But no, we had to be normal, functioning adults.
I broke off the kiss and put some space between us again. “All right, before you get too wound up, we have to start prepping for the next surgery.”
“Damn,” he said. “I guess we do.”
I sat down in his chair and forced myself to concentrate as he leaned over my shoulder, and we both got to work.
22
Piers
It was a quiet morning as I made my rounds. I gave Lori the morning off for good behavior—her surgery the day before had been very well done, and I was feeling pretty pleased with her progress.
We’d been training together for only a few months, and she was already coming along. Most surgical residents took years before they were able to perform flawlessly, but it only took Lori months to master that procedure—though it was only one of many she’d inevitably learn.
I was positive she could do it. Despite everything else crumbling down around me, at least she was a success. Going into this, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to teach her—I’d never tried to teach someone before, and the thought never really occurred to me. But it was apparent I could do it, so long as my student was already talented and smart, which really helped the whole thing.
Ahead and down the hall, I heard some shouts come from a room. One of the nurses, a woman I recognized named Tammie, rushed from the nurses’ station and ran inside. There was another shout, and I jogged toward them, looking around. There were no other nurses around, no other attendings.
I plunged into the room, thoughts disappearing. I lived for this moment, the second right before you step into chaos, when so many possibilities hung in the air.
“Mr. Slate,” Tammie said as she wrestled with an older patient, a big guy in his sixties with dark hair and a thick black goatee. “You need to calm down, please.”
She was a small woman, blonde and thin, maybe in her thirties or early forties. The patient thrashed and shouted something unintelligible as he tried to throw Tammie off him.
I had no clue what the hell was happening, but I jumped on the guy before he could hurt her.
“Sir,” I said. “Calm down.”
Tammie looked at me with shock, but her pause only lasted a heartbeat. She dove at the medicine drawer nearby and started rifling through it as the patient pushed against me, thrashing like a crazy person. I was worried he’d tear out his IV line and injure himself, so I did my best to pin him down, but the guy was relentless.
He growled and shouted, and I couldn’t understand a word he said. Another nurse came sprinting into the room and jumped on the guy, grabbed his other arm, and held it down. Tammie returned with a syringe and injected it directly into his line, and moment later the thrashing calmed and slowed, as the sedative took effect.
I stepped back from the man and took a few deep breaths. “What the fuck was that?”
“Thank you, Dr. Hood,” Tammie said. “Mr. Slate’s been having some mental issues lately, I don’t know what’s going on. We’re working on it.”
The other nurse got to work checking his vitals as I headed into the hall. Tammie followed me, wringing her hands. She looked nervous, and I had no clue why.
“You’re lucky I showed up, Tammie,” I said. “That guy was going to break you in half.”
She frowned a little. “You know my name?”
I laughed. “Of course I do. We worked together, what, last week?”
“Well, yeah, but, uh, I mean—”
I held up a hand to cut her off. “My reputation’s that bad, huh?”
“No, it’s not that.”
I ran a hand through my hair and laughed. “It’s fine, honestly. I get it. Everyone thinks I’m a bastard.”
“Less of a bastard, and more of an asshole.” She grinned at me.
I laughed again and walked with her back to the nurses’ station. “Fair enough. I’ve been a little tough to work with in the past.”
“That’s not always true, honesty,” she said. “I mean, you’re short, you don’t have great manners with the nurses, but there’s no bullshit, you know what I mean? No games, no power trips.”
“So I’m not universally despised?”
“I’ll say you’re not at the bottom of the list.”
I leaned up against the station and considered her for a second. I’d never heard a nurse talk like this before, but I was willing to bet they had these conversations with each other all the time. Nurse sentiment was important—they more or less ran the hospital, as much as the doctors liked to think they were the ones in charge. Tammie was opening up to me in a way a nurse never had before, and I wondered if I could do something with it.
But no, it wasn’t about that. Helping her was the right thing to do, and I would’ve stepped in whether I was trying to be less of an asshole or not.
“I appreciate that.”
“Thanks again for your help in there. I think Mr. Slate will be better. Dr. Atwood is trying a new medication that I think will help a lot.”
“Good luck, I guess. If the guy starts freaking out and trying to throw you out the window, call for me. I’ll take him down.”
“I bet you will.” She laughed, and I waved, walking off. I kept my head down, puzzling through that encounter, trying to square it up with what I knew about my situation. Nurses didn’t hate me—that was a good thing, for sure. But I didn’t know how it could help.
And it wasn’t like they actively liked me.
I headed to a lounge nearby and stepped inside. I wanted to get something cold to drink, and the room was mercifully empty—until Lori stepped in behind me.
“I thought that was you,” she said.
I turned, surprised.
