7. Matty
Chapter seven
Matty
“Will this day ever end?” I tossed back the last of my energy drink and threw it into the trash.
“You’re lucky. I still have four hours to go,” Sierra said over the pecking at her keyboard. I was a decent typist, but her fingers flew faster than the Millenium Falcon. Oddly, her typing speed paled compared to how quickly unintelligible words flew out of her mouth when she was angry or excited. Woe be it unto the man who pissed off my Lady of House Latina.
I groaned. “Lucky isn’t how I would describe myself after today.”
There must’ve been an extra helping of despair in my voice because Sierra stopped typing and turned toward me. “Okay, dearest, tell mamasita all about it. What happened in the big, bad emergency room to make my sweet little Matty all pouty?”
My chair wailed as I leaned back and propped my head against the wall.
“It’s Renaissance Festival week,” I began while staring into the ceiling tiles.
“Oh, God,” she groaned.
“Yeah,” I agreed. Any nurse with ten seconds of experience knew to fear festivals and themed events. “So, they brought this guy in. Picture every man you would expect to see not in costume at one of those fairs.”
“ Star Trek nerd on crack?”
“Ten points to the lady.”
Sierra did a princess wave to our imaginary crowd.
“I’ll cover the rest of your shift if you can guess why he came to the ER.”
As fiery as Sierra was when she got mad, she was even more competitive.
“GI issues from the turkey-leg-eating contest?”
“Nope.”
“He decided to try the women’s clothing and got the corset stuck?”
“Not even close.”
She crossed her arms and pooched out her lower lip. “Give me a hint.”
I grinned. She never begged. “I’ll narrow it down. Think below the belt.”
Her pearly whites flashed. “He shoved a corn-dog stick into his penis?”
“Oh, holy mother of pearl, why are you my friend?” I covered my mouth. “That made Little Matty shiver—and not in the fun, tingly way.”
She giggled and guessed again. “He used leather straps to tie his ball sack?”
“I quit. No more guessing.”
“Did I get it right?” She leaned forward, excited.
“Not a chance. You were barking up the . . . well . . . you were focused on the wrong end of the patient.”
“Oooh. What got stuck up his ass?”
The most common things we removed from patients’ butts were lightbulbs. Those, however, were not the strangest things we saw. Not by a mile.
I grinned. “A sword.”
She blinked a few times, and her mouth opened, then closed, then opened again.
“No. Fucking. Way.” She blinked again. “Matthew George Michael Elizabeth Taylor Vance, if you are yanking my chain—”
“I swear on Dorothy and Toto and all those who live in Munchkin land.” I raised one hand in the air and placed the other over my heart. “The only good thing was that it was a dummy blade. Nothing was sharpened, and he only had it a couple of inches up there.”
“But still—”
“Cutlery, especially of the medieval variety, does not belongeth up the arse.”
“The guy was lucky he didn’t pierce more than his puckered hole.” She groaned. “Which doc handled him?”
“Michaels.”
She clamped both hands over her mouth and shook her head violently. “No!”
Dean Michaels was the cockiest bastard ever to don a lab coat. He was that doc who treated patients like impositions and nurses like indentured servants. He was probably the best ER doc in all of Atlanta, but the fact he knew it made him virtually unbearable. Despite his ability to heal, no one wanted to see him walk in the door.
“What?” I asked, concern spiking in my chest. “Sisi, what’s wrong?”
“You know what this makes him now? Dear Jesus Almighty. Do we have to kneel or bow? Are his orders now law? Is Michaels divine?”
“Sisi, you’re not making any sense.” I sat upright. “Michaels is disgusting. I would never get on my knees for him. Besides, what does any of this have to do with bowing to that prick?”
Sitting up as straight as she could, Sierra—the unforgivable bitch—made a dramatic motion, as if pulling a sword out of the tiled floor, then lofting it high into the air, and intoned, “Many years ago, in a time before the gods Prozac and Diazepam gave hope to the nurses who served the many, it was foretold: He who removes the sword shall become king of all the lands.”
A pair of nurses sitting with their backs to us burst out laughing. I glanced back to find another, her face wet with tears, reaching for a box of tissues.
I squeezed my eyes shut and let my whole body fall forward so my face was buried in my arms on the desk.
Sierra joined the others and lost her shit right there in the middle of the ER.
“Wow, you guys have a lot more fun than us.” A familiar voice brought my head up so fast I almost got whiplash. Out the corner of my eye, I saw Sierra lock on like some torpedo homing in on the ship it sought to sink.
“Omar,” I said, reaching down to smooth my shirt and check for stains. “Hey.”
“So,” Sisi said, drawing her O out longer than even I might. “You are the infamous baby nurse Matthew has told me so much about?”
Omar took a step back from the desk, as if his proximity to Sierra burned. His eyes darted from me to her. I stood and leaned over the counter.
“This is my best friend, Sierra. She’s harmless as long as you keep that desk between you. Oh, and don’t throw water on her. She’ll go all Wicked Witch on you, and the cleanup is a bitch.”
Sierra shot out of her chair, slapped my arm, and rounded the desk faster than either of us could react. Before I could even speak, both her hands gripped poor Omar’s arms, and her gaze was scanning him like he was trying to slip through security at the airport with an arsenal in his luggage.
“Um-hm,” she muttered, then let her eyes rise to meet his. “And friendly eyes. Good lips.”
“Is he a cow? Are we at the fair?” I stepped around to save him.
Sierra held up one finger, freezing me in my tracks. “This one is cute. You may proceed.”
Without so much as a glance my way, she whirled about and strode down the hall and into a patient room, leaving both Omar and me staring after her.
“Whoa. You have, um, friends,” he managed.
“Yeah, she’s something.” I grunted in agreement. “So, what brings you all the way down to the dungeon that is the ER?”
Omar’s face brightened as he turned and looked up at me. I was only a couple of inches taller, but every gay man knew life was a game of inches.
Or was that football?
I could never remember.
“Well,” Omar said, breaking the spell. “I wanted to see . . . I was thinking . . . if you’re not busy and all . . . and wanted to maybe, you know, after your shift or over the weekend—”
“Yes,” I cut him off.
“But . . . I haven’t asked yet.”
“If I waited for the engraved invitation, we’d never go wherever it is you’re asking me to go. My answer is ‘yes.’ I will go with you.”
His nervous expression morphed into something I might expect on a playful sprite. “So, if I was asking you to marry me, you just agreed?”
Oh, Little One wanted to play, did he?
“Name the time and place. Please, no church, and I get to wear white. You have to wear a tux. You would be sexy as hell in one of those. And we drink champagne afterward, right before we make the babies.”
He coughed through an awkward laugh. “Babies?”
“You work with them all day. You should be the one to carry, don’t you think? A baby bump might look good with your skin tone. Although, I’ve never been sure where they come out when a man has one. Do you know? That wasn’t covered in my nursing school.”
Omar’s grin lit up the whole ER—and that was hard to do with all the medical lighting already beaming from the ceiling.
“How about we start with dinner?”
“Ooh.” I steepled my fingers. “Eating before eating out. I like it.”
He shook his head. “Just dinner. You”—he waved his finger up and down my body—“have to behave.”
I let my head fall and my lip pooch out like Sierra’s had only moments before. Bleach blond curls fell across my forehead. “Fine. Daddy’s so mean. But okay.”
“Daddy!” one of the nurses sitting behind me squawked.
Omar’s face reddened to a tone of crimson I’d never seen on a man. His whole body stiffened, and his eyes shifted from me to the women struggling to contain themselves behind me. Damn it, if he hadn’t just gotten cuter.
“Okay. South City Kitchen at eight o’clock tonight?”
“Sure.”
“Great. See you then.”
And faster than Sierra could type—or rant—Omar fled the ER.