herself a bottle of water from the vending machine and made her exit.
I sighed, flopping down in a nearby chair and taking a sip of my coffee that was too hot and burned the roof of my mouth. I swore under my breath. All the whole, one face floated through my mind.
Alexis Lewis.
My bear roared. I needed him to shut the hell up so I could focus, but he’d been a mess in that room. Making me look like an inept doctor. Uncle Murray would be so proud, not. My Ivy League education should mean I don’t suck at my job, but today? Today I was practically a menace. And it was all because my bear has smelled Alexis Lewis.
I’d never had the pleasure of working with her before, and frankly, that morning’s experience hadn’t exactly been a pleasure. Or perhaps in some ways, it had been too much of a pleasure—I couldn’t really figure out which was the case.
There was no denying that Nurse Lewis was an absolute knock-out. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen a woman so attractive. My bear began stirring, a passion welling inside. Even nurse scrubs and a sloppy hair bun couldn’t hide the natural sex-appeal that oozed from her. That silky blonde hair. Those stunningly bright blue eyes. Those amazing curves, which she had unfortunately caught me staring at…
Way to go, Zion, I thought to myself with a humorless laugh. I took another sip of coffee, thinking about how not only did the living Aphrodite think I was an unfit doctor, but she likely thought I was a sexist pig as well. I squirmed in discomfort at the thought.
The door to the break area swung open. I reached for a magazine, pretending to be interested as I sipped more of my coffee.
“Hey, Zion. How are the daylight hours treating you?”
I looked up to see Morris, one of our surgeons. He wasn’t a shifter but had training like I did. We weren’t friends, but I respected him.
“Makes me remember why I resigned to the nightlife,” I answered.
Morris chuckled. “Oh, so you’re not fond of being here with us mere mortals?”
I smirked. “No, that’s not it. It’s just that my brain doesn’t always kick in until the AM hours are over.”
“Well, you’re in luck,” he said, pulling a paper bag from the staff refrigerator. He crossed the room over to the table, took a seat, and pulled a sandwich from his bag. “It’s past noon now.”
I gave a strained smile. I had nothing against Morris. He was a great doctor and someone I could have even considered a friend. I wasn’t in the mood for small talk though, which was clearly lost on him. He beckoned me over to the table with him. “Come and keep an old man company, will you?”
I’d been staring down at the magazine in my lap, trying to appear engrossed by it, but apparently I hadn’t been convincing enough. I glanced up at Morris again.
“Anything interesting in there?” he asked, nodding toward the magazine.
“Not really,” I said, although I hadn’t actually been reading.
“So you’re filling in for Dr. Presch, I hear?” Morris asked around a mouthful on his sandwich.
“Yeah. Just for a little while. No offense, but I’m not trying to make mortal hours a permanent thing. Bears hibernate, I like my sleep.”
Morris laughed heartily, once again beckoning to the table with him. “Well, in the meantime, I hope you’re having something more than just coffee for lunch, doc. You’ll be a jittery mess by the time your shift ends. Those of us working in the daylight have to refuel properly.” He held up his sandwich as if offering me a bite. “You should know that.”
I smiled tensely again, not liking the sound of anyone telling me what I should know, even jokingly. My bear roared again, if I couldn’t get him under control...Yet, right on time to save me, Dr. Morris’ pager went off. He swore under his breath. “Can’t catch a break around here these days!”
“Another day, another dollar,” I said, gratefully resettling into my seat now that Dr. Morris was rising from the table, being called for duty.
“You’ve got that right. See you around, Zion.”
“Yeah. See you, Morris.”
The instant I was alone again, I almost regretted his having to leave. Morris’ brief appearance had at least managed to push Alexis from my mind. But now that I was in solitude once more, I no longer had a distraction.
While her looks were undeniable, her skills had left me rather stunned as well. It was obvious that she was light-years beyond the other nurses. The way she worked around the bite wound, she could have been a doctor. It’s not every day—or ever, in my case—that a nurse catches and calls out a doctor for making a mistake. Something about the way Alexis spoke to me while treating that patient had made me feel like a scorned child. It was like I was 14-years-old all over again, getting scolded by my algebra teacher in front of the whole class about “being too smart to be so careless.”
On the other hand, I didn’t even have legit reason to be upset with Alexis. She had every right to call me out on my mistakes because she was one-hundred percent correct. If something had been overlooked with that patient, the blame would have ultimately been on me. Yet, this realization did nothing to alleviate my conflicted feelings about her.
And it was just barely past noon.
With a sigh, I drank the last of my coffee and tried to mentally prepare myself for the long hours ahead, doing my best to sedate the beast underneath my skin.