TWENTY-THREE
CALLUM
The door creaks open, and Dr. Roberts steps out, dragging the ultrasound machine behind him with the look of someone debating where to dump it.
The cleaners started stacking chairs in the corner. The clinic room is locked. Jordie’s scan ran over, longer than expected. Maybe Roberts was just being thorough.
His eyes land on me.
“Ah, Dr. Han. Didn’t realize you waited for me. You could’ve just dropped off the referral.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I would’ve come out sooner. Sorry. My last procedure took longer than expected . . . had a difficult patient.”
Difficult patient?
Something sharp twists low in my gut.
I don’t know what happened yet. But I know Jordie.
And she’s never the fucking problem.
Before I can speak, the door behind him opens again. A nurse leans out.
“Dr. Han?” she says. “Miss Mitchell’s asking for you.”
Roberts freezes. For a second, he pales. His mouth opens. Shuts.
And suddenly, he can’t meet my eyes.
I brush past him, shoulder catching his as I move, and push through the door the nurse is holding open.
The smell hits first. Sharp. Sour. Vomit and antiseptic.
And then Jordie. Perched on the exam table, head bowed, shoulders drawn in. Her hair’s fallen over her face as she fumbles at the strap of one sandal. There’s a tremble in her fingers. She misses the clasp. Again. And again.
“Here,” I say, dropping to one knee. “Let me.”
I take the shoe from her unsteady grip and guide her foot into it gently. Fasten the buckle. Like it’s normal. Like my heart isn’t tearing open at the seams with every breath.
When I stand, she finally looks up.
And I swear to God—
Her face is ashen. Eyes glassy. Rimmed red. Lashes clumped with tears. There’s a faint split on her lip with dried blood smudged at the corner.
I reach out, slow. Push her hair back from her face. My fingers trail along her temple, trace the curve of her jaw, and then rest against her cheek.
She blinks. Sluggish. Her eyes are somewhere else entirely.
“Can you drive me home?” Her voice comes out paper-thin.
“Yeah,” I nod. “Of course.”
She doesn’t say anything else. Just stares past me—through me—barely here at all.
“Jordie . . . what happened?”
She tries to smile, but her mouth can’t find the shape. “I’m fine.”
She is not fucking fine.
She’s sitting in the middle of a too-bright room that smells like acid and shame, looking like someone clawed her open and left her to apologize for bleeding—and she’s still trying to make me feel better.
Her eyes flick toward the front desk. “They’re closing soon,” she murmurs. “Can you grab my paperwork?”
She sways slightly. Brings a hand to her temple. “I just need to lie down. I’m dizzy.”
I nod, throat tight. “Yeah. I’ve got it.”
As I turn to leave, the nurse speaks—casually, as if she’s just thinking aloud while wiping down the bench.
“There should be a copy of her report, IUD card, and follow-up appointment waiting at reception,” she says. “There’s also a script for birth control to manage ovarian cysts.”
She glances up, eyes meeting mine.
“You might want to request post-discharge scripts for analgesia, considering she was in significant distress during the scan.”
There is something steely in her tone as she clenches the cloth tighter in her fist.
“Perhaps add something for nausea, since she already had an episode of vomiting mid-procedure.”
I know what she’s doing.
And I thank her for it.
Because she’s placing the weight of something heavy into my hands without directly saying it out loud.
I walk out, each step dragging, thick and heavy, as though I’m wading through wet concrete. My molars grind as I bite down hard, swallowing the pulse rising in my throat.
At the desk, the admin officer barely glances up.
“Mitchell’s paperwork?” I ask.
She nods, rifles through the tray, then slides over an appointment card and a stapled set of papers. “Follow-up in six weeks. Scripts are in there.”
I take the papers and hurry back to Jordie—
When the door swings open.
Roberts steps out. Bag slung over his shoulder. ID badge tucked away, already in post-shift mode.
Our eyes meet. My fists curl. Hard.
I turn away. Because if I start, I won’t stop.
But then he clears his throat. Opens his fucking mouth.
“Look,” he says, shifting his bag. “About earlier. She wasn’t exactly . . . easy.”
I turn back slow, dangerous. “Easy?”
He shifts, like maybe he heard it out loud and realizes how it sounds.
“You know what would’ve made it easier?” I take a step toward him, voice tight. “Inhaled methoxyflurane. Numbing gel. Anti-spasmodic. Paracetamol. Anything.”
He shrugs. “Dr. Han, you’re in anesthetics. You see pain, you fix pain. That’s your . . . thing.”
My thing? Did this asshole just reduce my entire specialty to a reflex?
“Most of my patients don’t need analgesia,” he bristles. “If she’d just stayed still—”
My eyes pin him in place, voice rising, “You shoved a probe into a patient who was begging you to stop. And your clinical summary is the patient shouldn’t have moved?”
“Dr. Han, it was a standard scan. I—”
“She bit through her lip.” I drag a hand down my face, keeping it busy so I don’t plant my fist in his. “She vomited. Right there. On your floor. That was standard?”
A beat. His throat bobs.
“You don’t get to call her difficult because you couldn’t be fucked managing her pain.” My voice rises, sharp enough for the end-of-shift stragglers to hear. “If that was ‘standard,’ I’d hate to see what negligence looks like.”
Roberts stiffens. “Throwing accusations—”
“That wasn’t an accusation.”
Roberts lets out a dry, scornful laugh. I know it. He’s already drafting his complaint in his head.
“I’m telling Wallis about this,” he says.
I take one last step forward. Close enough that he sees it—my restraint. The fact that he’s one stupid sentence away from becoming a very regrettable use of hospital flooring.
“Fucking. Go. Ahead.”
I unlock the door to my apartment. Mine, because of course when we pulled up to Jordie’s place, the whole street was out. Power gone. Black all the way down to The Strand.
So, I went inside her house. Grabbed some clothes and personal items. Offered my place. Or Leith’s if she preferred.
She was curled up in the passenger seat. Knees to chest, head against the window, staring out at the dark street as if she weren’t really seeing it.
Then, so soft, “Let’s go to yours.”
Now we’re here in my apartment. I set the pizza down on the counter, shove the mango gelato in the freezer, and drop her bag on the floor.
Jordie steps inside, unhurried, looking around the space.
The modern, polished feel of the place was more Claudia’s taste than mine. When we’d first looked at it, I remember thinking it felt cold. Impersonal. But the view—that endless stretch of ocean, Magnetic Island off in the distance—was the selling point.
Jordie’s gaze catches on it now. The dark water framed in glass. For a moment, something in her shoulders ease.
“You okay?” I ask, watching her take it in. Still. Quiet. Eyes fixed on the sea as if it might answer back.
She’s always had a thing for soft, quiet things. Streetlamps blinking on at dusk. The smell of rain on hot pavement. The kind of beauty most people miss if they’re not looking.
I don’t rush her. Just let her stand there. Let her breathe.
“Yeah. Just never been here before.” Her lips twitch, trying for a smile. This time, it sticks. Faint. But real. “It’s nice.”
“Come on,” I say gently. “Let’s eat before the pizza gets cold.”
She nods and moves to the couch. We sit with the box between us. No words. Just crust crunching. Companionable silence. Easy, considering the weight of the day.
When we’re done, Jordie leans back with a quiet sigh. “Mind if I shower?”
“Bathroom’s down the hall,” I tell her. “I forgot to pack your shampoo. You can use whatever’s there. Claudia’s stuff is in the bottom drawer.”
The second Claudia’s name leaves my mouth, I taste the wrongness of it. Like I’ve just yanked someone else into the room, uninvited. A ghost neither of us asked for.
Jordie freezes for a breath. Then nods. “Right. Thanks.”
I don’t know if it’s because I said Claudia, or because she’s about to walk into a bathroom that isn’t hers on a day she’s already run out of fight.
The door clicks shut behind her. A second later, I hear the pipes groan.
I lean against the counter, staring at the empty pizza box. But my brain’s in that bathroom. That drawer. Claudia’s half-used shampoo still sitting there, not because I couldn’t throw it out. Just never gotten around to it.
And now Jordie’s in there, probably staring down at bottles that don’t belong to either of us.
I push off the counter. Discard the box. Head to my room. Swap the button-down for a worn T-shirt, dress pants for trackies. On the way back, I grab a couple of thick blankets from the cupboard and start setting up the couch. Fluff a pillow. Drape a throw over the backrest and across the cushions.
“Callum?” Jordie calls, voice almost sheepish.
I turn.
She peeks out, cheeks pink. Towel slung over her shoulders. Damp hair clinging to her neck in soft, uneven wisps. “Do you have a hair dryer I can use?”
“En suite. Top drawer.” I nod toward my room. “Feel free to use it there.”
She nods, disappearing down the hall. The click of my bedroom door follows.
I grab the gelato from the freezer, two spoons, and set them on the coffee table.
I sit on the couch and search Netflix for The Princess Bride.
Her favorite. The one she once called “the best book-to-screen adaptation of all time, and I will die defending this truth like it’s the last bridge at Helm’s Deep. ”
I hear her footsteps before I see her.
And when I look up, her hair is pulled into a messy bun, a few loose strands falling against her neck and framing her face.
There’s something about the way she looks—soft, natural, bare thighs skimming underneath my oversized hoodie—that’s both innocent and captivating.
As if she’s wrapped herself in a part of me, and now I don’t know what to do with my eyes.
Or my hands. Or the static behind my ribs.
“Hope you don’t mind.” She tugs the sleeves down over her hands. “It’s getting cold.”
Mind?
I shake my head. “No. Not at all.”
She settles beside me, bare knee brushing mine as she tucks her legs under herself, pulling the hoodie tighter like she’s bracing against a chill.
She smells clean. Familiar. Not coconut, which I’d almost expected. Just . . . her. And somehow—mine.
“I, uh . . .” she says, low and hesitant, “didn’t use Claudia’s stuff. Didn’t want to smell like her and give you a reminder.”
For a second, I just stare at her wrapped in my clothes, sitting in my space. And I wonder how the hell she’s still thinking about me after the day she’s had. How could anyone think she’s cold, hard, detached when she’s like this:
Soft.
Present.
So here it makes my chest ache.
We dig into the gelato. She takes a generous spoonful, eyes fluttering shut as she puts it in her mouth.
She shivers. Before I can think, I wrap an arm around her shoulders.
She leans in without hesitation, settling against me with a familiarity that hits somewhere deep.
Her warmth presses into my side. The strands of hair brushing my jaw. Arm slipping across my stomach, loose.
I pull the blanket over us, tucking it gently around her.
She exhales and melts into me completely.
And she just . . . fits.
I stare straight ahead, swallowing hard, telling myself this is just comfort.
Just what normal friends do. Just taking care of her.
But fuck, it’s dangerous how right this feels.
Suddenly, my phone vibrates on the coffee table.
Trevor Wallis.
Jordie and I stiffen at the same time.
When she speaks, her voice is wary, “Are you going to get that?”
I don’t move. Fingers hovering over the phone. For a second, I think about letting it ring out. About staying here in this bubble Jordie and I have somehow made for ourselves.
But it’s Trevor. And if I don’t answer now, it’ll be worse later.
I force a smile that feels thin. “I’ll be quick.” My voice doesn’t crack, but it’s a near thing.
I untangle from Jordie, every part of me protesting the loss of her weight against me. Stand. Grab the phone.
The balcony door slides open with a quiet scrape.
I glance back through the glass. Jordie’s on the couch, knees pulled to her chest, eyes following me with that part-concerned, part-trying-to-hide-it look.
I turn away, focusing on the distant lights and the dark outline of Magnetic Island against the night sky.
I brace one hand against the railing. Steel myself. Answer the call.
“Sir.”
He doesn’t waste time.
“Is there something going on with you and Mitchell?” Trevor’s voice is devoid of warmth.
I grip the balcony railing harder.
“No, sir. We’re friends.” And then, feeling the need to establish boundaries, I add, “And even if there was, with all due respect, it’s really none of your business.”
“It is when you’re spectacularly destroying your director track, Han.”
I can practically hear the restraint in his jaw.
“You humiliated a specialist in his own hallway and tossed around the word ‘negligence.’ First, the Emergency Department, now Gynecology. Are there more inter-departmental bridges you plan on burning?”
I bite back a bitter laugh. “If those bridges lead to doctors like Roberts and Hart, I’m fine watching them burn.”
“Hell, Han. Did I make a mistake backing you for the Associate role? Because the only things keeping you in contention are your time-to-extubation stats, the fact that you run the only on-call roster that doesn’t implode, and your QI project on ERAS-aligned opioid-sparing pathways.”
I pace—tight, quick steps across the balcony, my free hand dragging through my hair.
“Which brings me to say . . .” I pause. “I’m changing my research focus. My primary submission will now be: Implementation and Preliminary Evaluation of Inhaled Methoxyflurane for Analgesia During Conscious IUD Insertion in a Gynecology Outpatient Clinic.”
“Are you insane?!” His voice cracks down the line incredulously. “You toss your current project now, it’s professional suicide.”
“Maybe. But if one more woman has to lie there, in that kind of pain, while we stand by and call it standard—” My voice fractures. “Then what the hell are we even doing, sir?”
I glance back through the glass.
Jordie’s still there, curled up on the couch, watching me—until our eyes meet, and she looks away.
“Han, why are you really doing this?”
“Because if I don’t do it, sir . . . then who will?”
For a long beat, all I hear is the faint hiss of the line.
Then Trevor exhales, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Han.”
My chest rises—tight, full of everything I can’t say.
The call ends.
I let the phone fall to my side as the night swallows the last of Trevor’s voice.
Through the glass, Jordie’s still on the couch. Small. Quiet. Tucked into the corner, folded into herself like she’s trying to disappear.
And for the first time, I wonder what lines I’m willing to cross for her.
Or if this, right here, was always the line.