I knocked on the door. “Come in,” a muffled masculine voice said.
I opened the door and looked up from the tablet. Immediately, I felt like the floor had moved and I was going to be swallowed by the ground. I had never been a good actress, so I was trying my best to make it seem like everything was okay, even though everything was most definitely not okay.
This wasn’t a patient. It wasn’t just a random patient, it was someone I knew, someone I had tried very hard to forget.
And he looked better than he ever had.
I only had a second to decide how I was going to react to the fact that Jody Banks was sitting on a blue chair in the corner of the room, was the boy who I had dated in high school.
The one who had broken my heart.
In high school, he had been lean and tall and beautiful, with broad shoulders and an easy athletic build. He was still lean, tall and beautiful, but he had worked on sculpting those muscles into a work of art, a black tattoo wrapped around his arm like a vine, all the way to his neck, and disappearing into the back of his shirt.
He seemed taller, too, but I could tell that it was just because he was sitting up straight. He was looking at me, too, curious wide eyes that weren’t letting up. He licked his lips as I approached him, my gaze darting toward the floor. I didn’t want to look at him and I didn’t necessarily want him to think that I recognized him.
Though I was a bad actress and I knew that, so the chances that he had recognized me were pretty high. “Mr. Banks?” I asked as I approached him.
“You can call me Jody,” he said. I could hear the laughter in his voice. “What should I call you?”
“Dr. Myer,” I replied, looking into his eyes for the first time as I put the tablet down on the table next to me. “What happened?”
“I fell on my knife rack,” he said, flashing me a smile. I noticed his teeth. They hadn’t been fixed, and his canines, which had always stuck out a little bit, were perhaps even more visible now that he had grown into his features. “It’s a problem. Dr. Myer.”
“You fell on your knife rack,” I repeated, slowly. “How?”
He blinked. “What do you mean, how?”
“Did you slip?”
“I… yeah, sure,” he said. “I slipped.”
“And why was the knife sticking out?” I asked.
“Well, I fell, knocking it over, and then… you know, it fell on the floor, and it was sticking out, and I couldn’t stop myself, so it stabbed me.”
I bit my lips. “Do you know why you fell?”
“Because I slipped,” he said. “The kitchen floor was slippery.”
“Were you cooking?”
He thought for a few seconds. “Yes,” he said, eventually. “I was.”
“Great,” I said. “I’m going to send you for an X-ray. There aren’t a lot of veins or arteries where you, uh, fell on your knife, exactly, but I’d like to rule out anything that might mean you need surgery.”
He winced, and for the first time since I had seen him in the office, he looked afraid. “Do you think I’ll need surgery?”
I tried my best to keep my voice neutral. “It’s a possibility,” I said. “But it’s a slight one. I just want to be safe. Kitchen accidents are no joke.”
He nodded. “Right.”
“I would like to examine you,” I said. “Or I can get someone else to, if you’re more comfortable with that. Your injuries might be a little worse than they appear at first sight.”
“You want to examine my arm?”
“Your entire upper body,” I said. “Can I take off your shirt?”
He blinked. “Sure,” he said. “I mean, I guess.”
“Can you do it?”
He looked down at himself then shook his head. “No,” he said. “I can’t.”
“Right,” I replied. “Normally, our EMTs would cut it, but—”
“This shirt is expensive.”
“Got it,” I said. “I’ll be careful, then.”
I walked over to face him. The shirt did look expensive, a button-up short-sleeve baby blue and light cerulean green shirt with white buttons that clung to his body. The V-neck white tank top under it at least made things a little less awkward, though not nearly enough. I grabbed the collar of his shirt with the tips of my fingers and took a deep breath as I focused on the shirt and not the man who was wearing it. I was trying to be slow, delicate, because I didn’t want to tug on the knife or make his injury worse.
It was hard to do something like this carefully, especially when I could feel Jody’s gaze on me. He was staring right at me, never letting go of me, my manufactured calm no match for his quiet but resolute intensity.
I thought it was probably better to break the tension and finally admit that we did know each other. That way, at least things might be a little more… manageable. Maybe not, but it was worth a try.
“So,” I said as I undid the top button of his shirt, looking right into his hazel green eyes. “How’s your mom doing?”
“Well,” he said. “Well, but disappointed.”
“Good to hear. And your brother?”
“He’s fine,” he replied. “He lives in Japan now, teaching English to rural children.”
I smiled. “Good,” I said. “That seems like the kind of thing that would suit him. Is he happy?”
“He’s happy he’s away from here,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders slightly, which made my fingers slip a little, and I ended up touching his skin for a split second. I moved away, the tips of my skin feeling as if he had just burned
