33. Keeley
KEELEY
S urprisingly, now that my dress is covered in blood and afterbirth, I don’t have much of an appetite for chicken tikka.
We remain until the ambulance arrives and then I’m ushered out the back door, into the alley.
Graham steers me around the vomit just outside, and I throw my ruined shoes in a dumpster.
“Keeley, you can’t walk barefoot. There’s probably glass out here.”
“Did you see those shoes? They were sitting in an inch of mouse droppings. I’m pretty sure the pavement can’t be worse.”
I squeal in surprise as he swoops me into his arms, carrying me like I weigh no more than a coat or a small child. “If I’d known you were this strong, I’d have made you carry me everywhere .”
“I should have kept it a secret for longer, Dr. Connolly .” He smiles. “I’ve never heard you introduce yourself like that, by the way.”
“She was panicking, and the whole doctor thing reassures people. Though, obviously”—I point to myself—“it probably should not .”
He carries me in silence, allowing me the space to marvel at how fucking fit he is.
With my arms looped around his neck and my body resting against his, it’s impossible not to notice that his chest and biceps are like carved stone.
I think I see why women look so dazed when Superman rescues them, and it has very little to do with the part where they didn’t die.
But I suppose I was already moderately obsessed.
Ever since that night when he shot me down, I’ve been struggling to turn this thing off.
I don’t know how to stop picturing him when he’s not in the room—the broad set of his shoulders when he’s on my couch, his narrow hip leaning against the kitchen counter, the way he rubs a hand over his jaw when he’s thinking, and how every fucking time he does it I think I want to be that hand .
I don’t know how to stop imagining I smell his soap in places I know it isn’t. How to keep my pulse from racing anytime I see a dark head in a crowd.
I don’t know how to stop thinking about him so fucking hard beneath my hand and him saying, “ does it feel like I don’t want it? ”
“What are you thinking right now?” he asks. His mouth curves upward, almost as if he already knows.
“That I want a big, juicy steak.” It’s not entirely a lie. I do want a steak. He doesn’t need to know everything in my head.
“Your wish is my command, Dr. Connolly .”
By the time I’ve stripped out of my ruined dress, showered, and put on pajamas, Graham has somehow acquired steak and baked potatoes for us.
He even says we can watch TV while we eat.
Of course, the show we’re watching is Dr. Who —his choice, which seems a little unfair.
I mean, did he bring a life into the world tonight? I think not.
“So are these people ever going to have sex?” I demand.
“We’re only ten minutes into it. But there are no sexy kidnappers, if that’s what you’re after. You’ll have to wait and see for the rest.”
I groan. “That means no .”
He pauses the show and glances at me. “You impressed me tonight, you know. Everyone in that kitchen was a wreck, and you were the center of the storm. I felt like anything could have gone wrong and you’d have known what to do.”
“I do way cooler things than that. I can tie a cherry stem with my tongue. And you’re giving me too much credit. It just happened to be a very easy and uncomplicated delivery. If anything had gone wrong, I’d have been up shit creek.”
“For someone who compliments herself incessantly, you sure can’t take a compliment for shit. Can you at least admit you did something good tonight?”
My laughter is a trifle exasperated. “Everyone underestimates me, but I am actually a doctor, Graham. I’m supposed to be able to do that.”
“I think the one who underestimates you, Keeley, is you .”
There’s something in the way he says it that hits a nerve. Maybe it’s just that he sounds a lot like Dr. Patel right now.
Graham’s words echo in my head all night, and they’re still there the following morning when I walk into work and Trinny has that worried look she gets before she tells me I’m double booked all day and have patients until seven.
Why am I still putting up with this? Yes, I know I need this job at the moment, but why am I not even putting out feelers for something else?
The one who underestimates you is you . Maybe Dr. Fox didn’t solely hire me for my looks. Maybe she also liked my utter lack of self-respect, that I came across as someone who would take all the garbage they wanted to shovel out and keep taking it because she didn’t think she deserved more.
I will brag about my breast size and charm to anyone who will listen. Would I ever consider bragging about my skill, though? No. Of course not. I skated through medical school and my residency doing the bare minimum .
Maybe Dr. Patel had a point.
“Let me guess,” I say. “I’m not getting a lunch break?”
“Well, no,” she says. “But…I’m just wondering—is this you?” She turns her phone to me. It takes a second to realize that the girl in the red dress, kneeling on a kitchen floor delivering a baby…is me. The caption reads Hot Pregnant Doc Delivers Baby.
I had no idea someone was filming me last night, and for a second I’m merely irritated that they’re calling me pregnant —it’s not that obvious. They sort of made up for it by calling me “hot”, but still…
Then a more serious concern overshadows it: this video is out in the world, saying I’m pregnant before I’ve revealed it to most of the people I know.
“Where did you find that?” I whisper.
“It was on TikTok this morning. You’re pregnant?”
I swallow. Dr. Fox and Dr. Joliet don’t seem like the type to go on TikTok much, so what are the odds they’ll see it? Shannon and my dad aren’t even on Facebook so I’m not too worried about them.
And honestly…there are millions of videos out there and this one isn’t even all that interesting. “Can you, uh, not say anything about it just yet? I have to tell Dr. Fox still.”
She glances at the video again. “You look really pregnant though.”
“I don’t look that pregnant,” I argue.
One hour later, a nurse leans her head into my office. “Congratulations!” she cries. “I suspected but I didn’t want to say anything.”
I’d almost forgotten about that fucking video, but it comes back to me in a rush. “Congratulations?” I whisper.
“You delivering that baby is international news.”
When she leaves, I look it up. The video has garnered six million views.
I scroll through the comments—a third of them are disgusting, and a fair number insist that I’m definitely not a doctor.
A handful claim my Birkin is fake, and those are the only ones I reply to because fuck that .
I did not get my hands on that bag to have some twenty-year-old manicurist claiming it’s fake because her aunt has a real one and she knows .
But a lot of them are…impressed. Just like Graham was. They like that I spoke Spanish to Graciela. They like that I remained calm and in control while the men in the kitchen looking on were—literally—losing it.
Regardless of which way public opinion is swaying, though, it’s clear that the jig is up. I start typing an email to Fox and Joliet, telling them I’m pregnant, but I’m not finished before Dr. Fox is barking at me over the intercom. “My office. Now .”
I rise from my desk with a heavy sigh. As someone who’s never not gotten told off by her principal, dean, or chief resident, the position I’m in is a familiar one.
Today, however, I’m annoyed at the same time.
I haven’t done anything that wrong. There was nothing in my contract stating I needed to provide them three months’ warning before I had a baby.
There was, however, plenty in my contract referencing California’s labor laws, which they’ve definitely been violating.
And Dr. Fox needs me every bit as much as I need this job, so fuck it. I’m done being scared of this woman. I’m done acting like I’m in the wrong when she’s the one consistently doing a hundred things she shouldn’t.
She turns her phone toward me as I walk in. The article’s headline is Stunning Pregnant Doctor Delivers Baby in Restaurant .
“Care to explain this?” she asks.
“I don’t know that I would have gone with the word stunning ,” I reply. “In New York, maybe, but in LA? I’m a seven. Maybe an eight with makeup.”
She stares at me, incredulous. “Are you under the impression that being a smart ass is going to save your job? I was obviously referring to the fact that you are pregnant .”
“I did not know I was pregnant when I accepted this job. It wasn’t planned, and it is what it is.”
“ ‘It is what it is ’?” she demands. “Have you forgotten you’re still on probation?”
I clench my hands in the pockets of my lab coat. She’s been skating off every day for hair appointments and shopping while making a pregnant woman skip lunch to cover for her, but she’s too fucking self-centered to see past the handful of weeks I’d need for maternity leave.
The handful of weeks she’d have to work as hard as I’ve had to lately, covering for her.
“If you’re going to fire me, go ahead and do it.
” I pull my hands from my pockets and place them on her desk as I lean toward her.
“But I should mention to you that my best friend is one of the leading workplace discrimination lawyers in the country—look up Lawson versus Fiducia and see for yourself—and getting fired when my pregnancy becomes public knowledge sounds like a fucking slam dunk to me.”
I sound like Gemma right now, in the best possible way. But I have no idea if what I said is true…and Kathleen Fox doesn’t look all that scared.
The only person I want to discuss it with as I drive home is Graham. Yes, he’s been on me for a while to tell them the truth, but I also know he’ll have my back.