“Yo! Scott!” Justin, one of the day nurses, greeted me and I slapped him a high five.
It was the changing of the guards, the switch of the shift, and things in New York City were about to get motherfucking interesting.
Trust me, as a doctor of ten years, and the head of the Emergency Department at St. Luke’s Hospital for the last three and a half, I’d seen just about any injury you could conjure in your depraved mind—and then some.
From stabbings, shootings, and muggings to broken kneecaps from a trip on the crowded sidewalks to sex toys trapped deep within the female genitalia—medicine in an emergent capacity knew no boundaries.
Fortunately for my patients, I didn’t know many either. While work was the most important part of work—always—I didn’t think that meant I couldn’t have fun at the same time.
Most attending physicians would use their station as head of the department to get out of night shifts, but not me. The nights were when you met the most interesting characters, experienced the weirdest of cases, and I’d always been a night owl anyway. I did this shift as often as I could.
“Another day, another dollar,” I shouted back as Justin pushed open the door to the locker room.
He paused with a smirk. “Do they shove them in your G-string, Dr. Erotic?”
I laughed. Not only was I comfortable with the nickname my ever-growing reality show fame had brought me, I lived for it. Nine weeks of being on the air, and I felt like I was on top of the world. Some might call me outgoing—others might call me an attention whore. Either way, I didn’t mind living in the limelight.
“I guess it depends on how good of a job I do,” I teased before signing off with a wave and picking up my pace. I wasn’t necessarily late, but I had shit to do before my shift started.
Around the corner and into the thick of it, I dodged a bed in motion and high-fived the patient, an often-drunk man named Barney who showed up here when he got into more trouble than the actual big purple dinosaur. Believe me, this Barney didn’t spend his days sitting around a campfire singing nursery rhymes. The man made a career out of drunken shenanigans that resulted in injuries I had to fix.
“Suck dick, Dr. Shepard,” he called over his shoulder.
“Only if you pay me, Barn,” I struck back.
We really liked each other.
No, really, we do. He just has a unique way of showing it. As for me… Is your job this entertaining? I didn’t think so.
As soon as I rounded the corner, I made a beeline straight for the desk, teasingly shoving Sherry, a cute little nurse from Tennessee, out of the way on the computer, and logged in to my sign-in. As of now, 10:58 p.m., I was officially on the clock.
Now that the formalities of the facility were out of the way, it was time for my formalities. My routine, my comfort zone, my way to get ready for all of the gruesome things these overnight hours could throw at me.
The warm-up. With questionable vocals and dance moves better than most toddlers, I took to the open airwaves, using my diaphragm to project fully into the space.
“Oh, baby, when you talk like that,” I sang, calling the attention of several nurses around me. I turned up the volume on the computer behind the nurse’s station, and a slow Latin beat thumped an instantly familiar rhythm.
“My hips don’t lie,” I crooned along with Shakira after missing a few lines while I was busy climbing atop the desk chair.
Most of my coworkers smiled. They were used to my routine—I’d been doing it for years, changing out the song every week or so—a musical warm-up for the things to come on the night shift in St. Luke’s Emergency Department. Though, I had to admit, Shakira found her way into the rotation the most. There was something about her that kept me mildly obsessed. Probably all of the tongue control that comes with rolling Rs.
There weren’t many patients in here yet, the real mayhem of a weekend overnight in New York City was just starting up. But the ones who looked on with mild distrust and disbelief at my antics until the rest of the staff fell victim to participating one by one, the beat of Shakira too powerful to resist. I watched as some of their faces melted to amusement, while others skipped surface-level delight and jumped straight to recognition.
Yep, I’m that guy. Dr. Erotic, here in the flesh. There was a GIF of me out there hip rolling as I did one of these very warm-ups, something they’d featured heavily on the show, if I wasn’t mistaken.
A few cell phones appeared, but I was used to that, me popping up on YouTube and Facebook and Insta-fuck and whatever else there was to post elaborately staged pictures of fake reality these days.
I’m not anti-social media like it might sound. I’m just a liver, a doer, a partier of sorts. I’d much rather be out and about than posting pictures of myself with my dinner plate. If Shakira appeared in front of me right now, I wouldn’t waste my time taking her picture, if you catch my drift.
Although, when one of the episodes aired featuring her song, “Whenever, Wherever,” she tweeted me, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it thrilled me. I just wish “tweeted” meant something more physical—dirtier. Seriously, I’m down with whatever freaky shit she’s into.
“Dr. Shepard!” Debbie, the head nurse in charge of admission yelled, completely interrupting the climax of my performance. In her midforties with a generic blond bob, serious hazel eyes, and little to no makeup, Deb was the walking, talking dictionary definition of “business.” She meant it, she enforced it, and she got shit done.
In real terms, she was a pain in my ass.
“Geez, Deb,” I grumbled as I climbed down from my perch halfway on top of the desk. “Why do you always have to undermine my performances?”
She smirked and shook her head. “Because they’re terrible. And you’re needed on stage B, aka Bay Two, for an actual patient, that has to do with your actual job.”
“I’m offended, Deb. You should know better than anyone that the warm-up is a crucial part of my process. Working conditions are integral to success. Would you consider patient care without your gloves?”
“Scott—”
“I think not!” I cried, fake outrage making my voice carry. Several sets of eyes followed us closely.
“Stop making a scene,” Debbie chastised. “Aren’t you tired of making a fool of yourself?”
“I’ll never tire of it, Deb,” I vowed solemnly. She sighed. “Not ever.”
“Fine. Then make a scene in Bay Two. But do it while you’re sewing up a head lac, would you?”
“I live to serve you, my sweet emergency goddess.”
“Jesus Christ,” she grumbled, shoving the patient chart into my chest. “They don’t pay me enough for this shit.”
Fortunately, Sherry found me far more amusing than Deb did, if the glowing smile on her face as she looked on was any indication. I winked at her as a reward.
“Scott!” Deb yelled from across the room.
Whoops. Patient in Bay Two. Apparently, I wasn’t moving fast enough.
“I sure hope you’re close to bleeding out,” I told the faceless patient behind the curtain as I approached Bay Two. “You’ve interrupted my performance, gotten me scolded by Deb—”
The chink of the curtain hooks rang out into the space as I yanked it back, and I immediately stopped speaking.
Well, I’ll be damned. She’s cute. Shoulder-length, half-curl-rumpled hair, sexy smoky eyes with glowing green irises, and a body that could kill. She also had a fucking mess on her forehead, a blood-soaked rag and both of her hands pushing into it, but that was just a surface detail.
“You know what?” I asked her rhetorically. “Strike all of that. Don’t you even worry about interrupting me.”
She rolled her eyes and sank back onto the bed. “I wasn’t worried about you at all. The gushing, bleeding wound in my forehead? That concerns me.”
I smiled at her candor and sarcasm and then nudged at her hands with my forearm. “I’m concerned too. Truly. So move your hands.”
She narrowed her eyes, and I laughed. “I’m concerned. I promise.” I made an X over my heart with one hand and grabbed some gloves from the tray beside the bed with the other. “This is my job.”
“According to your argument with Deb, performing is your job—”
“No, no,” I interrupted as I popped the second glove into place. “You can’t actually use my argument with Deb as evidence. That’s just routine. It’s mundane, actually.”
“Listen, Doctor…?”
“Shepard. Scott Shepard. You can call me Scott.”
“Listen, Dr. Shepard…”
I laughed at her obvious disinterest.
“Can you just treat my injury?”
“Of course. If you just move your hands.”
“It’s fucking bleeding! I’m holding pressure. Everyone says to hold pressure.”
“That’s true. Until you get to the hospital. Where the doctor—” I pointed to myself “—that’s me—needs to actually look at the cut to assess and treat it.”
“But what if what it needs is pressure?”
“I’ll apply some.”
“Promise?” she asked, big, mischievous eyes turning doey right before my own. Wow. That’s talent. Usually, my conversational opponents didn’t have as much expression control as I did. I was impressed.
“Promise.”
“Ow,” she muttered as she pulled her hand with the blood-soaked cloth away. “Fucking ball sac.”
I shook my head, amusement making my cheeks feel heavy. “And here I thought I was looking at a forehead.”
“Shut up,” she mumbled. Again, I found myself smiling at her.
Grabbing some cleaning solution and a swab, I cleaned up the area until the actual laceration was visible. Four, maybe five, stitches, tops.
“Oh, this isn’t bad at all.”
“Says the person not bleeding.” She held up the rag in her hand as evidence, the corner of her mouth curling up in protest. “Look at this.”
I shrugged. “Head wounds bleed a lot.”
“Because they’re a big deal,” she hedged. Thanks to the head injury, she was careful with any expressive use of her eyebrows, but I could tell the restraint took effort. I’d never seen it done, but uninhibited, I was convinced her eyebrows would be able to contort themselves into an illustration of the middle finger.
“Only sometimes,” I argued easily.
The patient’s medical file that Deb had so gently shoved into my chest felt like it would slow the conversation down, so I did the Cliff Notes version of surveying any important, life threatening information and tossed it to the side and grabbed a syringe and suture kit. With a quick and gloved hand, I pricked the area with a fast-acting dose of numbing agent and gave it a few seconds to take effect.
“I’m really starting to dislike you.”
“Only starting?” I asked with a mocking smirk. “I haven’t liked you yet.”
“I was being polite.”
I laughed, poking at the area a couple of times to test her level of feeling. She didn’t even flinch, so I grabbed my needle and thread and got to work. “Really? This is you polite?”
“Is this you professional?”
I shook my head with a frown. “Professional is such a dirty word. Stuffy and boring. Who the hell wants to be professional?”
“Most physicians.”
I pretended to yawn. “Bor-ing.”
Her eyes lit suddenly, the way they always did when people realized who I was. For the first time, maybe ever, something panged in my chest that wasn’t excitement.
“Ohh. You’re—”
“Scott Shepard,” I finished for her, looping through the skin once, and then again.
Her eyes narrowed, but she smirked at the same time. The skin I was working on shifted slightly, but she showed no signs of discomfort. “Right. Dr. Scott Shepard.”
“That’s me,” I agreed with a smile. “And you are?”
She rolled her eyes. “The lady with the head wound.”
“You know it says your name in your chart, right? All I have to do is look at it.” I’d given it a glance to assure myself that she had no allergies or serious medical history just before giving her the dose of numbing agent, but now, a more thorough perusal seemed pertinent.
“Yeah, but what fun is that, Dr. Shepard?”
“Fine,” I agreed. “What should I call you, then?”
“How about Bleeding Woman Thanks to Horrible Sex with a Guy with a Fancy Name?”
I laughed a little before clearing my throat and wincing. “Well, it’s a little long. But I guess I can work with it. I would love to know how someone gets a head lac from horrible sex. It sounds like a really nice story.”
“Sorry. It’s an awful story that I’ll never relive. Not even for your amusement.”
“Geez. Fine. It’s like you want me to sew this up and leave you alone or something.”
She smiled, and it consumed her entire face. So much so, I thought the corners of her mouth might loop all the way around to form a circle. “That would be nice.”
I laughed again, completely smitten.
Jesus. I hadn’t had this much fun talking to a woman in a long time. Hell, I hadn’t even spoken this much to a woman in a long time. Usually, we exchanged several heys and then went straight to making out. Not entirely flawed when your goals were what mine were—a night of fun and fucking—but not exactly mentally stimulating either.
“Well, you’re in luck,” I told her as I tied the last stitch and clipped off the excess. “You’re all set.”
I, however, wasn’t feeling that lucky at all. I didn’t want to be done working on her yet. Too bad I hadn’t thought to stretch it out a little bit. Her conversation was too engaging to leave brainpower for scheming.
“Great!” she chirped, sitting up in a hurry and swinging her legs around and off the side of the bed.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I urged with a hand to her shoulder. “Take it easy, Sex Victim. I’ve got to sign off on your chart, and you have to get discharged.”
“But if you sign off on my chart, you’ll see my name,” she said. It could have sounded weird, but with the way she said it, it just sounded flirtatious. Enchanted by her cool, witty demeanor and the sweet swell of her breasts, I was more than willing to go with it.
“I won’t look at your name,” I promised easily.
Because I wouldn’t.
At least, not until she was already gone. And, depending on how off my moral compass was at the time, I might even look at her phone number too.
Chances are good I’ll be dialing those digits in the near future.
Truth was, that fucker very rarely, if ever, pointed true north.