“How far apart are your contractions?” Marlene huffed out into the phone beside me. I rolled my eyes.
We were holed up in the nursing office, returning a few triage phone calls that had come through while we were busy with office patients, and I couldn’t deny that I had a love-hate relationship with my fellow nurse.
Her sarcastic remarks while talking to patients were useful for my personal enjoyment—as well as for implementation as a device of a distraction from a sexy as hell doctor who liked to say things like he needed me—but I also kind of hated listening to it at the same time. Christ on a crutch, I’d spent way more hours than I’d like to admit wondering what he’d meant by those words and if I wanted them to mean anything at all. Did he like me? Was he just happy to have a nurse other than Marlene? Was my vagina a beacon of his desire? I didn’t know.
In a way, I had to be thankful for Marlene’s theatrics for finally smothering all of my overanalyzing.
But there were only so many times you could overhear your fellow nurse telling patients that her hemorrhoids were more painful than Braxton Hicks contractions and that said patient just needed to “Netflix and chill.”
I honestly didn’t even think Marlene knew what Netflix and chill really meant.
And I sure as hell didn’t want to know about her goddamn hemorrhoids.
She was a brilliant nurse. She knew her shit when it came to Obstetrics and Gynecology, and she’d seen and experienced more than anyone around her—even Will. But that brilliance was overshadowed far too often by her lack of compassion and patience. After working the same job for far too many years, she’d become jaded and, most likely, bored.
Plus, she was, like, seventy years old. By the end of one eight-hour shift, I knew more about her spider veins and bunions and back problems than any human would ever want to hear.
But sometimes, when she wasn’t insulting people callously or giving me the stink eye just because I was in her vicinity, overhearing Marlene’s phone triage conversations with labor patients was one of the highlights of my day. She had no filter. Like, no filter. She said all of those things normal human beings think but don’t voice out loud. And it certainly didn’t make me feel pure inside, but some of the shit she said was just too funny to ignore. I’d even started to catch Will milling around from time to time trying to listen.
“No,” she sighed into the receiver. “One contraction in two hours doesn’t equal labor. You probably have gas and need to fart,” she paused and then shook her head in annoyance. “Honey, if you’re in labor and deliver at home, then you’re a medical marvel. Fertility statues should be made in your honor.”
She rolled her eyes in response to whatever the patient was saying and brushed a crumb from her coffee cake off her pants. “I’m the head nurse. I’m giving you the best medical advice anyone can give you in this office. Stay home. Rest. Drink some water. Try to fart or take a crap. And call the office back if you reach the point where you’ve had five contractions an hour for two hours straight.”
Try to fart or take a crap. Beautiful and professional medical advice from Nurse Marlene Donahue.
Once the call ended, she hung up the phone, and at a snaillike pace, she pulled the patient’s medical chart up on the computer. I watched out of the corner of my eye as she started to type her version of the phone conversation into the patient’s chart.
9:55 a.m.: Patient called office to update that she has had one contraction in two hours. Contraction only focused on lower abdomen and does not spread around abdomen to her lower back. Patient rates the contraction pain a 2 on a scale of 0-10. She denies vaginal bleeding or leaking fluid. Nurse advised that patient drink water, rest, and attempt to fart or take a crap. Nurse instructed patient to call office back if contractions increase to five contractions an hour for two hours straight.
I had to give it to the woman, she didn’t hesitate to put her exact words into the patient chart.
As I finished up the notes on my earlier triage call, Melissa peeked her head into the room. “Load-y, Dr. Cummings’s ten o’clock is here.”
I glanced up from my computer with a furrowed brow. “Load-y?”
What the fuck is a Load-y?
Marlene slammed her fingers on the keyboard and cursed about technology under her breath, making me jump. I wondered how many weeks of working here it would take to get me used to her lack of finesse.
“Yeah,” Melissa said and popped the pink gum inside of her mouth. “That’s your new office nickname. Isn’t it great?”
Load-y? My nickname? Like someone just shot their freaking load on my face? Was she shitting me?
“Uh…not really,” I responded. “How about I just go by Mel?”
“Because I’m the Mel in this office.”
Of course.
“But everyone calls you Melissa.”
“Yeah, but sometimes I go by Mel.”
Sometimes? More like never. Two weeks into the job and I’d yet to hear anyone call her Mel.
“Okay… Then, I’ll just go by Melody,” I decreed and hopped up from my seat before she had a chance to argue. “And we can put the new patient in exam room six.”
“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes and handed me the patient’s chart before sashaying on her heels into the hallway. I followed her lead and noted that Melissa was walking straight toward an unsuspecting Will. He sat at a desk in one of the small alcoves in the main hallway and appeared busy reading through a patient’s medical file.
Instead of watching what would most likely be an entertaining exchange, I shuffled into exam room six to get the room set up. Melissa had turned into Nancy Drew, sleuthing on a daily basis in an effort to figure out which staff members Will had possibly slept with.
Not her, I’d deduced. Not her.
Which, I had to admit, made Will all the more impressive. She made it pretty obvious he’d had opportunity.
Not that I didn’t understand her a little. I wanted to be near Will too—but I’d also been fighting that feeling. The last thing I needed was another guy who wasn’t looking for something serious.
I didn’t know much about him. Maybe he wasn’t a player. But I knew all too well that women from all over Manhattan were willing to help him give it his best go.
“Dr. Cummings, your ten o’clock is here,” Melissa’s far too loud voice echoed down the hall and into my ears while I busied myself with pulling fresh white paper onto the exam table.
“Okay,” he said at what I guessed was a normal volume.
“Load-y should be bringing her back to exam room six now.”
Jesus Christ. This bitch.
“Load-y?” he asked, confused. Justifiably motherfucking confused. No one on the planet should have a nickname based on a come shot.
Melissa sighed. “The nurse.”
Silence descended between them until she elaborated. “Your new nurse.”
“Are you talking about Melody?”
“Yeah. Load-y. That’s what she likes to go by.”
“She likes to go by Load-y?” I could literally hear the disbelief combined with amusement coloring his voice. If his tone had an actual color, I’d say it was aubergine—because what the fuck kind of color is that anyway?
“Yep. She loves it.”
Yeah, it was safe to say that Melissa was probably going to be my least favorite coworker in the office. She spent most of her time browsing BuzzFeed and watching YouTube makeup tutorials behind the reception desk. That, on its own, I could support. I was just as down to see what my McDonald’s order said about my sex life as anyone else.
But she also had a penchant for attitude, laziness, and obviously, horrible nicknames. Load-y. Holy water in a wineglass, that was by far the worst name anyone had ever come up with. It made me sound like a washed-up old porn star who had taken one too many money shots, and I had a feeling that was her exact intent.
With both Marlene and Melissa at the helm, I was honestly starting to wonder how this office ran smoothly on a daily basis without any major issues or lawsuits. Quite frankly, it was a modern fucking miracle. I mean, try to fart and take a crap wasn’t the world’s best nursing advice.
As I set out the instruments for a pap smear, Will peeked his head in. “Are we all set, Load-y?” His grin was all I needed to see to know he was fucking with me.
I rolled my eyes and smirked. “Yeah. All set.”
“Interesting choice in nickname…”
“Oh, yeah. I love it. And it has absolutely nothing to do with Melissa trying to deliver a virtual tit punch,” I explained in sarcasm. “What can I say? I just love going by Load-y. It has a certain sophistication to it, don’t you think?”
He chuckled softly. Unlike listening to Marlene, I didn’t have any doubts that seeing Will’s smiling face and hearing his laughter were one of my favorite parts of my day.
The man had a great smile—knock you to your knees type of stuff.
And a sexy laugh. And a sexy body. And a—
Good Lord, my brain needed a filter.
“Oh, yeah. It’s amazing it’s still available for use. I heard the Queen was looking to trademark it,” he teased.
My cheeks pulled up as I smiled.
“I’m going to make a quick call in my office, and I’ll be ready in about five minutes.”
I nodded. “Sounds good.”
It had taken a good two weeks for us to get past the ridiculousness that was my first day on the job, and a good week and a half of that was achieved through semisuccessful avoidance.
But it finally felt like enough time had passed to let go of the embarrassment of his unsanitary offer of a gloved greeting and my unexpected peep show. Even the encounter in the supply closet had felt relatively normal in comparison. And we’d fallen into a good working relationship, with the added bonus of actually being able to make eye contact ever since.
And now that I was paying attention, I’d learned a few things that had me wanting to do the opposite of avoiding him.
Will was fucking awesome to work with. He was never a dick to staff and always treated his patients as individuals, and he was never in a bad mood—at least not with me. He made jokes and lightened my day instead of stressing me out.
In the world of medicine, those kinds of physicians were hard to come by. Especially when you took in the fact that Will Cummings wasn’t your average physician. He was the lead physician in his practice and the Chief of Obstetrics at St. Luke’s. The man had achieved some serious professional milestones in his young career, and with it came a ton of pressure.
Not to mention that he was gaining quite the popularity with his show.
The Doctor Is In.
I’d been hearing about Will’s show through office gossip and chatter since my first day. Well, if you considered the odd interview I had with Betty, I guess I’d actually been hearing about it since the moment I stepped through the practice doors.
The staff in this office had a lot of opinions about Dr. Obscene—some good, some bad, and some so inappropriate that I had to walk away rather than listen.
Marlene, though, appeared to be enjoying the hell out of it every episode that aired—probably even recording them for future viewing pleasure.
For an old lady who’d been living in the medical world for nearly forty years and honestly never seemed too concerned with doing the actual work that was needed to keep the office running on a daily basis, she was more than concerned with Will’s episodes of the series.
It had only taken me a week to realize that each episode aired on Tuesday evening.
How did I know this?
Because Marlene was her happiest on Tuesday afternoons. Once the clock neared four, the woman had a pep in her step and actually took the time to greet patients, leading them into the exam rooms with a gallant wave, versus herding them in like cattle and offering nothing more than a frustrated sigh and annoyed eyes.
And it had everything to do with The Doctor Is In.
The show portrayed him as Dr. Obscene, but I didn’t get it. From my perspective, the title didn’t match the man.
I’d inadvertently shown him my boobs, for Pete’s sake, and he’d done everything humanly possible not to look. Based on that awkward as hell situation, if anyone was obscene out of the two of us, I’d say it was me.
After overhearing whispered conversation after conversation about The Doctor Is In star, my curiosity had reached an all-time peak. The episodes may have been weekly, but the office chatter was endless. I couldn’t stop myself from tuning in and finding out what all the fuss was about with my own eyes.
The first episode had felt weird. The Will I knew and the Will that was schmoozing and charming his way across my TV were two different men. On camera, he was a force to be reckoned with—flashing flirty winks at nurses, chatting to patients with a sexy smirk permanently across his full lips.
Off camera, he was professional and had a fantastic bedside manner. He was equal parts caring and concerned, while managing to get straight to the important tasks at hand. Sure, he had tried to shake my hand after pulling his own hand out of a vagina, and he did have a flirtier smile than some, but who was I to judge? Six hours into my first day, I’d reenacted Girls Gone Wild.
I’d only known Will for a short period of time, but my impression of him didn’t at all match the man nicknamed Dr. OBscene.
But even I couldn’t deny I was a bit addicted to the show. Sure, I was nowhere near Marlene’s level of excitement, but I definitely had the sucker set to DVR every Tuesday night. Which was interesting in itself. I’d really never been one to watch TV, especially reality shows. I’d much rather spend my time browsing eBay for weird, abstract art or curling up behind a good book. Television had never really done it for me.
Until now.
Until Will.
I wasn’t sure if it was because I enjoyed the show itself or if I just enjoyed the man on the show—or at least, my version of him—an enigma of sexy and brilliant and adorably awkward.
My version?
Well, shit.
Two weeks in, and I’d already done something enormously stupid.
Why the hell do I have to like the guy?