Gina climbs off me and blows out a long breath. “Wow,” she says. “Thanks, doctor, I needed that.”
I laugh. “I’m here to serve.”
“And serve me well, you have,” she says, lying down beside me. “Twice.”
For once, neither of us is in a hurry to get anywhere. No pagers are going off. Rounds don’t start for fifteen minutes. It’s quiet. Almost eerily so.
Red runs an even tighter ship than Manning down in the ER. She has us pulling on-call duty every third night. Gina was on call last night, and based on her ragged appearance, it doesn’t look like she had much sleep.
“Busy night?” I ask.
“You have no idea.” She buries her head into the crook of my neck. She’s never done this before. This is dangerously close to cuddling.
We don’t cuddle.
I take a beat and try to decide if I like it. But while the jury is still out, I figure I should test the waters, so I slip my arm around her.
She sighs audibly into my shoulder. I take that to mean she’s already decided she likes it.
I stare down at her long brown hair before I pull it from the confines of her hair tie. I run my fingers through it. I’m not sure why I’ve always been attracted to brunettes. Maybe because, like every other kid on my street, I had a crush on Mallory Shaffer growing up—the girl who is now married to, and having a kid with, my brother.
I never told Chad that. He’d probably have kicked the shit out of me if I had. He was always super protective of her, even though they were nothing more than best friends back then.
And although I don’t share my middle brother’s infamous and highly-televised sexual promiscuity, I’ve dated my fair share of women. Or should I say, I’ve dated my fair share of brunettes. I twist a chunk of Gina’s dark hair around my fingers. Yes, I’m definitely a brunette man.
Gina cranes her neck to look up at me. “We can tell each other stuff, can’t we, Kyle? I mean, we’ve got each other’s backs, right?”
My body stiffens. “You didn’t kill a patient last night, did you?”
“No, nothing like that. Not yet anyway. But I did disobey an order Dr. Anders gave me. Or rather, I ordered labs she told me not to order. I know it could cost my patient a lot of money. But I really felt strongly that she needed them. I’ll take the heat. Even if I’m wrong and the labs don’t show anything, I still stand by my decision. But I was too chicken to tell Dr. Anders what I did. I figured I’d just wait for her to see it in the chart. Dr. Redman will probably have my ass when Anders tells her.”
“I did something I haven’t told anyone about, either,” I say.
“Really?” She puts her hand over my heart and holds it there. “Will you tell me?”
While it’s not entirely true about me not telling anyone, I figure we’re sharing here. So I decide to bite the bullet and see how she reacts to my revelation.
“I’m paying for a patient’s entire hospital stay.”
“And by entire stay, you mean . . .”
“I mean my patient, my one patient who is pregnant and on bed rest until she delivers. I think she might be homeless, although she won’t admit it. She walks dogs to get cash, Gina. She was admitted with only the clothes on her back. She has nothing. And nobody has come to visit her.”
“Oh, my God, that’s so sad,” she says. “But if she’s homeless, what’s the point in paying her bill? You can’t squeeze blood from a turnip. We have to treat her anyway.”
“I don’t know. Just a feeling, I guess. I didn’t want her stuck in some shared hospital room without windows for weeks on end, which is what we both know would have happened.”
“So you’re saying she’s better than the other homeless people we treat?”
“No, of course not,” I say. “I don’t know why I did it exactly. I can’t explain it. She’s not telling me her whole story. But I get the idea that there’s more to her than meets the eye.”
She wraps her leg around my leg and squeezes me tightly against her.
Yeah, definitely cuddling.
“You are a bleeding heart, Dr. Stone.”
“So, you don’t think I crossed a line?” I ask.
“We wouldn’t be good doctors if we didn’t cross the line sometimes,” she says.
I nod, somewhat relieved that Gina doesn’t have a problem with this.
“Oh, and I found out why Red has it out for me. She was my dad’s girlfriend during residency. He broke up with her for my mom.”
She laughs. “Seriously? Oh, Kyle, it sucks to be you right now. Good thing obstetrics isn’t your specialty.”
“No shit,” I say.
Gina’s pager goes off. She stretches up to kiss me. This is new, too. I mean, we kiss all the time. But only when we’re fucking. Never after.
“I might miss rounds. Depends on what’s up,” she says. “So, I’ll see you later?”
“Yeah, see you later,” I say, gathering my scrubs off the floor.
We don’t ever round on Elizabeth. And we won’t unless anything changes. As Dr. Redman said, her case doesn’t interest her.
As it turns out, Gina does, in fact, miss rounds. Damn. Must mean she has a good case. I don’t ever get paged. Not unless the other residents are busy. It was just my luck that they were all fucking busy when the Beaumonts came in. I mainly spend my days fetching labs, drawing blood, and covering non-emergent cases. I’m nothing more than a glorified nurse. I’m the low man. And now I know that’s how it’ll be.
Three and a half weeks of being Redman’s slave. Then I’ll be free from her.
Then something happens. My heart misses a beat. And if I’m not mistaken, it happened when I thought that in three and a half weeks, I’ll not only be free from Red, but from my one and only patient.
I shake off the notion and head to the cafeteria after rounds for a quick breakfast of a bagel and some coffee. On my way out, something on the dessert cart catches my eye.
I walk over and pick out six various cups of Jell-O, earning me an amused look from the cashier.
“Research,” I say.
She furrows her brow at me as I laugh, grabbing two spoons before I head out the door.