CADEN

After seventy-two hours, my attending finds me on the Oncology floor in the room of a patient that isn’t mine in a section of the hospital where I am also not supposed to be.

“Why do I have to keep dealing with this….” Dr. Myers pauses so as not to swear in front of a witness. “…stuff?!”

She didn’t mean to even ask me that in front of the twenty-four-year-old who is suffering from osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer.

Myers is tired of my boundary-pushing. I can’t blame her…except I do.

Turning back around, I smile, “Cilla, is there anything else we can do to make you more comfortable today?”

Her gaze flits to Myers, before settling on me. Nobody likes to be scolded. Quietly she answers, “The chocolates are more than enough to make me happy, Dr. Cocker.”

I open the gift I brought her, pick one tasty square out, throw it and catch it in my mouth. “Mmm. Caramels are my favorite. My mom’s, too.”

Cilla’s tired eyes dance. “I love them, too! But…cherry-filled are my favorite.”

“No way! Gross!”

She laughs, “They’re the best ones!”

“They’re nasty!”

“You don’t know anything!”

“Next time I’ll have to bring cherry. And they’ll be safe from me. You can have ‘em!”

Myers clears her throat and I glance over my shoulder to gauge her temperature. From her calm expression, I don’t think she meant that as a signal—probably an unconscious reaction at processing the scene.

Heading for the door, I reassure Cilla, “I’ll come check on you again soon.”

“Thank you!”

I motion for Myers to go first, a gesture of chivalry. She shakes her head, dark ponytail pulled tight and low. I shrug, chuckling under my breath as I pass her. The door closes and I wait in the corridor knowing I’m about to get a dramatic tongue-lashing, and not the kind I’d like.

Dr. Elizabeth Myers is a force. Only two years older than I am, she’s years ahead of me in the field because she graduated at sixteen and was on the Med School track. For me that choice took time.

Lowering her chin, Myers stares at me from beneath befuddled eyebrows. “You’re making this very hard, Cocker.”

“What did you think I was doing?”

“Working past your legal hours. But you already know that.” Stuffing her fingers into the deep pockets of her white physician’s coat, Myers gazes into the distance as she considers what to do with me. “Why are you up here?”

I scratch my chin, drop my hand. “Not sure I understand the question.”

Exasperated, she reminds me, “These patients aren’t yours. Oncology isn’t even your department! It’s infuriating. Can you not just go home when you’re supposed to?! Is it really that hard to follow the rules? I am so tired of this!”

Crossing my arms, I glare at her, “Like I said, doing my job.”

She tilts her head. “And what do you think that is, exactly?”

“Taking care of patients. Helping people. Saving lives whenever I can. And when I can’t, making them as comfortable as possible for as long as they’re in this shit-hole. Now don’t give me that look. I love it here and so do you. But to these people it’s the last place they want to be. Don’t you know that? Or have you forgotten what it’s like to be on the other side of that clipboard?”

Her nostrils flare. “What makes you think it’s okay to talk to me like that?!”

“Because you’re a grown woman who can handle honesty! And if you’re referring to the cuss word, give it a rest. On more than one occasion I’ve heard you swearing like a sailor with a stubbed toe.”

“Go home, Cocker!” She passes me, making it clear we are finished with our conversation.

I smirk, “Why don’t you come with me?”

Walking backwards, she warns, “If I hear that you’re on any floor in this hospital again in the next twenty-four hours, you won’t return.”

Staring until she’s gone, I consider whether or not I should actually obey this order. She’s given it before and I’ve ignored it. I need to show them I’m meant to be here. This is my life. I’m better than Janet. I can stay up for days fueled by my sense of purpose alone.

But she looked pretty pissed.

Underlying her aggravation, however…did I see pride staring back at me? Can’t be sure. What I do reflects on her, and it is possible she appreciated my chocolates.

Huffing and confused, I look around the Oncology floor, lock eyes with a male nurse named Ray who’s watching me from behind his counter, a floating head.

“What’re you looking at?”

“Someone stupid,” he chuckles. “Your eyes are red. Get some rest.”

“You give it a rest!”

“You missed a good baseball game.”

“Yeah yeah.” Checking my watch, I imagine him with Dev and all the others on a baseball diamond under what turned out to be a warm, southern night. The image makes me grumble as I walk to the elevator, “Gotta make sacrifices if you want to achieve greatness.”

A well-used call button gets a quick jab.

I look up.

It’s on the seventh floor.

Construction is up there.

Total renovation.

This place is going to be even better.

And I love how it already is.

Imagine improving on perfection.

There are a billion ways I could be spending my time right now, but I can only think of one that thrills me: being a surgeon.

Finally on the ground floor I watch the doors whoosh open and with each step that takes me away from it, my feet feel heavy like my bed is calling me, and inside that fortress I wasn’t able to hear it.

Pulling out my phone, I dial my older brother. “Yo Max, guess what? I think I might’ve just impressed Dr. Myers. Maybe. Not sure. But there’s a chance.”

“The one who favors Janet?”

“Your voice is thick. I wake you?”

“No, I’m looking at the rough edit of my film. I submitted to Sundance today.”

“Congratulations!”

“Haven’t got accepted, hold that thought for when I do.”

“I thought you sent it off.”

“You can submit a rough cut and tell them the changes you want to make. They’re experienced enough to know what will work, and judge from there. It’s like going into a home knowing that before you buy it they’ll paint it white or whatever, so you picture the potential and decide if it’s a go. There’s a scene I don’t love. I think I’m too close to it now to see it from its true perspective.”

As my old Toyota comes to life, I smirk, “I’d tell you to get some sleep, but I’m no hypocrite.”

Max chuckles. “You at the hospital?”

“Just left and now I’m navigating the parking lot with my vision starting to blur.”

He gets serious. “If you’re too tired to drive—”

“Okay Mom.’”

“Call me that again, and you’ll regret it.”

Wheels speed toward Inman Park where my one bedroom shack awaits. It’s a rental, but it’s my rental. “Whatever you say, Mom.”

“Dick. What’d you do that impressed your attending?”

My engine lurches and I frown at the hood. “It wasn’t done on purpose, I can tell you that.”

“Wait…what? You’re constantly trying to impress her. How did you accidentally do it? This I gotta hear.”

Max is my best friend and I can tell him anything, but this story has got me hesitating for personal integrity reasons. I didn’t bring chocolates to Cilla or any of the others in order to get accolades or appear noble.

That would make it disingenuous.

I thought nobody would find out.

I guess that was foolish. Myers doesn’t miss much. But since I was on a different floor than those she patrols, it never dawned on me that I might be face-to-face with her, caught in the act.

“Caden?”

“Here. Didn't fall asleep.”

“Don’t fucking scare me like that.”

I fall silent.

Max dryly mutters, “Funny.”

“Something’s wrong with my car. It’s lurching.”

“Call Triple-A.”

“Tomorrow. What’s the news on Brad?”

“I’m fucking beat. Last thing I want to do is worry about Lexi and that invisible jerk.” After a pause, his voice is charged with fresh irritation. “I want to see what this guy looks like. Because if she’s this hung up on him, hiding him from us, getting Samantha to lie about him, he must be the hottest guy in the city.”

“Right?” I snort, driving east on Ponce—technically called Ponce de Leon Avenue, but no real Atlantans call it that. “We should tail her one night soon when she leaves her place. She lost me last time.”

“When exactly are we supposed to do that?”

“I might do it.”

“You’re not going to tell me how you impressed your attending, are you?”

“It’s not important. But this time, when she yelled at me to go home, I could tell she thought I was a good guy.”

“Then she must have been sucking one of those morphine drips, because—”

“—Shut it,” I laugh.

“Seriously, my brother is a dick.”

“Yeah, Hunter needs work. But this brother? One stellar human being.”

Max laughs. “Listen, I’ve got maybe an hour left in me to dedicate to this, so I’m gonna let you go. You home?”

I ask, “You psychic?” jumping out of the dying Toyota and strolling over uncut grass that should make me feel guilty but doesn’t.

“I’ve kept you company on many drives back home from the hospital, Caden. I know how long it takes. And that it should take longer. Don’t know how you’ve managed no speeding tickets.”

Tossing my keys onto my coffee table and jogging to the fridge, I shrug, “Guess I was born with a horseshoe up my ass. But, damn, my luck has run out. There is absolutely nothing in here that I can eat. And it smells.” Covering the abysmal sight with a quick slam of the door, I tell him, “Go do your thing. I’m going to bed. And Max?”

“Yeah?”

“We gotta hang out soon.”

“Done.”

After I toss the phone onto my dresser, I strip naked glancing to the mirror positioned across from my bed as I check out my body.

One of the doctor’s break-rooms has exercise equipment to keep the staff healthy. Ironically not many of us use the machines. But I do to keep in shape when the ER is quiet and I’ve completed rounds. I like my body looking this good, and that takes work—just like anything else worth having.

Reflexively, my gaze flicks up next to where my favorite mirror is—the ceiling.

As I pull boxer briefs down my thighs and my freed cock bounces out, I begrudgingly mutter to its sleepy head, “Been way too long since I’ve made use of you, buddy.”

Leaping on my bed I stretch naked limbs over the goose down and enjoy my yawning muscles.

Palming my length to wake it up, I ask my reflection, “Why the fuck are you sleeping alone? Ambition is one thing—neglect, another.” A couple of long, slow strokes and it starts to harden. But it’s not sure if I mean it.

I’m so tired.

This is gonna take work.

The memory of the girl I brought home last, launches my shaft to attention, not full girth but this’ll work.

Wait, when was that?

Oh yeah, months back when I was chasing Lexi down at one of Billy’s new warehouse parties. I heard she was there with Brad, the invisible douchebag.

Didn’t find her.

I did run into my cousin Nicholas, Jeremy’s eldest—found him kissing who eventually turned out to be his girlfriend.

Left them to make out some more and went seeking someone of my own to kiss like he was kissing her. Took one home not long after he and I said goodbye. Figured if Lexi was lost in the wind, might as well have some fun.

Foolish to waste a party.

She’s perfect fantasy material as I stroke myself to fruition. The memory of how she looked riding me, I can imagine right now reflected in that mirror.

Full breasted, wide hipped, ready to go all night. I can just close my eyes and enjoy the thick pulsing that beats the base of my length. My hand slides up and down, veins throbbing so good, grip firmly pushing my silky skin over the sensitive head again and again as my pleasure intensifies.

For inspiration I look at the mirror again to remember what she looked like. But that girl has been replaced by Dr. Myers’ bobbing ponytail, her physician’s coat spread out and covering my torso.

Oh man, yes.

Didn’t plan for this.

Never done it before.

But the fantasy inspires my cock to full mass, blood pounding.

Let’s get her peeling off that coat along with her inhibitions.

“That’s right, Dr. Myers. I do stay in too long. But you like that, don’t you?” I chuckled, wincing at the sweet burning ache. As the pressure rises, I close my eyes, stroking faster with a firmer grip.

Squinting a peek at the ceiling mirror, I grunt at Janet, uninvited, Dr. Myers gone. My cock flops like my mom just walked in the room. Cussing under my breath, I grab the comforter, pull it up, flip on my side, and shut my eyes.

I’m so pissed off, it takes me a whole two minutes to fall asleep.