Chapter 10 #2
“Dr. Maddox?” Urgent voice and hurried footsteps. The resident, rushing ahead, and—oh God yes, finally. He was trailed by a respiratory therapist with a replacement vent. Something in my chest tugged loose, rib cage widening.
“Remind me to send flowers to central supply,” I managed, voice rough as if I hadn’t used it for hours.
“Coffee works faster.” The therapist slid the machine up against the crib, hands already on the circuit, screen booting before I’d even blinked. I inhaled through a sense of disbelief, the world still frayed and pastel-colored.
“Ready to reconnect,” I told Finn, and he nodded, eyes bright like twin stars.
“On your count.”
The ventilator’s screen changed to a steady glow. One last manual squeeze, like an insurance, then I counted us down and eased the mask away, Finn matching me. The circuit clicked home.
A tiny chest rose, back on machine breath.
God. We’d done it.
Relief almost felled me as reality forced its way back in.
The ventilator’s steady hiss felt like the aftermath of a storm, Baby Sloan’s cheeks rosy now, her tiny lashes pale against her skin.
Next to me, Finn was quiet, and when I glanced over, he looked like he’d been cracked open, dark hair stuck to his forehead, eyes the color of a summer sky.
There be dragons.
Footsteps pounded, then the curtain snapped back. Dr. Novak. She barreled in as though she’d run all the way from the elevator—probably had. “Status?” she barked.
“Post-op bleed. Pressure dropped, severe perfusion issue.” I straightened instinctively, forcing calm.
This woman was one of the reasons I’d gone into pediatric surgery, something like my role model ever since I’d watched her open a newborn’s chest during my third year of residency, calm as rain, while I’d been shaking on the inside with panic and admiration.
“Two units A-neg, one running. Vitals stable now, still tamponading the incision. The vent malfunctioned; Dr. Hayes and I bagged for…” How long—minutes?
Hours? I glanced at my watch. “Sixteen minutes, give or take.”
A lifetime.
Novak’s gaze flicked from Baby Sloan to the monitor, and finally settled back on me. “I’ll take it from here. Good job, Dr. Maddox.” A glance. “Dr. Hayes.”
Finn’s eyes widened. He ducked his head, cheeks flushing, a dimple peeking through. “Thank you,” he said, quiet and pleased.
God. Adrenaline withdrawal hit me like a wave, sudden and intense, muscles burning like I’d run ten miles.
My attention tripped over the smear of blood across the chest of his surgical gown, put there by my own gloves like a mark no one else would know how to decode. Shameful heat knotted below my ribs.
Rules, hierarchy, all the distance we’d put between us—for sixteen minutes, they’d ceased to matter, emergency brake disengaged. And I’d felt like I could breathe.
Professionals.
“Excellent job,” I told him. My voice cracked just enough that his brows pinched together. I cleared my throat. “Grab some water and go home. Your shift’s long since over.”
Mine too. But what else was new?
I caught the hesitation in his eyes, the way his gaze lingered just a beat too long. Blood rushed in my ears while Novak issued quiet orders, then Finn stepped back with a small, fleeting smile that echoed in the pit of my stomach.
Even though I didn’t watch him leave, my lungs shrank to what seemed like half their size.
Back to reality.
Beautiful under pressure.
“You know what New York needs?” Shane’s pause was all dramatic effect, designed to draw a reaction from grade schoolers.
I made a questioning noise, dipping my last taco chip in guacamole that was a little too lime-forward.
Time folded in weird ways, my brain still skipping through moments that seemed wrapped in shadows—the rise and fall of the baby’s tiny chest, how Finn had pressed along my side as we breathed for her.
How the faulty vent had been rolled away for investigation, leaving me standing next to an empty crib, suddenly useless and a little lost. This slightly overlit booth in a casual Mexican place near the hospital seemed like a different world.
Shane raised his sweating Diet Coke in a toast. “Infrastructure that wasn’t born in the goddamn Industrial Revolution.”
“True.” I nodded, chewed.
Shane waited half a beat, then added, “Also, you know, those pink zebras they released into Central Park. Real sign of decline, man.”
Watered-down mariachi played over the hiss of fajitas, tugging on the ends of my focus. It took me a second to actually parse Shane’s words, then I blinked. “Wait, what?”
He grinned. “Just checking if there’s life on Mars.”
Ha. I reached for my mezcal. It burned on the way down, smoke and citrus on my tongue that reminded me of the night I’d first met Finn—all bite and charm, a beautiful stranger with sharp comebacks and a hint too much eyeliner.
I’d never paid for it before, but something about him made that line feel… negotiable.
“Sorry,” I told Shane. “Just thinking.”
“Try—”
“Not to break something, I know.” A reluctant smile pulled at my mouth as I took another sip.
“Yep—that.” Shane leaned forward, his tone tilting into something slightly more serious. “Hey, man. You saved a baby tonight. You should high-five the universe, not… look like someone shot your cat.”
Ah, yes. Right for the throat. Classic Shane—and somehow, I actually appreciated it. Still. “I don’t have a cat.”
“You’d have one if you didn’t spend most of your waking hours at Devon. And my point stands.”
Fair.
Shane waited while I fidgeted with my water glass, buying myself a couple of seconds to think.
It wasn’t that I wanted to hold back—not with Shane.
He’d seen me come home after someone’s heart had stopped, stand in the kitchen like a statue for several minutes, then sit down on the floor and cry until I couldn’t breathe, like a thread finally pulled loose.
He’d grabbed a bottle of cheap whiskey, sat down right next to me, and told me I looked like roadkill.
“You need a hug and a drink, man. Lucky for you, I’ve got both. Come here, will ya?”
So, yeah. No holding back. I just wasn’t sure how to put voice to the tangled thoughts inside my head. Maybe by starting simple.
“Finn was there.”
Shane pursed his mouth. “I’m gonna need you to narrow that down. ‘There’ as in somewhere in the hospital? Or ‘there’ as in…”
“Next to me,” I finished. “Ran up eight floors to bring the blood I needed. And then he stayed, backed me up when everything seemed to go wrong at once.”
A second passed.
“And?” Shane prompted, his attention barely wavering as one table over, a group broke into hollering, slightly drunken laughter. Right, Saturday night. Party time.
“And it just…” I inhaled. “He was incredible, Shane. Fucking incredible. I keep trying to play it cool, you know? Professional, all that. And then he goes and saves my ass in the middle of a blackout, with a crashing baby and a vent that stops working. And I want—”
Fuck.
Shane’s face changed, softened. “You want more.”
I tipped my head back and closed my eyes for a moment, could still feel the warmth of Finn’s body against mine—working together to save a life. No walls. I exhaled. “Yeah, I really fucking do. But I can’t cross that line.”
“Okay.” Shane’s lips twisted in thought. “Worst-case scenario. Let’s say he wants this, too, let’s say you go for it and someone finds out. What happens?”
I huffed a dry laugh, zero amusement. “HR would lose their shit. At the very least, he’d get pulled off the twins case. And yeah, maybe it wouldn’t go into full-on disciplinary action, but the vibe? Wow.”
“Yeah.” Shane rolled the can between his fingers, voice dipping quieter. “Abuse of power. Even if it wasn’t.”
It sucked. Hearing the words like that, the blunt truth of what the stakes were—painful, just a little, but necessary.
“Exactly.” I sighed. “I’m trying to land an attending spot, and he’s just getting started. Even if no one says it out loud, there’d always be that…” Stain? Suspicion? “That slightly off taste. We’d never shake that.”
Shane turned the can some more, an unhappy crease between his brows. “What if you wait? Not like what you joked about before—seven years or whatever. Let him finish the rotation, let the surgery happen. Then, six months from now, if it still feels like something? Ask him to lunch.”
Something in me gave a small, hopeful tug. Six months.
Jesus, I wasn’t the type to lose my head over some guy. I didn’t do pining. Except apparently now I did because there Finn was, living rent-free in my head while I tried to act like a functioning adult. Fucking embarrassing. Good thing Shane wasn’t the judging kind.
“Maybe. I just…” I shook my head. “Pretty sure it’d still be seen as inappropriate.”
“It’s not nothing.” Shane sent me a quick smile along with a nudge against my foot. “But it’s not the same. You’d be… two adults, on the other side of it.”