14. Charlie
CHAPTER 14
CHARLIE
H aving Megan Bright in his apartment was making Charlie happier than he thought reasonable, considering the circumstances. She sat at his breakfast bar and ate a deconstructed cake out of one wine glass while drinking rosé out of another. Tonight, he’d wanted to wine and dine her before spending hours in bed with her, taking it as slow as possible. He wanted to watch her savor what he had to give her, all of it.
As an excuse, he had used his own pride, telling her he needed to remind her how good he was, that he would always be better than every other partner she had after him. But really, he just liked to watch her when she felt amazing. It made him happy for some reason.
He was doing dishes from the dinner he’d made for both of them — enjoying her compliments about his cooking, and looking forward to enjoying her compliments about the rest of what he planned to do for her — when his doorbell rang. Who could it be at this hour, he wondered. He wasn’t expecting any guests, and he wasn’t the type to forget any guests he might have been expecting either.
“Hang on,” he said to Megan as he went to answer the door. Much to his immense disappointment, the person on the other side was his father.
“Charlie,” his father said when Charlie opened the door. “I’m glad you’re up. We need to talk.”
Oh, this never went well. Never, in his entire life, did his father saying we need to talk end in his favor, but he didn’t dare turn his own father away.
“All right,” Charlie said. “I was a little busy, but come on in.”
“This won’t take long.” And he pushed past Charlie into the apartment. The main thing Jon Sullivan seemed to never quite understand was personal boundaries — or at least, honoring his son’s personal boundaries. Charlie often wondered whether his older brother had the same problem, or was he given a level of respect Charlie hadn’t yet earned?
His father led the way into his dining room, and Charlie had a momentary panic attack about how he was going to explain Megan’s presence in his apartment. He knew his father didn’t want him dating, let alone dating the competition. But when he turned the corner, he saw that Megan wasn’t there anymore. She must have made her way back to his bedroom. He would have to remember to thank her later.
Megan may have stepped out, but she’d left her deconstructed cake and wine on the counter. Charlie’s father sat in her chair and picked up the cake. “Fancy dessert to be having all on your own,” he said. “You usually eat chocolate chips straight out of the bag.”
Charlie shrugged. “I’m trying to embrace a classier lifestyle.”
“Well, you may be overdoing it, Son.” His father picked up the fork and started eating Megan’s dessert. Charlie didn’t have the courage to stop him. “Delicious, though,” he said after taking his first bite. “You sure you’re in the right profession?” He laughed the way he always did when he told one of his jokes.
Charlie scowled at him as he took another bite of deconstructed cake. “What did you come here to talk about?”
“Ah.” His father straightened in his seat and set Megan’s dessert down. “I want to make sure you’re doing what you need to do to succeed in your area of interest, which I assume is surgery.” He shot Charlie a meaningful look.
Charlie hesitated but eventually caved. “I mean, yes, obviously.”
“So what’s this I hear about you taking extra pediatrics rotations? How is that supposed to get you a surgical fellowship?”
“Kids need surgery too, Dad.”
“Yeah, but that’s not the work you’ve been doing, is it?”
Charlie didn’t know what to say. His father had always expected him to go into surgery. His brother was a heart surgeon and the current pride of the family. It was nothing Charlie could compete with and nothing he wanted to compete with. But the family expectation was surgery, so he had to find a way in. He finally answered his father. “I’m aiming for pediatric surgery. All pediatric experience pushes me in the right direction.”
“Ambitious,” his father said, “considering you’re also going into research like your grandfather.” And he took another bite of Megan’s cake. “Don’t slack.”
“I’m not slacking. I’m doing quite well, actually. There’s only one other student who’s managing to compete with me as a resident.”
“What’s he specializing in?”
Charlie paused, realizing for the first time that he didn’t know. “Um… Well, I’m not sure. I’m not even sure whether she knows what she wants to specialize in. I should probably ask her.” He suddenly felt bad and didn’t fully understand why.
“You do that.” His father put down the fork and stood — to leave, if Charlie had any luck at all. “And once you know what her specialty is, you crush her. All right, Son? As long as we’re clear here. You can’t let up. Don’t get soft. Medicine, particularly surgery, is not a specialty for a softy. Time to toughen up.”
“I know, I know.” Charlie headed toward the front door, hoping his father would get the hint. “I still have some studying left to do tonight, if you don’t mind. But thank you so much for the encouraging talk.”
Jon Sullivan stopped at the front door and turned back toward his son one more time before he left. “Don’t let me down, Charlie. Our family reputation is in your hands, you know. Everything is in your hands now.”
“I won’t, Dad. I promise.”
His father pointed at him and said, “We’re counting on it,” right before Charlie closed the front door.
He walked back to the bedroom feeling about twenty tons of weight on his shoulders. All his energy was gone. All he wanted to do was curl up in bed and pray for unconsciousness, but he knew Megan would be waiting for more than that.
As soon as he walked into the room, she noticed the weight he carried. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“I will be,” he answered.
“I heard some of that, but I didn’t want to interfere.”
He dropped down onto his bed. “I appreciate that.”
She lay down beside him, but instead of immediately seducing him, she tucked her pillow under her head and started a conversation. “You look like a completely different person right now. Kayla told me you had family pressures, but I had no idea it was this bad. Why do you let it get to you like this? It’s your life. You should do what you want with it.”
Charlie breathed deeply and knew it was already too late. He had let his vulnerability show, and denying it now would only make him look weaker. “It’s never really been my life. Since I was a kid, I knew what would be expected of me. The thing is, I never had a problem with that. I wanted to give something big to the legacy of my family, and the fact that doing so just meant I’d be helping more people only made me want it more.” He rolled onto his back, crossed his arms behind his head, and stared up at his bedroom ceiling. “The more he pushes, though, the more I doubt my own ambitions. If he only knew that was what he was doing every time he came over here for another one of his pep talks.”
She tucked a foot under his leg, and the moment felt so intimate, so familiar, he had a hard time convincing himself this was a woman he was only sleeping with for fun. “Do you really want to go into pediatric surgery? I’ve never heard you mention it before.”
“I mean, why not?” he said with a shrug. “It makes my father happy, and I don’t mind the idea of helping kids.”
“I feel like the kids might appreciate a little more enthusiasm than that.” She kicked him lightly with her other foot. “ Not minding the idea of helping them seems kind of blah, doesn’t it?”
“It’s the most I’ve got to give to anyone these days.”
“Oh, I don’t believe that.” She came close enough to peck his cheek, but Charlie couldn’t return the affection.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just so tired.”
“Your dad really saps you that much, huh?”
He nodded. “Maybe next time we should just go to your place.”
She laughed and mirrored his position, crossing her arms behind her head and staring up at the ceiling. “Oh, that might not be so easy. I actually live with my mom. She’s great, you know, but she’s always there. Really, I’m lucky to live with her, since I probably couldn’t afford my own place even if I wanted it — not in this city, anyway. It doesn’t matter, though. She has chronic fatigue and needs my help. Not that I’m complaining. I need her, too. She’s the best roommate I’ve ever had.”
“Wow. Med school must have been rough on you. It was rough on me, and I didn’t have a parent to take care of. How did you come out of it in one piece?”
“Well…” She shrugged and turned to face him. “I guess it’s just something I really, really wanted.”
“I don’t think I could have done it were I in your place. Yet you came to our residency with as much skill and knowledge as I did.”
“Oh, I don’t think?—”
“Don’t get all humble on me now, Bright. You know what you’re capable of.” He turned toward her, too. “I’m used to you being proud, and I like you that way. You’re passionate about medicine, too, far more passionate than I am. But then you chose it, didn’t you? I just kind of… accepted it.”
She shook her head and took both his hands in hers. “There’s no way you stuck with it as long as you did because you ‘just accepted it.’ That takes a lot of love for the work. You can’t make it through med school without at least a little passion for the job. You probably just don’t see it because it’s always been there, and you just got used to it.”
“Thank you, Bright.” He inched closer to her. “You do realize you’re giving comfort to your enemy, though, don’t you?”
She snuggled close to him and pressed her head against his chest. “Maybe we could dispense with the whole enemy thing for a while.”
“Really?” He could hardly believe his ears.
“I mean it’s getting kind of old, isn’t it? We could try another tack by like… helping and supporting each other, couldn’t we?”
Charlie threw his arms around her and pulled her in until she was pressed into the most enthusiastic hug he’d probably ever given anyone. “What a revolutionary idea!” he cried. Then he laughed and kissed her.
For the rest of that night, they lay next to each other and talked, and the number of things they found they had in common was pretty astounding. Charlie could never have guessed that someone outside his family felt the kind of pressure he did, but Megan really did. She felt pressure to succeed so her mother never felt like a burden or that she had somehow ruined her daughter’s chances just by needing her around. That kind of pressure was something Charlie could appreciate.
And yet, Megan’s attitude never did reflect the pressure she must have felt. She was a bright, sunshiny spot on what Charlie had always seen as a dark, foreboding horizon. When she finally drifted off to sleep in his arms, all he found himself thinking about was how lucky he was to have met her, and how much he had to learn from her. Suddenly, he looked up to someone outside his family, someone who wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth, someone who struggled and won in ways he could only dream of.
Unbelievably, the infamous Charlie Sullivan realized he wanted to learn more from his rival, and that was about as far as he could take this revelation without actually admitting that he loved her, which he was absolutely not about to do.