Wyatt rolled his eyes. Everyone was falling like flies around him. First Sam, then Sam’s brother Bryce, then Wyatt’s brother Drake and over the weekend Drake’s twin, Noah, got engaged at Easter dinner in front of the whole family.
He was starting to feel the heat like never before.
Did he always think he’d want to settle down at some point? Sure.
Was he looking for it? Not really.
But with everyone falling like first-time skiers on the bunny slopes, he felt like all eyes were on him. They were even dropping in birth order too. What were the chances of that happening?
“So, we are all set?” he asked Ashley.
“Yes. I’ll bypass that drug and go with KIS.”
“Is Dr. Fierce trying to get you to kiss him?” Sam asked. “He does that with all the patients.”
Wyatt shook his head at Sam. “What can I tell you, the patients like me better than you. Just like the family. You may be the oldest, but I’m the favorite.”
“You keep telling yourself that,” Sam said.
But he didn’t need to. He knew his family loved him. His family loved everyone equally. It’d always been that way. Even if he did seem to get more attention than most.
Twenty minutes later, he was in the OR talking with Ashley, asking how her Easter went and listening to the stories of how her kids were too old for Easter baskets.
The circulating and scrub nurses were moving around the room preparing lights, setting out instruments, and getting everything ready.
Sam gave him the nod they were good to go, so he said to Ashley, “I’m going to put the oxygen mask on you now and you might feel a burn with this injection. It won’t last long if you do.”
She bobbed her head up and down and was still talking. She was almost babbling a little about her holiday, but he kept it up with her until her eyes started to roll back in her head. She was still awake, not quite ready to go out.
“You almost ready, old man?” Wyatt said to Sam.
Sam laughed behind his mask. “I’m not that much older than you.”
“No,” Wyatt said, “but the big old ball and chain is going on in less than two weeks. That smacks old to me.” He glanced back down at the vitals and his patient. Her eyes popped back open again.
“Don’t be jealous,” Sam said. “You wish you had someone as great as Dani.”
“She is pretty hot,” Wyatt said back. “It was just your luck of the draw you saw her first.”
“Get over yourself. Dani couldn’t stop flirting with me the first time we met. I know how to lay on the charm.”
“You learned it from me,” Wyatt said. “I’ve lost my ride or die partner. This is the final goodbye.” Ashley was fighting it, but she’d be out soon.
“There’s always Ryder,” Sam said back.
“No, thank you. His taste in women is horrendous.” Sam’s youngest brother, Ryder, ended up with all the nut jobs. Or as Sam liked to call them, “life suckers” where they just drain the life out of you.
“You think yours is much better?”
He looked down at Ashley and stopped talking because it was time to be serious. It was time for him to do his job that he was so good at. It was time to focus. And ignore the shot his cousin took at him with lethal precision.
Ashley was out, so he finished up what he had to do, then turned to Sam and said, “The floor is all yours.”
2
Live And Learn
Adriana Lopez watched the two doctors bantering back and forth.
She hadn’t been at Duke Cancer Center long. A little over a month. She’d moved here about two months ago and was hired almost immediately after she applied.
She’d had no intention of moving to North Carolina to be by her father even though she’d had a close relationship with him. She’d visited plenty over the years but never considered living here. She supposed she should be thankful that her father convinced her to get her license here years ago even though she lived and worked in San Diego. A moment of weakness to appease her father and give him hope back then.
Guess it worked in her favor.
Her parents had divorced when she was in high school, her father staying in California until she went to college. Then he relocated with his job to Durham and met Maggie who was an elementary school teacher. They’d gotten married five years ago and her father seemed happy.
He’d been asking her to move here for a few years, especially since her mother spent more time traveling with her wealthy boyfriend. Or whatever man she was with at the time.
That was her mother. The minute she was single, she was on the prowl like a lion in the night finding their next meal.
Or in Sofia Lopez’s case, her next meal ticket.
Adriana was surprised her father stayed married as long as he had to her mother and at times she wished she’d lived with him over her mother.
It wasn’t like she had a horrible life with her mother. It was just her mother wanted to be her best friend, not a parent. Her mother was superficial where Adriana was anything but.
But she’d graduated from college, got a job and life seemed to be going well for a few years, so she stayed where she was comfortable.
Until it wasn’t going well and comfort was lying naked on a bed of nails.
Then it was time to move, and knowing she could get a job in another state was the answer to the test of life she was flunking worse than algebra.
But here she was in the OR doing what she loved so much.
She’d gotten the OR ready with the scrub nurse and now was listening to some entertaining conversation between two cocky doctors.
And though it was funny, she knew enough to not smile or laugh. To keep to herself. Which was exactly what she’d be doing at this job.
Live and learn,
