Chapter 8
EIGHT
JESSE
Don’t think about his mouth, I’d jotted into my notebook right after I’d rolled out of bed, pre-coffee.
Chill, I told myself now. Cool as a cucumber, yep.
That’s what I am. Or at least I should be after a golden weekend, both Saturday and Sunday off—forty-eight hours of avoidance therapy.
Losing a three-on-three basketball game to Shane’s teacher buddies, shameless carbs, and a literature dive for the Jackson twins’ surgery.
But somehow, the emergency brake Finn and I had yanked on Friday still felt hot under my hand.
Today, it had to hold.
Just as the printer finally coughed out the patient list, someone behind me said, “Morning, boss.”
I didn’t jump, but it was close. Tay Carter—newly minted fellow.
He’d done a rotation last winter, back when I was still fumbling through my first year of fellowship and he mostly trailed the attendings, but we’d crossed paths a few times.
In addition to being whip-smart, he could be silly with the kids and serious with the parents, so I’d been happy to endorse his application.
Now, both his hair and eyelids were battling gravity and mostly losing.
I shot him a little grin. “Since when am I the boss?”
“Since”—Tay yawned, half apologetic—“you’re scary enough that your intern shows up at five to get a lay of the land, so to speak.”
A flicker of unease. “Hayes?”
“Yep. Already on the floor.” Tay wandered over to the coffee machine and grimaced at the night’s leftover dregs. He poured a cup anyway as he continued talking. “Kid’s eager. Or caffeinated. Hard to tell.”
Of course Finn was desperate to prove himself, to impress.
“Good sign.” I strove to keep my tone light. “Also, admit it: You love being able to call someone else ‘kid’ now.”
Tay grinned around the rim of his cup. “Guilty as charged.”
Yeah, I still remembered what that was like. I was about to say as much when Finn walked in, quick steps, cheeks a little pink. Bright blue eyes cut to me, then away so fast it just about left scorch marks.
“Morning, Dr. Maddox,” he said, voice crisply professional, warming by half a shade when he nodded at Tay. “Dr. Carter.”
“Dr. Hayes,” I said. Too cool. I tried to ease up just the slightest hint. “Grab a patient list from the printer, look it over. We leave in ten.”
“Got it.” He crossed the room, gait loose but spine a fraction too straight.
Overcorrecting, same as me. It still made for a nice view: broad shoulders and narrow waist, a runner’s thighs.
I remembered to look away and caught Tay giving Finn a once-over—pure aesthetic appreciation, like someone admiring the lines of a vintage car.
Not how it had been that night at the bar, when it seemed like every guy in the room wanted Finn.
I’d had zero plans of trying my luck—not until that sleazebag asked about his hourly rate and had served me with an opening.
Even then, I’d thought nothing would come of it.
Professionals.
Tay snatched his own copy of the patient list and broke the tension, intentionally or not, with a remark about the pending lab results of a little boy in Room Nine.
Safer ground. Good. Since it was Finn’s first day, I gave him a quick rundown of the patient’s history, watched him take notes with long, elegant fingers that—stop.
Stop.
Ten minutes later, we set out—Tay next to me, Finn a couple of steps behind like a visual manifestation of hierarchies.
I let Tay lead us through the first two rooms, then asked Finn to present the third patient.
He did so in a clear voice, steady, occasionally glancing at his notes: post-op and walking with support, keeping down clear fluids.
He even covered the parents’ concerns about sleep.
“You didn’t mention urine output,” I said once he was done.
His head tilted in a small, barely perceptible way. “Hundred and twenty milliliters over eight hours. Yellow and clear.”
“Good,” I said. “Include it next time.”
“Got it. Thanks, Dr. Maddox.” Again in that crisp tone that wasn’t quite clipped but close. I gave him a tight smile, feeling strangely dizzy from the cartoon turtles marching along the wall.
“See that you do.”
Tay shot me a sideways glance, then added a gentle, “I’ll check belly circumference with you after rounds, Hayes.”
The tense line of Finn’s mouth softened for a grateful nod. This was… good, yes. Tay taking Finn under his wing when I couldn’t.
We moved to the next room and then the next, rhythm smoothing out. Finn presented with increasing confidence, absorbed every pointer, and scribbled adjustments on his notes. The distance between us widened with each minor correction, each “yes, doctor.”
As it should.
Halfway down the hall, he ducked into the med room to collect syringes for our next patient. Tay leaned toward me, voice quiet. “He’s bright. Nervous as hell, but bright.”
“Agreed. And it’s only day one—he’ll relax.” I curled one hand into a loose fist, pressed a nail into my palm until it stung. “Keep an eye on him, will you? The first few weeks can be rough, and I think he’s new to the city.”
“Sure thing, yeah.” Tay’s brows inched up, a hint curious. Too much, fuck.
Fortunately, Finn returned, stalling any follow-up questions at least for now.
He brushed a stray curl off his forehead, gaze catching mine for just an instant, eyes unreadable.
Something in me sparked with brief, useless irritation—not at him, but at these circumstances neither of us had invited.
Funny how at sixteen, I’d have laughed at this.
Back then, I’d been flying high on teenage hormones and the repressed realization that a nice pair of boobs did nothing for me, somehow convinced I was too smart for the rules to touch me—right up until a graffiti dare ended with a police ride home, followed closely by a two-week suspension coated in my parents’ helpless disappointment.
How could I so recklessly risk my good grades, throw away a chance they’d never had?
So I’d vowed to do better. I had done better.
Finn was not a rule I could break.
I turned away, the phantom smell of burning rubber clogging my head. Emergency brake engaged. Comfortable? Not even a little.
But necessary.
The week blurred into a sequence of vignettes that blended OR lights and early morning rounds, quick meals, and a couple of workouts I squeezed into the gaps. Same as always. Except for how Finn was tucked into the folds of my days, snapshot impressions that lingered longer than they should.
Like when Dr. Wilson, halfway through the closure of an ostomy reversal that she ran like an orchestra conductor, crooked a finger at Finn. “Come show me your two-hand square knot.”
His head snapped up, eyes wide, but his hands were steady as he stepped close. I kept my attention on the field, not on the way his tongue pressed briefly into his cheek while he judged the wound.
He did a clean job, just like I knew he would. Her eyes crinkled above her mask. “Very good for a first year, Dr. Hayes.”
Finn exhaled and smiled back, murmured a thank-you. When he glanced at me, I gave a mild nod, nothing more, ignoring the champagne fizz of pride in my chest.
Or then there was the way he talked to the bleary, panicked parents of a baby, his tone soft and patient as he explained why we were optimistic. The father’s knotted shoulders eased more with each word, and when Finn told them to get some rest, it looked like they actually might.
Or that time halfway through the week, when I saw him talking with a third-year resident and Tay, his hands waving to illustrate something, dimples pressing craters into his cheeks.
He seemed to make friends with ease. It reminded me that I’d been just like that, the kind of person who chatted with strangers in line for coffee, up until…
med school, maybe? When it had felt like I was three steps behind everyone else and my only chance to keep up was working twice as hard.
Looking at Finn, I felt a flicker of something close to envy.
Not of him, exactly, but of what he still knew how to do—connect, laugh, have conversations that weren’t all medical jargon.
Somehow, I’d set that part of myself aside.
Shane stuck because we’d shared four walls and a fridge, but the rest?
I’d let it slide. My world was colleagues I liked but hardly knew and a list of unread messages from people I’d once meant to keep up with.
Maybe it was time I remembered there was a life outside the hospital.
You feel like something I locked away to survive med school.
On Friday, Tay caught up with me in the hallway and offered, unasked, “He’s sharp. Hayes, I mean. Got people skills, too. But, yeah—need to keep an eye on him. I don’t think he knows his limits yet.”
“Cocky?” I asked, a little surprised. Cheeky—well, yes, I could see that. But I didn’t perceive Finn as overly confident. Quite the opposite, in fact.
“No, not that.” Tay shook his head. “More the kind where you forget you’re human until you faceplant.”
Easy, I reminded myself. Neutral.
“Well.” I kept walking, Tay falling into step. “That’s something we all had to learn, isn’t it? Sink or swim.”
It must have come out too harshly, trying hard to project a distance I didn’t feel, because Tay slid me a surprised glance. “True,” he said. “But we can all use a little reminder sometimes, right?”
He wasn’t wrong. And with any other intern, I wouldn’t hesitate to give them a nudge.
Finn had been there before me most days, often with his hair still damp from a shower—I’d overheard him mentioning that he ran to work sometimes. Nothing wrong with that; I did, too. Thing was, though, that I doubted he got to bed early enough to balance it out.
“Did you tell him that sleep deprivation is not an asset?” I asked Tay.
“Sure did, yeah.” Tay tilted his head, mouth twitching into a faintly amused curve. “But I’m not the one he’s trying to impress, so…”
Right. Nothing unusual about that, was there?