Love Sick

Julian

FEbrUARY, YEAR 1

Among a group of IM residents on the general medical floor, Dr. Sharma’s unblinking eyes zero in on me. “Dr. Santini, please present your patient.”

Internal medicine is kicking my ass. I can only thank the scheduling gods that my IM rotation is the shortest month of the year. My attending is practically a Mensa genius and her uncanny ability to quote directly from UpToDate, the most used point-of-care medical resource, makes my skin itch.

I am dangerously dehydrated. I haven’t sweat this much since I was training for that marathon in college, and back then I had the time to drink fluids and eat meals not singularly composed of MSG. When was the last time I peed? Yesterday?

My patient is a fifty-year-old man with a GI bleed of unknown etiology and a recent heart attack necessitating stent placement. It’s a tricky combination. I finish my lackluster presentation outside his hospital room and trail off, hoping Dr. Sharma will take it easy on me.

“So you’ve replaced fluids and blood,” she says. “Is he still bleeding?”

“Er—yes?”

“Yes or no, Dr. Santini?”

“Yeah. Yes. He’s still bleeding.”

She raises her eyebrows. “And what are you doing about that part?”

“I consulted GI. They’re seeing him this morning.” My palms dampen the papers in my hand, scrawled notes smudging to create some artistic study in fear and desperation.

Two blinks. That’s what she gives me. How do I read that? Is she pissed? Disappointed? Regretting that she’s staring at my stupid face instead of inventing some state-of-the-art medical technology like her brain is supposed to be doing?

“Is he still on his blood thinner?” she asks.

“Yes?”

“ Yes or no , Dr. Santini?”

“Yes.”

She pauses. The tense atmosphere smothers me, and every other resident looks away from the carnage. I can’t blame them. Instead of the information that Dr. Sharma might want, my brain helpfully supplies me with the urge to turn and run. We’re crashing and burning!

Dr. Sharma widens her eyes expectantly. “But he’s bleeding. Do you see any problem with this?”

“So I’ll—stop the blood thinner.” I hate that it sounds like a question.

“He had a cardiac stent placed three days ago.”

“Then I’ll…not stop it.”

“You have to pick one, Dr. Santini. Which option is least likely to result in your patient being dead in the morning?”

A tiny pang of irritation hovers at the edge of the adrenaline coursing through my blood, finally scattering my remaining thoughts. I don’t know what to do, but I don’t want to say I don’t know what to do. This innate desire to get questions right when they have nothing to do with my specialty or anything I’ll ever be doing in the future is a hard one to shake.

She gives me an exaggerated blink. “You’ll have the correct answer by lunch. Right, Dr. Santini?”

“Yes,” I croak out. Guess I’m not eating again today.

She moves to the IM intern, lifting the weight from my shoulders.

My only saving grace is the fact that Rebecca, the girl who never gives up, isn’t on service this month. Doesn’t stop her from texting me every day, offering “help.” I thought I was clear when she tried to kiss me that we were better as friends, but to her, friends must mean dates and sex and eventual marriage with lots of babies.

She sent me a meme this morning of a cat in a white coat captioned, “You’ll be fine. Just run a cat scan.”

I might hate cats.

I’m looking forward to Group Therapy tonight.

The IM intern and I admit eight patients each before the night team arrives. That afternoon, I inform a patient’s son his mother will need an MRI in the morning, and spend no less than forty-five minutes witnessing the guy’s rant about the price of her hospital stay.

“I’ll have to take out a second mortgage to pay for all the bullshit tests you want to run. You get some sort of kickback for all this? You’re just scamming us for money, aren’t you?”

I stare, speechless.

This is wild. A million things rush through my head.

The loss of my twenties.

The half million dollars in debt.

The obscene work hours.

The UTI probably forming in my bladder.

The exposure to communicable illnesses.

The constant threat of litigation.

And he thinks I’m scamming him for money?

Nah, bro. I scammed myself.

One day, some little boy will tell me he wants to be a doctor when he grows up, and I’ll beg him to be an electrician instead.

That evening, I speed walk away from the hospital, then take refuge in The Strokes blaring through my truck speakers.

I arrive at Mico first and order a Mambo Taxi, rubbing my tired eyes while I wait. When I open them, my gaze locks on Grace at the hostess stand. She smiles at the woman before heading my way, settling into the chair across from me. Her blue Vincent scrubs are miraculously blood free, a rare accomplishment for her.

My drink arrives and the server who’s been checking her out for months smiles. “Mambo for you too, Grace?”

She nods with a beautiful smile she’s never thrown my way, all twinkling hazel eyes and flushed cheeks and bright teeth.

What would it take for me to earn that smile?

“He knows your name?” I ask when he leaves.

She fires a duh look at me. “He knows all our names. We’re here all the time.”

I lean my elbows on the table, cocking my head at her while she stiffens. “I will pay off your student loan debt if you can prove he knows my name.”

Taken aback, she starts to say something when our phones ding. A text from Kai brings my screen to life.

She frowns. “Kai’s not going to make it. He’s stuck at the hospital.”

I lay my phone face down on the table. “And then there were four.”

“How’s IM?” she asks.

“The seventh circle of hell. How’s NICU?”

She grins. “A lot of drug babies I get to cuddle.”

“I didn’t know they let hellcats near the babies.”

As planned, the grin falls off her face, replaced by those fiery narrowed eyes. “The babies love me, .”

I bet they do…with that ample chest to rest their heads.

“Did they tell you that?” I raise an eyebrow.

The enticing flush of color on her cheeks shouldn’t turn me on. It’s her angry face, not her I-want-to-do-you face, but I imagine this is the closest I’ll get, and I haven’t had sex in… God, when was the last time?

No wonder I’m hard up.

The server sets her drink down.

Grace turns to him with a dazzling smile. “Thank you, Eric.” She points at me. “Do you know his name?”

The surfer-esque server glances at me like he’s seeing me for the first time. “Er—James?”

Her face falls. “Oh.”

I nod at him. “Yeah, that’s it. James.”

He retreats, and I spear her with an I-told-you-so look.

“At least he got the J right,” she mutters.

I chuckle. “He picked the most white guy name he could and threw it out there.”

Our phones ding again, this time from Raven telling us her babysitter called out and she won’t make it.

“And then there were three.” She sips her drink.

A burst of edgy energy has my fingers flying over the screen.

Me: Alesha? You still coming?

The three little dots appear and disappear, and I set my phone down.

Grace takes a drink, smirking at me around her straw. “Scared to be alone with me, Santini?”

Yes. I snort. “No.”

Riding close quarters with her in the dark of my truck in December had been an enlightening lesson entitled Things You Can’t Have But Want Anyway . That was the last time I was alone with her, but a niggling voice in the back of my mind has been encouraging me to find excuses to do it again.

She’s smart. Funny. Pretty. Smells like a Victoria’s Secret Angel.

Suppressing a sigh, I remind myself I don’t know what an Angel smells like.

Sex and flowers and magic and sex.

Shut up, stupid voice. She hates me. Unfair, but true. That should be enough to shut down whatever base urges my starved and sleep-deprived brain wants. Should is the operative word there.

Both our phones ding, and we dive for them. Alesha’s reply makes my heart thud three uncomfortable times in my chest.

“What the fuck is a cat emergency?” Grace glares at her phone, then lifts her gaze to me.

I gasp. “Did you just say the f-word?”

She stares around the restaurant. Our friends have abandoned us and now we’re stuck on what could accurately be deemed a date .

A possessive and predaceous monster inside me grins—not a promising sign. Despite my own sound logic, I lean toward her, wanting to know if she’s brave enough to stay. “We doing this, then?”

The freckles across her ashen skin stand out stark. “I already have my drink, . It’s sacrilege to leave Mambo Taxi on the table.”

“Then drink up, Sapphire. You’re going to need it to deal with Lex Luther all evening.”

A sly smile curves her lips. “How was your date with Maleficent by the way?”

“The dragon didn’t do it for me.” My nonchalant shrug has her laughing.

“Does that mean Khaleesi doesn’t have a chance, either?”

I stir my drink. “You familiar with the Hot Crazy Matrix? The Mother of Dragons is way too high in the danger zone.”

She snorts. “As if you’d have a chance.”

“I don’t know.” My finger taps against the glass. “I can be pretty adorable when I want.”

With a roll of her eyes, she says, “I will pay off your student loan debt if you can prove that’s true.”

“An impossible task. You hate me, so how could I prove it?”

Her stare drops to my hand for two seconds, then jerks to the side. She takes a large draw on her drink. “I don’t hate you.”

I bark out a single disbelieving laugh.

She shakes her head. “I just want to hate you. You make it impossible.”

My pulse abruptly decides to sync to an EDM beat. “Oh yeah? How’s that?”

“You’re absurdly nice, even when you’re heckling me. You buy me sugar and defend my honor and give me rides. And you do that—that thing.” She waves her hand in my general direction.

My skin is on fire. “What thing?”

“With your mouth. You know, the thing . When you’ve said something funny or clever, or when you’re getting under my skin. You do that smile without smiling.”

I stare, at a loss. “Huh?”

“Ugh. Never mind.”

The server returns and we both order our usual—Tacos Mi Tierra.

When he leaves, she tilts her head, studying me. The green in her eyes is brighter today. She’s never allowed me close enough to examine all the colors, but the fading light from the windows ignites a hint of jade and emerald.

“So you think you’re adorable?” Her nose scrunches. “I think I’d like to see Adorable in action.”

My sixth sense prickles, and I narrow my eyes. Where is this going? “His charms are reserved for children and women he has a chance with.”

She laughs. “At least you’re honest. So no girlfriend, then?”

“Why?” I raise one eyebrow. “You interested?”

A dorky little snort buzzes in her nose and she coughs to cover it. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you? Mocking material for the rest of time.”

“What about you, then?” I ask. “Where’s your lucky man?”

“Ha!” She goes for a chip, breaking it into pieces over her plate instead of eating it. “Lucky? I’m sure you imagine any man stuck with me is cursed.”

The idea of it strikes like lightning, being stuck with her…

Tasting that tempting mouth. Running fingers down her throat to her chest. Undressing her. Coaxing her down on a bed. Pressing those knees open while she whispers please .

That’s not a curse.

It’s a gift.

A benediction.

The man would be a lucky son of a bitch, and an acidic tang poisons my blood as he takes the shape of Asher in my head.

Shit. Is this—are these fantasies ? Is this jealousy ? About Grace Rose, the irritating girl who—despite what she says—loathes me? Dr. Sharma must have scrambled my brain today. It’s the only explanation.

Her eyebrows knit together, fingers twisting her straw. Crap. Did she say something?

“It was a joke,” she mutters.

The server sets another Mambo Taxi before her. She wiggles in her seat.

Surfer Bro’s gaze dips to her chest. “Your food will be out soon.”

Her smile glows as she looks at him, and the hibernating caveman in my brain stirs and grunts. This isn’t good. I’m tempted to call it cruel, even, having a crush on Grace. The universe is punishing me for not knowing when to stop blood thinners. I’m sure of it.

“It’s just a drink,” I mutter.

“It’s the best drink in the whole world.”

“I know one that’s better. I’ll show you sometime.”

She lifts an eyebrow, teeth clamped around the straw. “Oh, . Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

The tone of her voice when she says my name is always the same, all prim and haughty, like she wants to lecture me.

And now I’m picturing her in a schoolgirl outfit, brandishing a piece of chalk.

“That!” She points at my mouth. “That’s the no-smile.”

Um.

No.

That’s eye fucking.

And now I know I have a tell.

This is—is horrifying the right word? It’s going to be a problem, is all I’m saying.

I force my face into a different expression, anything to hide the thoughts in my head. “That’s just a regular smile.”

“Your mouth doesn’t move, . It’s all in your eyes.”

Stop looking at me so closely! “Eyes can’t smile, Grace.”

She stiffens, eyes wide, gaze sharp.

I realize my mistake a beat too late. “Sapphire. I meant—”

“Nope.” The beautiful smile dawns. “You said it. That’s twice now, . What’s gotten into you?”

You. “I—nothing.”

Her mouth. I can’t stop staring at her mouth. I’m powerless in the face of that smile—pure happiness, innocent joy. Simply because I said her name. That’s all it took? And here I thought baiting her was entertaining.

But this—this is so much better.

The woman is disturbingly sweet, and I’m beyond disarmed. All my weapons lay on the table between us. She’s free to pick up any she chooses and destroy me.

Except she doesn’t. She folds her hands and lifts her chin, still smiling bright. “I win today, .”

Shivery pricks wake beneath my skin as I push away a sense of inevitability. This tug-of-war between us is mutating into something else, isn’t it? She won’t only win today. She’ll continue to win, over and over, taking pieces of me each time.

How much will I wind up losing to this woman?

A couple minutes later, our food arrives—a welcome distraction—and an hour after that, I’m standing in the parking lot with a spitfire who’s had three Mambo Taxis and refuses to acknowledge she’s too tipsy to drive.

She puts her hands on her hips. “Your truck is too tall for me, .”

“Then I’ll lift you up.”

She scoffs.

I hold my hand out. “Give me your key, Sapphire.”

“It’s in my bra.”

My gaze drops at once to her breasts, sadly hidden behind loose blue cotton.

She snaps in my face. “Eyes up here, Santini.”

“You can’t mention your bra, then expect me not to look. I’m human.”

She places a red-tipped finger over her lips in thought. “Hmm. And this whole time I thought you were one of the Nazg?l.”

I give her a sarcastic laugh and grasp her shoulders, directing her to my truck. “Come along, dork.”

She sighs. “How am I supposed to get to work in the morning?”

I open the door. “I’ll drop you here before I go to the hospital.”

She spins to face me. “The rumors, . Remember? People already think I sleep around. I can’t be seen doing the walk of shame!”

Ugh. I hate that those thoughts enter her head, that she has to alter her behavior based on misinformation. I want her smile back—the real one I can feel deep in my stomach—so I aim to lighten the moment with a joke. Except when I lean toward her, the scent of her hair draws me in and temptation beckons. My voice grows deeper instead of lighter. “The walk of shame only applies if you fuck me.”

Why!

Why. Why. Why.

Her mouth goes slack. No snappy comeback. No signs of affront. Her eyes darken, and we freeze for three seconds before she clears her throat.

Stupid, !

I take the opportunity to grasp her waist, lifting her into my truck.

By the time I’m settled in the driver’s seat, her arms are crossed and she’s glaring straight ahead, back in her prissy little box. My soft laugh is drowned out by the engine. The car connects to my phone, continuing my last playlist.

Her eyebrows scrunch together. “Is this Kanye?”

I side-eye her. “Let me guess. You’re a Taylor Swift fan?”

Her lips purse. “Her voice is angelic, .”

“A savage woman who favors devil-red lipstick. Why am I not surprised?”

She mutters something under her breath and turns the volume up so we can’t talk anymore. The devil in my head takes control of my thumb and it strays at once to the volume button on the steering wheel.

Don’t do it, . Let her win.

And yet—

Her eyes snap in my direction when the music volume descends to a normal level. Her indignation permeates the cab, and I laugh silently. A swelling sense of success grapples with my arguments that I don’t really like her.

She’s fun to rile. That’s it.

It’s fun because she gets all flustered and hot.

She hates me, right?

If she hated you, she’d be able to take her eyes off you.

I don’t look, but her stare has fingers, grazing seductively down my face and throat. I’m half-hard wondering what she’s thinking.

This is going to be a huge problem.

I call Alesha as soon as I step into my apartment, shaking off the Essence of Rose.

“What the fuck is a cat emergency?” I demand when she answers.

“Simba was acting funny. Then he started hacking everywhere.”

I fall onto my couch. “You left me alone with her, Alesha.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. I can’t anymore with you two. She’s not a plague on this earth, Juju. Don’t try to play like you don’t like her.” A loud meow punctuates her tirade.

“I tolerate her for the sake of world peace.” I squeeze the bridge of my nose.

“Oh hell. Now she’s calling me.” Something clangs in the background. “If you’ve hurt her feelings with your weird hate-flirting thing you do, I’ll punch you in the dick. You my boy, but she’s my girl. Get your shit together.”

Hate-flirting?

That’s not what I’m doing.

…Is it?

She hangs up. I groan-sigh at the ceiling, then glance at the two texts waiting on my phone. The first is from Tori. Apparently, Mom is complaining I haven’t called her in seven whole days. I ignore that one. The second is from Maxwell.

Maxwell: You working Saturday?

Me: Yeah, but only during the day.

Maxwell: BrOB-GYN meetup at Asher’s

Me: I’ll be there

We’ve switched from beer to whiskey at Asher’s, and he’s passing around his weed, which is a refreshing diversion. As I relax by the firepit and contemplate how much residency has driven me to escape reality with mind-altering substances, Maxwell plops beside me.

“I think I’m going to sign the contract.”

More than a year ago, he was offered a position as a faculty attending when he graduates in June. He’s the only one of the five seniors to be offered a position, despite their desperate need for more faculty. That he’s the only male in the class likely had a lot to do with that. Maxwell DeBakey is a great doctor, but he isn’t the best of his class. Sarabeth outshines him on every level, but to hear Dr. Levine talk about it, they never considered any of the women as viable candidates.

I don’t get it.

“Residency wasn’t enough torture for you?” I ask. “You need it to continue into your future, too?”

A laugh rumbles deep in his chest. The firelight flickers over the amber liquid filling the lowball in his hand as he raises it to his lips. “Residents do all the dirty work and I take home the big bucks. Doesn’t sound like torture.”

“You have to fix all their mistakes, though.”

He side-eyes me. “Been fixing all your mistakes for the last eight months. What’s new?”

I tilt my head in concession. Maxwell has been my go-to senior for panicked questions, last second uh-ohs, and shit- my-senior-is-going-to-kill-me-if-I-don’t-fix-this-right-now moments. He’s never complained and his patience never wanes. He’ll be a great attending if he can keep it up.

“Then get ready to fix them for the next three years.” I set down my empty glass. The world tilts to a sharp left. Fuck. I’m drunker than I thought, which means I need to slow down. Drunk gives zero fucks about anything and says whatever he wants. I keep him contained as much as possible.

Maxwell rights me. “If you make it through the next three years.”

I send him a sidelong glance and he holds his hand to his throat, pretending to choke.

“Ha. Ha.” I roll my eyes.

“I’m just saying. There’s more to being an OB-GYN than having decent surgical skills. Got to learn the medicine too, bro.”

I search for Asher through the dark of the backyard, wishing for another toke. “It isn’t easy to remember all that shit. I’ve never been good at studying.”

“Sounds like it’s time to find a tutor.”

Grimacing, I shake my head.

“Four more months of hand-holding and you’re on your own, . You can’t count on someone watching over your notes and orders, making sure you’re not fucking everything up. Once you’re a second-year, people stop looking so closely.”

“I know.”

“OB isn’t a specialty where you can stop and read the algorithms before you act. Emergencies happen fast and you have to have the steps memorized or people die. Babies die.”

“I know ! Shit. You’re not an attending yet. Stop lecturing me.”

Maxwell lifts one giant shoulder. “Someone’s gotta do it.”

“Yo, Santini!”

I turn as Asher materializes beside me, offering me the vape pen. “Thanks.”

“I gotta know. What’s up with you and Rose?”

I cough on the exhale. “What?”

He cocks an eyebrow. “Come on, man. Driving her around. Going after Halliwell. You guys together?”

I hand him his pen. “Nah. She can’t stand me.”

Beside me, Maxwell snorts. My questioning look receives no answer.

“You sure?” Asher sits back. “’Cause I can’t seem to get any traction with her.”

It hasn’t escaped my notice that Asher’s been gunning for Grace, even if she’s oblivious to it. He either has slow game or no game at all.

Or maybe she’s not interested.

I like that last option best, if I’m honest.

She’s too good for him. Too good for all of us. That shy smile, that pervasive intellect, that quiet kindness—she deserves someone great.

Oh god. What is this? Is she some kind of enchantress who’s poisoned me in her favor?

Ignoring the inner turmoil, I shoot him a look. “You think maybe that has more to do with you than me? If I remember correctly, her first impression of you was overhearing you say you wanted her to suck you off.”

He waves his hand, the movement smearing in my influenced vision. “Everyone knows I’m all talk.” He shakes his head. “Whatever. If you say there’s nothing, I believe you.” Then he winks. “I’ll find the key to turning her on eventually.”

When I first met him, yeah, I thought he was a prick, but Asher has more to him than I originally thought. He knows how he comes across when he says shit like that, but it’s completely at odds with how he behaves—the compassionate patient care, the ingrained sense of justice, the way he goes to bat for residents treated unfairly. He acts like he sleeps around, but drunkenly confided he hasn’t been with anyone since his fiancée broke his heart a year ago. Asher’s a decent guy, but in this moment, I hate him.

Not even the drugs and alcohol in my system can distract me. In slow motion, the image plays out, a horror movie in my mind. Grace smiles at Asher while unzipping his jeans, dropping slowly to her knees. Venomous heat erupts in my chest, and I squeeze my eyes shut, desperately searching for anything to make that image go away.

A snarling, primal animal wakes, immersing me in a deluge of jealousy I’ve never experienced, not even when my last girlfriend slept with my med school classmate.

My hands clench as I stare into the fire, fantasizing about throwing Asher into it.

Maxwell nudges my arm, leaning close to murmur, “Chill out, bro.”

Yep. This is going to be a huge problem, and I don’t even know what started it.

I lurch to my feet and head inside for an unneeded bathroom break. As I stand alone in the kitchen, the cookie jar of condoms on the fridge catches my attention and rapture dawns. Grace will know it’s a joke, but I grin maniacally as I imagine her spine-snapped-straight, nose-in-the-air pseudo-affront when she opens the text. I take a picture of the jar and send it to her, followed by the typical caption.

Me: Found this. Made me think of you.

Sapphire: Don’t you know anything about being slutty, ? My dirty affairs go bareback.

I stare at the word bareback , and a host of ungodly images flood my mind, each of them imprinting desires I don’t want deep into the highest-functioning areas of my cerebral cortex, bypassing the more primitive locales.

Fuckity fuck, fuck, fuck.

This is a problem.