Chapter 19
NINETEEN
LUKE
I tried really hard to ignore the knocking on my door, which came at the worst possible time.
At first, I assumed it was Austin, since he’s the only person I know who would drop by without texting.
He’s also the only person I know who lives in the building and wouldn’t need to be buzzed through the front door.
So I ignored the knocking for as long as I could, hoping he’d give up and go away.
But the knocking didn’t stop, and I started to worry something was really wrong.
Maybe one of the neighbors needed help, or the building was on fire and the alarm was broken.
So I finally threw a pair of sweatpants over my boxers and went to the door.
I vowed that if I’d been interrupted for anything less than a fire, someone’s head was going to roll.
But when I opened the door, it wasn’t Austin, and there was no fire. Instead, it was Ethan, standing next to my uptight neighbor Janine Price. Ethan looked drunk, and Janine looked pissed.
And now I’m standing in my doorway, blinking at them like an idiot.
A very frustrated idiot.
“Hi, Luke,” Janine says. “Sorry to wake you up. Your friend was knocking on my door, looking for you.”
I guess I’m lucky she assumed it took me so long to open the door because I was asleep and not because I was having phone sex. I surreptitiously adjust my sweatpants and hope she won’t notice my erection. Janine’s only a few years older than me, but she’s definitely the prim and proper type.
“Sorry about that, Janine,” I say quickly. “Come on in, Ethan.” I guess the building isn’t as secure as I thought; he must have followed someone through the front door.
I pull him through the door and close it behind me, then lead him to a chair at the kitchen table. His eyes are a little glassy and there’s beer on his breath, but he’s still steady on his feet. Maybe he’s only half drunk.
I go to the sink to pour Ethan some water and realize I’m still clutching my phone. I glance at the screen and curse. Melissa hung up.
After I plunk a glass of water in front of Ethan, I hit the button to call Melissa back, but it goes straight to voicemail.
“Fuck,” I mutter. With Ethan here, I wouldn’t have been able to pick up where I left off with Melissa, but at the very least, she deserves an explanation.
“Did I interrupt something?” Ethan asks. He’s pretty perceptive for someone who’s half drunk.
“Kind of, yeah,” I admit, as I tap out a text to Melissa.
Me: Sorry Milly, a friend showed up. I’ll call later.
“Sorry about the neighbor,” Ethan says. “I thought that was your door.” He’s clearly picked up on my irritation, and I feel a prickle of guilt.
“It’s okay,” I tell him, slipping my phone into my pocket.
Ethan takes a deep drink of water, then sets down the glass and stands. “I should go.”
For the first time, I really take in his appearance, and guilt stabs me right in the gut.
This man is a caricature of the Ethan Atwell I knew when we were residents in Montreal.
His skin is pasty, he’s sporting a couple days’ worth of stubble, and there’s a smear of something brown on the front of his T-shirt.
The worst is the defeated expression in his eyes. He’s too proud to put it in words, but his appearance here tonight is a cry for help.
“Stay,” I say quickly. “Have you had dinner? I could microwave something.”
To my relief, he sits back down. “I ate,” he says. “It was wing night at Fionn McBride’s.”
“Ah.” The brown stain on his shirt is probably barbecue sauce. “By yourself? You should have messaged me.” There’s something really sad about the thought of Ethan spending the evening alone at a pub.
“I didn’t want another lecture,” he says with a bitter laugh. “I already had one at home. Jess thinks I drink too much, and since I didn’t want to fight with her, I went out for dinner.”
Out for dinner, and for drinks. For once, I agree with Jessica.
There’s a beat of silence while I think about how best to phrase what I need to say. “We’re just concerned about you, Ethan.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t have a drinking problem, Luke.”
“Okay.” He’s evidently still in the denial phase.
An awkward silence falls. To give myself something to do, I walk to the cupboard and bring back a bag of potato chips.
Ethan takes a single chip and studies it carefully before popping it into his mouth.
“Salt and vinegar,” he says thoughtfully. “Good choice.”
“Yeah,” I say, grabbing my own handful of chips.
My phone pings in my pocket. “I’m on call,” I tell Ethan apologetically, as I pull it out and read the message.
I’d hoped it would be a text from Melissa, but it’s the hospital, asking me to call the ward. My heart sinks; my colon cancer patient must be crashing. As I wait for the nurse to answer the phone, I mentally prepare myself to drive in and take him back to the OR.
The nurse finally answers. As it turns out, no one’s crashing; she just wants me to order eyedrops for a patient with dry eyes.
“Another life saved,” Ethan says sarcastically after I hang up. He glances at his watch. “A ten P.M. call for eyedrops, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Do you ever wonder why you went to med school, Luke?” he asks. “I mean, you’re a smart guy. You could have done finance or something, made a shit-ton more money.”
“I guess so.”
Ethan takes a sip of water before he continues.
“This morning I had a patient whine at me because he didn’t like his breakfast. Does he think I control what comes out of the hospital kitchen?
If you’re well enough to whine about the food, you should probably go home and make your own fucking breakfast.”
“Yeah,” I agree. Ethan isn’t wrong.
“But you can’t tell a patient to go home and make his own fucking breakfast,” he continues.
“Because he’d probably complain to admin.
Then you’d get your wrist slapped by some middle manager who’s never held a scalpel.
Someone who’s never stood next to an operating table at two A.M. and sweated because a patient’s bleeding out. ”
“Yeah.”
“There’s no respect anymore,” Ethan continues.
“Admin tries to tell us how to do our jobs, but wants us to take all the responsibility.” He pauses and crunches a potato chip.
“I guess I’m the real sucker, because I don’t even need to work.
I could sit on my ass all day watching Netflix. Live off my trust fund.”
I raise an eyebrow. I knew Ethan’s family was wealthy—his dad’s a well-known surgeon in Montreal—but I didn’t know he was rich enough to have a trust fund. It’s the sort of information he’d never share if he wasn’t tipsy.
“My grandfather founded the Cochrane Corporation,” he explains.
“Wow.” Cochrane’s one of the biggest property developers in the country. Ethan really does have the money to sit on his ass all day.
“Uh huh,” he says. “But I still chose to torture myself by becoming a surgeon.”
“Because you didn’t want to live off inherited money, and you knew you’d get bored of Netflix.”
He shrugs. “My sister doesn’t work, and she seems pretty happy. She’s surfing in California this week.”
“Yeah, but you’re doing something worthwhile. You’ve helped a lot of people, Ethan.”
He shrugs again, and I can tell he doesn’t really believe me. “A lot of people in Montreal thought I was a nepo baby. Said I only got into surgery because of my dad.”
I guess that explains why he came to Somerset instead of staying in Montreal; he was trying to get out of his dad’s shadow. “They were probably just jealous. You were the best resident in the program, Ethan, and everyone knew it.”
He scrubs a hand through his dark hair, which is badly in need of a cut. “I’m being sued, Luke.”
“I heard. I’m sorry.”
Ethan shakes his head. “It was a high-risk operation, but there was no good alternative. Everyone knew that, but I’m still fucking getting sued.”
“Most doctors get sued at some point. It doesn’t mean you did anything wrong. With a different surgeon, the outcome might have been worse.”
“I doubt it.”
“I’m sorry.” It seems inadequate, but I don’t know what else to say. We eat potato chips in silence for a couple of minutes.
“What did your lawyer say?” I finally ask.
“Not to talk about it with anyone,” Ethan says with a quirk of his lips. “She thinks it’s defensible, and might even get dismissed before going to trial.”
“That’s good, right?”
“I guess,” he says. “But sometimes I wish they’d recommend a settlement, so it would just go away.” He rakes a hand through his hair again. “A trial could last years, Luke, and I’m just so sick of reliving it.”
Regardless of the outcome of the lawsuit, Ethan’s already convicted himself.
“Have you talked to anyone about it?”
“You,” he says with a chuckle.
“I mean like a professional. The Medical Association has counseling programs—”
“The lawyer suggested that too,” he interrupts. “But I don’t want to talk about it, Luke. I’m trying to forget about it.”
“Is that why you’re drinking?” I debated whether to bring it up again, but he won’t be able to go on like this much longer. Sooner or later, he’ll operate drunk, or with an awful hangover, and he’ll make a mistake. And if it comes out that he was drunk at the time, his career will be done.
“It helps me get to sleep, okay?” he says defensively. “I can’t operate if I’m sleep deprived.”
“The Medical Association has programs for that too.”
“What, for insomnia?” he quips.
“No, like AA.”
“You think I’m an alcoholic?”
Yes. “I’m worried about you, Ethan.”
“Most people drink, Luke,” he says with a scowl.
I nod. “Just promise me you won’t drive drunk. Or operate, either. You know you can call me to cover you, right?”
“Luke, I’d never. You know that.”
I wish I could be sure.
Ethan yawns and stands up. “I should go home.”
“You’re welcome to crash on my couch,” I offer. “Or I can drive you home.”
He shakes his head. “Thanks, but I’m fine.”
“Uh, you’re not driving, are you?” He could almost pass for sober now, but he still shouldn’t be driving.
“Of course not,” he says, pulling out his phone. “I’m calling an Uber.”
“Great.”
As Ethan’s tapping away, my own phone pings. I snap it up eagerly, hoping Melissa’s answered my text.
But it’s not Melissa, it’s Sloane, with a BS question about our research project. I set the phone down without replying, and when I glance up, Ethan’s staring at me curiously.
“Bad news?” he asks.
“What? No.”
The lift of his eyebrow makes it clear he doesn’t believe me. “When you showed up, I was talking to a girl,” I admit. “I thought she might have texted.”
“But she didn’t,” Ethan concludes.
“No.”
“Sorry, man.”
“It’s all right,” I say with a sigh. “It’s probably for the best.”
“Yeah?” Ethan asks curiously.
“Yeah,” I admit. “I operated on her daughter last month. You met her, actually; she’s the mom of the girl who had the allergic reaction.”
Ethan smirks. “I wondered.”
“Yeah. But if I want to keep my medical license, I shouldn’t be talking to her at ten o’clock at night.”
Ethan nods sympathetically. “Good luck, man.” He glances down at his phone. “Uber’s here.”
I lock the door behind him and head back to my couch to call Melissa, because I’m desperate to hear her voice. At the very least, I need to explain why I cut our conversation short. And despite what I just told Ethan, a relationship with Melissa is worth the risk.
But her phone goes to voicemail again.