Chapter 18

Josie

I hover over the computer, flipping through the patient’s online chart. He presented with a complicated history of congestive heart failure and an aortic valve replacement, yet I don’t think the shortness of breath is from that. The blue tinge to his lips leads me to believe this is his chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is flaring up, so I write an order for a pulmonary function test.

A burst of laughter sounds from behind me and I turn in my chair to see Aiden and Kevin laughing about something on Kevin’s phone. No clue what’s so funny, although I kind of want to know. Reminds me of the days when we were all in residency together and we got by with a whole lot of laughter to combat the stress.

It’s been interesting having Aiden working at the hospital with us. He was always the most levelheaded and steady of our group, and he’s even more so now. He doesn’t seem to be stressed about anything, even during some seriously intense medical situations that come through the emergency department. I suppose when you’re working on people with others shooting at you and shelling your building, your hand gets a little steadier in normal circumstances. Frankly, it really makes me admire him, and I realize something good came out of him leaving me.

It made him into an immensely superb doctor, and I’d like to think the countless lives he’s saved was a fair exchange for a broken heart. Of course, I suppose it’s easier for me to feel that way now that I’ve moved on and have Reed in my life.

“Josie…come see this,” Aiden calls out to me from across the hub.

The hub is the circular area set in the middle of the emergency department with curtained rooms around the perimeter. There are several workstations, desks and computers for the nurses and doctors to work on between patients.

I log off my screen, check my watch, and note I can spare thirty seconds. I walk over to where Aiden and Kevin are staring at Kevin’s phone. When I reach them, Kevin holds the phone out so I can see the screen. It’s a YouTube compilation of people passing out during various medical procedures.

I watch as person after person faints.

A medical student during an autopsy.

A father as his son’s broken bone is set.

A nurse during a surgery who is totally ignored as the surgery carries on.

They’re funny and they make me laugh, Kevin and Aiden joining right in again. I’ve had moments myself when I’ve been overwhelmed by something, but my legs have always held true. One of the nurses steps up and peers over my shoulder at the screen.

“Bet you saw some gruesome shit over in Yemen, right?” Kevin asks Aiden with a nudge to his arm.

I glance up in time to see the laugh and smile slide right of Aiden’s face, and my stomach knots. His voice is low and gruff. “Some really bad stuff.”

Kevin doesn’t ask for details as he watches a surgeon remove a large tumor from a patient’s abdomen, only to sag to the ground with it still clutched in his hands. I’m going to guess that wasn’t from him being grossed out—because he’s a surgeon and used to it—but maybe from an illness.

Still…a little funny.

“Hey, Josie,” Aiden says, and I look back to him. “Got a minute to talk about something?”

“Sure,” I say as I glance at my watch, even though I really don’t. “But just a minute.”

Aiden turns from the hub and walks over to the on-call office. I follow him in and he closes the door behind us. Neither one of us sits down because we don’t have time for that in the emergency room.

I tuck my hands casually into my lab coat. “What’s up?”

Aiden crosses his arms, not in a defensive posture but in more of a serious, professional way. “I was talking to Dr. Hubbard the other day and he’s invited me to do a research project under his supervision to publish.”

My eyes widen and I can’t hide my delight. “That’s amazing. What is it about?”

We both worked under Dr. Hubbard during our residency and he teaches at Duke’s school of medicine. He’s highly esteemed in the field of emergency medicine and widely published.

“Comparing emergency field medicine techniques to those in an urban setting,” Aiden tells me. “I’d use my case experiences the past few years and compare them to like cases here. I’d have to get several doctors to help me out to get a good sampling of cases, and wanted to know if you’d help.”

“Of course,” I exclaim. “I’d totally be glad to give you what I can.”

“That’s awesome,” he says with a chuckle. “And I’ll take whatever you can give me, but I was hoping you’d sort of cowrite the paper with me. Help me cull through the data, draw conclusions, and then help write it. You’d get equal credit.”

My eyes go round with surprise because it’s a really big deal to get published. “Why me?” I gasp.

Aiden’s eyes chide me silently for a moment before he says, “Why not you, Josie? You’re a brilliant doctor and I trust you to do a good job.”

“But, Kevin—”

“—is a great friend and a great doctor too, but I know you better and you’re my first choice.”

“What kind of time frame do you want to accomplish this in?” I ask him.

“Three months, maybe four,” he says. “I’ve already got my field data, so I figure a few weeks to pull urban data and we can get to work on comparing it. Maybe six to eight weeks to do that, reach conclusions, and another two to four weeks to write the paper to submit to Hubbard.”

“Time commitment per week?” I press. This is a major project and I need to know what he expects.

“Ten, fifteen hours a week?” He says it as a question, lobbing it my way to see if those numbers offend me.

My mind quickly calculates. I usually have at least three days off a week due to the longer shifts I work, and that will easily take up two of those days. My first consideration is Reed and how that will cut into the time I spend with him, because we have been spending practically all of my free time together since he’s still on his summer vacation before the season starts.

The argument could be made that in a month, Reed’s going to be starting the preseason, so his time is going to be limited again and thus our time together is going to get cut anyway. Why not have a professionally satisfying project going that would put a published paper under my name?

This makes sense, but the only thing that truly sucks about that proposition is that Reed and I had just talked about this very thing last night while we were lying in bed. He asked me if I would travel to some of his away games with him if my concurrent days off matched up to his travel schedule.

“Yes,” I’d exclaimed without any thought. As I learned more about hockey and Reed’s career, I had been getting really excited about watching him play. I had only ever thought to catch his home games, but the fact he wants me to go see some of his away games caused my heart to squeeze in pleasure.

Reed had laughed and pulled me into him. He buried his face in my neck and murmured, “I can’t get enough of you, Josie, so I want you close to me as much as possible.”

I almost dissolved into a puddle of tears, because those words were so damn special. Reed wanted me near him. Even though his career would take him away for a good chunk of our time, he was already planning on ways that we could be together. It only served to highlight the disparity in my relationship with Aiden, who essentially didn’t want to be with me bad enough.

“Josie?” Aiden’s voice penetrates my silent musings.

I blink. “Yeah…um…I think I could commit to that. But I might want to knock those hours out in just one day so I can still maintain a few days off for myself.”

“Totally understand,” he says with obvious delight in his voice I’ve accepted. “This is going to be awesome to work on this project with you. Just like the old days.”

I laugh, because Aiden and I used to butt heads all the time in residency, but I think that might have just been our total familiarity with each other since we were a couple. “Well, thanks for asking me.”

“Sure thing,” he says, and turns for the door. Just before he reaches the knob, it opens and a nurse pokes her head in.

She looks to Aiden, then me, and smiles big. “You got a delivery, Josie.”

She pushes the door open further and she’s holding the biggest bouquet of flowers I’ve ever seen in my life. Hydrangea, Gerber daisies, roses, and some purple flower on a stalk that I have no clue what it is. The vase is tall and thick, and there’s a box tied to it with a ribbon.

“Wow,” Aiden says in awe. “Reed sure has the romance thing down.”

I quickly analyze Aiden’s tone, but I don’t detect any snideness or bitterness. He seems genuinely impressed by the display.

The nurse brings the vase all the way in and sets it on the desk. I stare at it in disbelief because of its monstrous size. I’ve never had anyone send me flowers before, but I’ve seen other people get them and I’ve never seen arrangements this big.

“Enjoy your flowers,” Aiden says with a wink, then walks out of the office with the nurse. When the door closes, I reach to pull out the card from among the blooms and giggle nervously as I realize my hand is shaking.

I stare at the words curiously, not understanding what they mean.

If it’s meant to be…

Password: 4593

Thoroughly confused, I untie the box from the vase. When I lift the lid, I see an iPod nestled inside some blue silk fabric. I pull it out and turn it on. When the password screen lights up, I type in the password from the note card.

I stare at the home screen, not sure what I’m supposed to do with it, but since it’s an iPod, which is first and foremost about music, I pull up the iTunes app. There’s only one song listed, “Meant to Be,” by Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line.

Never heard of it or the people who sing it, but I push play and listen.

Immediately the hair stands up on the back of my head from just the first few words sung by a male country singer. He’s joined by a female singer with a voice so beautiful my eyes sting. They sing a song of finding each other and wondering where their relationship is going, the key message being if it’s meant to be, it will be.

I find myself softly singing the chorus, So won’t you ride with me, ride with me? See where this thing goes.

When the music fades away, I blink my eyes hard to dispel the moisture and let out a sigh of pure happiness. Who thinks to do something like that?

And how in the hell had Reed gone from banging every Barbie doll in the free world to bestowing the ultimate in romantic gestures?

I know it happened sometime in the past several weeks, and I also know that I’m falling hard and fast for this guy.