6. Dalton
6
DALTON
A ll six of us first-year interns are dead on our feet after a twenty-four-hour shift in the ER.
We barely murmur at each other, banging our lockers as we switch from doctor mode to humans.
Not that any of us feel human at the moment.
I might be slightly more perky than the others, despite the all-nighter. I am looking forward to my own apartment. My own bed.
Well, my own part-time bed.
Harrington drops onto a bench to switch his jacket and shoes like a medical version of Mr. Rogers, except he’s a dead ringer for Chidi from The Good Place . It still works. “Where are you headed in such a hurry?”
I attempt to force my wild hair into some sort of order, then give up. “Settling into my new place.”
“Finally free of sleeping on the floor?”
“Finally.”
“Where’d you end up?”
“A small complex about three miles from here.”
“Nice commute. I have to drive nearly an hour.” Harrington stuffs his work shoes in a bag. “And now to go endure it. At least we have part of the weekend off.”
“It’s Friday?”
He laughs. “I know. Days become meaningless in here.”
“They do.”
Harrington claps my back. “Nice work with that kid who swallowed all the quarters. I thought we were going to have to sedate him to get an X-ray. You calmed him right down.”
“I was a lot like him. I know what worked for me.”
Harrington leads the way out of the locker room. “Swallowing money to hide it from your sister?”
“Nah, just doing dumb stuff and not wanting to admit it.”
He grins. “You still do dumb stuff. I saw you ignoring that nurse in Trauma 4 who clearly wanted you to take an inventory of her bulbus vestibuli.”
This makes me laugh. We all love a good clit joke. “Girlfriends aren’t on the current agenda.”
“I don’t think she was asking for long-term status.”
For some crazy reason Nadia pops into my head. “I have to get a handle on my life before I can drag a woman into it.”
Harrington steps left to avoid an orderly rushing through the atrium at the front of the hospital. “Sounds like you’re getting there. I would kill for a place that close.”
“You might have to for the rent it costs.”
As we push through the doors of the main entrance, the air outside is fresh and cool. California nights. You can’t beat them.
“See you next shift,” Harrington says. He heads left for wherever he parked.
“Later.” I turn right, aiming for Bernadette’s red frame softly lit beneath a lamp. “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” I tell her, but for some reason the words conjure the image of Nadia.
Again. What the hell?
“Not going there,” I mutter as I slide into the seat and fire up Bernadette’s cranky engine.
I’ve got enough problems, and I can’t add fantasizing about my roommate to the pile.
But when I pull up next to her Earl-blue Jeep, I realize, uh oh . We already have a schedule conflict.
It’s evening. I’m home. She’s home.
Who’s getting the bed?
I’m tempted to knock on the door. Then I think, this is my place, too. If she wants to lounge around in her underwear, we’ll both have to make peace with it.
But then I picture her in a lacy bra and panty set and suddenly, I need a minute. I can’t go in there like a sex-starved creeper. Scrubs hide nothing.
I sigh and take off for the courtyard.
Nobody’s at the pool. I park on a chair and think about our predicament.
I hadn’t planned past the first few nights when we took the place. Of course some of my shifts are going to end when she’s home.
Shit.
I tug my phone out of my pocket to text her.
Me: Hey, I’m getting off shift and realize we’ll both be here.
Nadia: I already figured out we’d be off at the same time.
Me: I saw you were home.
Nadia: Where are you?
Me: By the pool.
Nadia: Night swimming?
Me: Thinking.
Nadia: I made a lasagna. You’re welcome to some when you are done with your deep poolside thoughts.
She made dinner? To share?
My stomach growls at the mere thought of it.
Me: Coming.
I wait a moment to see if she’ll text anything back, but when she doesn’t, I head to the gate.
When I open the door to the apartment, she’s sitting at the bar. I glance around, looking for the cat, but the oversized furball must be hiding again. I haven’t seen her since Nadia introduced her.
She’s dressed a lot like the day she found me on the floor. Jeans. T-shirt. Her pink socks have the words “I’m just a girl who loves” on one foot, but the other one is tucked beneath her on the stool. Now I’m dying to know what it says. Wine? Cheese? Sex?
There I go again.
I drop my keys and badge on the dresser. A few of her things are already there. Her phone on a charger. A small wooden box. A bottle of hand lotion with flowers on it. I wonder if it’s the source of how she smells.
Focus, Dalton.
I head over to the bar. Nadia is in front of an empty plate, a few traces of red sauce on its surface. Her fork is lying neatly across it, like she finished a formal meal and is indicating to the waitstaff that they can take her plate.
She holds a book open, but I can’t quite make out the text. She closes it, cover down. The back is pink. She rests her arm over it like she’s trying to hide it.
Interesting.
“I picked up a few dishes,” she says. “Some plates, a bit of silverware, and a baking pan or two. My sister-in-law Camryn gave me a few pots she never uses. It’s not much, but we can get by for a while.”
“Sounds good.” I move past the bar and into the kitchen. I open a few cabinets, locating the short stack of plates and pulling one down. There are also four plastic glasses on the shelf. I take one of those as well and fill it with tap water.
“I’ll pick up some groceries during this break I have,” I tell her. “Should we designate sections of the fridge, or will we know whose is whose?”
“I’ll take the right side,” she says. “I often bring things home from the deli. We can make that communal food, because I have more than I can eat, anyway.”
That’s a perk. “Awesome. And thank you for sharing your lasagna. I am starved.”
“I figured you would be. Are all your shifts twenty hours or more?”
“Not always.”
We obviously don’t have a spatula, because a fork and a butter knife sit inside the dish to serve the lasagna. I cut off a hefty piece. “Sometimes I do twelve on, twelve off. It’s only my third week, so it’s not clear to me yet how it will work.”
She nods. “My schedule is mostly set. Tuesday through Friday, eight a.m. to four, and alternating Saturday or Sunday. But sometimes I cover for my cousin and work more.”
I’ve inhaled three bites while she said that, but I swallow to ask, “You work with your cousin?”
“For him. Sort of. He owns the deli. I’m helping while he has so much on his plate with a baby coming. They found out they’re having a girl.”
I swallow again, finally slowing down enough to actually taste it. It’s good, creamy and tangy, with layers of pasta on a pillow of ricotta. “That’s nice. And this is delicious.”
“Thanks. I have a few things I can cook.”
“And I guess you’re a master at sandwiches.”
She laughs. “Not what I expected to be doing at this point, but I’m not sure what my next step is.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” I try to slow how fast I’m eating. It’s good.
She tries to shove her book away with her elbow, but I catch her.
“Watcha reading?”
Her cheeks pink up, and I wonder what else on her body might have a similar vasodilation. Breasts? Thighs?
There I go again.
“Nothing,” she says.
I slide the fork through my lasagna. “You’re embarrassed by it?”
“No!” But she picks up the book and spins off the stool before I can see it.
“You are!”
“It’s … private.”
“I like a good erotic novel myself.”
She halts on her way to the dresser. “It’s not erotic!” Then she hesitates. “I mean, depending on what you consider erotic. It has … scenes in it.”
“Erotic scenes?”
“Oh, you!”
I swivel on the stool to face her. “Let me see it!”
“Fine.” She tosses the book to me. It thuds into my stomach, but I catch it.
I turn it over and read the title aloud. “ First Base to Love .” I flip through the pages until I spot the word “cock.” I pause, reading a few lines, then snap it closed. This will not help cool my jets.
Nadia lunges for the book. “What did you find?” She flips through it, like she could locate what I saw.
“Just something about a throbbing cock . That doesn’t sound like first base.”
Her face flames so red I wonder if she should lie down and elevate her legs. “It’s a baseball romance.”
“So he hits a home run?”
Something akin to a growl forms in her chest. “I knew this was a bad idea.”
I hold up my hands. “I’m all for a good sexy read! Don’t worry about it.”
She moves as far from me as possible, sitting on the corner of the bed. It’s back in blue ruffle mode, my Transformer bedspread neatly rolled up by the wall.
I scrape together the dregs of my lasagna and swallow. Dang, that’s good. But I’m headed toward a wall of exhaustion. I can feel it.
Still, I should try to smooth things over. “It’s fine. You’re going to find out things about me. I’m going to learn stuff about you. We’re adults. It will be okay.”
She flips through the pages, her cheeks pink. “Okay.”
“Maybe we can do a book club.”
She lifts the book in the air like she might chuck it at me again.
“No need for violence! I’ll do the dishes.” I head into the kitchen, picking up both of our plates from the bar.
“I’ll help.”
“No, you cooked. I can clean.”
I watch her from the corner of my eye as I scrub the cheese off our plates and set them in the dishwasher.
When I’ve put away the leftover lasagna and cleared the bar, I notice she’s back to reading the book, this time without hiding the cover.
That’s better.