There are a billion ways I could be spending my time right now, but I can only think of one that thrills me: being a surgeon.
Finally on the ground floor I watch the doors whoosh open and with each step that takes me away from it, my feet feel heavy like my bed is calling me, and inside that fortress I wasn’t able to hear it.
Pulling out my phone, I dial my older brother. “Yo Max, guess what? I think I might’ve just impressed Dr. Myers. Maybe. Not sure. But there’s a chance.”
“The one who favors Janet?”
“Your voice is thick. I wake you?”
“No, I’m looking at the rough edit of my film. I submitted to Sundance today.”
“Congratulations!”
“Haven’t got accepted, hold that thought for when I do.”
“I thought you sent it off.”
“You can submit a rough cut and tell them the changes you want to make. They’re experienced enough to know what will work, and judge from there. It’s like going into a home knowing that before you buy it they’ll paint it white or whatever, so you picture the potential and decide if it’s a go. There’s a scene I don’t love. I think I’m too close to it now to see it from its true perspective.”
As my old Toyota comes to life, I smirk, “I’d tell you to get some sleep, but I’m no hypocrite.”
Max chuckles. “You at the hospital?”
“Just left and now I’m navigating the parking lot with my vision starting to blur.”
He gets serious. “If you’re too tired to drive—”
“Okay Mom.’”
“Call me that again, and you’ll regret it.”
Wheels speed toward Inman Park where my one bedroom shack awaits. It’s a rental, but it’s my rental. “Whatever you say, Mom.”
“Dick. What’d you do that impressed your attending?”
My engine lurches and I frown at the hood. “It wasn’t done on purpose, I can tell you that.”
“Wait…what? You’re constantlytrying to impress her. How did you accidentally do it? This I gotta hear.”
Max is my best friend and I can tell him anything, but this story has got me hesitating for personal integrity reasons. I didn’t bring chocolates to Cilla or any of the others in order to get accolades or appear noble.
That would make it disingenuous.
I thought nobody would find out.
I guess that was foolish. Myers doesn’t miss much. But since I was on a different floor than those she patrols, it never dawned on me that I might be face-to-face with her, caught in the act.
“Caden?”
“Here. Didn't fall asleep.”
“Don’t fucking scare me like that.”
I fall silent.
Max dryly mutters, “Funny.”
“Something’s wrong with my car. It’s lurching.”
“Call Triple-A.”
“Tomorrow. What’s the news on Brad?”
“I’m fucking beat. Last thing I want to do is worry about Lexi and that invisible jerk.” After a pause, his voice is charged with fresh irritation. “I want to see what this guy looks like. Because if she’s this hung up on him, hiding him from us, getting Samantha to lie about him, he must be the hottest guy in the city.”
“Right?” I snort, driving east on Ponce—technically called Ponce de Leon Avenue, but no real Atlantans call it that. “We should tail her one night soon when she leaves her place. She lost me last time.”
“When exactly are we supposed to do that?”
“I might do it.”
“You’re not going to tell me how you impressed your attending, are you?”
“It’s not important. But this time, when she yelled at me to go home, I could tell she thought I was a good guy.”
“Then she must have been sucking one of those morphine drips, because—”
“—Shut it,” I laugh.
“Seriously, my brother is a dick.”
“Yeah, Hunter needs work. But this brother? One stellar human being.”
Max laughs. “Listen, I’ve got maybe an hour left in me to dedicate to this, so I’m gonna let you go. You home?”
I ask, “You psychic?” jumping out of the dying Toyota and strolling over uncut grass that should make me feel guilty but doesn’t.
“I’ve kept you company on many drives back home from the hospital, Caden. I know how long it takes. And that it should take longer. Don’t know how you’ve managed no speeding tickets.”
Tossing my keys onto my coffee table and jogging to the fridge, I shrug, “Guess I was born with a horseshoe up my ass. But, damn, my luck has run out. There is absolutely nothing in here that I can eat. And it smells.” Covering the abysmal sight with a quick slam of the door, I tell him, “Go do your thing. I’m going to bed. And Max?”
“Yeah?”
“We gotta hang out soon.”
“Done.”
After I toss the phone onto my dresser, I strip naked glancing to the mirror positioned across from my bed as I check out my body.
One of the doctor’s break-rooms has exercise equipment to keep the staff healthy. Ironically not many of us use the machines. But I do to keep in shape when the ER is quiet and I’ve completed rounds. I like my body looking this good, and that takes work—just like anything else worth having.
Reflexively, my gaze flicks up next to where my favorite mirror is—the ceiling.
As I pull boxer briefs down my thighs and my freed cock bounces out, I begrudgingly mutter to its sleepy head, “Been way too long since I’ve made use of you, buddy.”
Leaping on my bed I stretch naked limbs over the goose down and enjoy my yawning muscles.
Palming my length to wake it up, I ask my reflection, “Why the fuck are you sleeping alone? Ambition is one thing—neglect, another.” A couple of long, slow strokes and it starts to harden. But it’s not sure if I mean it.
I’m so tired.
This is gonna take work.
The memory of the girl I brought home last, launches my shaft to attention, not full girth but this’ll work.
Wait, when was that?
Oh yeah, months back when I was chasing Lexi down at one of Billy’s new warehouse parties. I heard she was there with Brad, the invisible douchebag.
Didn’t find her.
I did run into my cousin Nicholas, Jeremy’s eldest—found him kissing who eventually turned out to be his
