22. Roman
CHAPTER 22
ROMAN
The call disconnected, and I slid the phone into my pocket as my head dropped back on my shoulders. The lights from the hospital and surrounding buildings on base blurred out most of the stars, so there wasn’t much to look at.
Jesus! What was I thinking?
I wasn’t. I reacted to him calling me bossy and what the thought of bossing him around in bed did to the fit of my uniform pants. I couldn’t believe I said that shit to him.
Sighing, I rubbed my palms over my face and head and tried to turn off the porn playing in my head.
“Dr. Ott? Can I speak with you?”
I spun around. My CO stood there. Talk about an erection eraser. The woman had no personality and zero facial expression. Ever. She must be a helluva poker player. If she played poker, that is. She didn’t seem the fun type.
“Yes, Colonel.”
“I need you to work through the morning. I’ll try to get you out of here by lunch, but I don’t know if that will work. Dr. James called out with the flu.”
“Not a problem.”
Working a double wasn’t ideal, but Dr. James had covered for me when I asked once, so I had no issues doing the same for him. We didn’t have much planned this week, and I was off tomorrow night.
My pager went off, pulling me out of my head. I pulled my pager off my belt as I walked out of the room and headed back to the ER.
“Dr. Ott. Here are the test results on the patient in two.”
“Thank you, Cari,” I said, taking the results from her and looking them over. “Up his O2 and pressors and call down cardiology.”
“Yes, doctor.”
She scooted around me, heading back to the patient. I walked over to the desk, pulled out my phone, and texted Mama.
Roman
Working a double. My replacement has the flu.
Mama must’ve had her ringer on because she responded a few minutes later. That was never a good sign. She was crabby when she didn’t sleep well.
Mama
Margot will be disappointed.
A groan rumbled through my chest. Mama could be the sweetest, most loving woman you ever met, and she could also be the exact opposite.
Roman
I know, Mama, but I’ve gotta work.
Mama
Guess we’ll see you when you get here.
I moved to put my phone away, but it dinged. The smile that stretched my face refused to be contained. I probably looked demented, grinning at my phone the way I was, but I couldn’t help it.
Carson
Going wheels up.
Talk to you in a few weeks.
Roman
Fly safe. You got this. I know it.
Carson
We’ll see.
But thanks.
“Dr. Ott, Cardiology would like to speak with you about the patient in two.”
I stood, slipped the phone in my pocket, and grabbed the patient’s chart before following Cari to the patient’s bedside. I walked into the room; the cardiologist stood at the patient’s bedside, talking to the Army specialist who had been injured in a blast.
“So, I’ll get you set up for transport home,” the doctor said, patting the soldier’s shoulder.
“Hi, I’m Dr. Ott,” I said, my hand outstretched.
The other doctor’s nose curled up, and he sniffed as he glanced at my hand. I pulled it back, and he said, “I’m Dr. Piers.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“I explained the treatment plan to the specialist.”
“Yeah, he says I’m going home on the next flight out,” Specialist Martin said, drawing my gaze.
I looked from the patient to the chart, then let my gaze travel over the monitors to cover my shock. I didn’t want to come out swinging in this fight, but there was no way I would sign off on putting this kid on a transatlantic flight.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Not so good, if I’m being completely honest. My chest feels like an elephant’s sitting on it.”
“Well, let’s get some more readings. I know you want to get home to recover close to your family or as close as possible, but we want you to be as stable as possible before we put you in the air.”
The patient nodded, looking between me and Dr. Piers.
I patted his shoulder, then said, “Good. Let Dr. Piers and I take a closer look at your test results and see what the new readings say, okay?”
“Yeah. That sounds good. I fucking hate flying when I’m 100%. I’m glad I was out of it for the flight here.”
“Dr. Piers?” I urged as I walked to the door of the trauma room, holding it open and waiting for him to join me.
Once in the hall, I said, “That soldier needs to be admitted to the cardiac care unit for observation. He does not need tossing on a plane for a ten-hour flight.”
“I disagree. His results are well within the limits for transport.”
We continued to argue over the patient’s treatment plan. The cardiologist was a condescending jerk, and I finally said, “Tell you what. If my attending agrees, I’ll sign off on the transport.”
Dr. Piers huffed and nodded as he rubbed the back of his neck, clearly frustrated.
I turned to Cari, who stood waiting for further instructions for this patient. She didn’t even wait for me to ask. She just said, “Colonel Craig is at the desk.”
Walking back to the desk, I prayed I hadn’t just done something Dr. Craig was going to rip my ass apart for.
“Dr. Craig, I hate having to do this…”
“Then I would suggest not doing it.”
I blinked.
Several times.
The woman scared the bejesus out of me, but she had the clout I needed to get my patient the care he needed. I just didn’t have it.
At least not yet.
Plus, I was the new guy, and I’d not proved myself to them yet. It sucked, but I couldn’t say I’d be any different. No way would I trust another doctor’s opinion if I didn’t know them and their style and abilities. But I didn’t care about any of that. There was no way I was putting this guy on a plane to the States. He needed to be stabilized here first.
When I said nothing else, she said, “What is it, Dr. Ott?”
“I’d like you to examine my patient. I need a second opinion.”
“Why?” she asked without bothering to look at me.
Sighing, I bit back the response I wanted to give and said, “Because I feel he needs further stabilization before being sent back to the U.S., but cardiology doesn’t seem to agree.”
Her head turned toward me slowly. Her forehead furrowed, and one of her eyebrows climbed halfway up to her hairline before she asked, “Is it Piers?”
I nodded, and she sighed before standing up. “Well, let’s go.”
I handed her the chart and followed her, giving her the rundown on the patient. When we walked back to the patient’s room, Dr. Craig said, “Dr. Piers, we both know this patient needs a cardiac bed.”
“I don’t agree, Colonel.”
She crossed her arms and said, “You’re refusing to admit this patient because your attending’s in the on-call room asleep, and you’re too chicken shit to wake him up.”
“That’s…”
She held up her hand and continued, “Here’s what you’re going to do. You are going to march yourself back upstairs, wake up Dr. Jordan, then you’re going to move this patient to the cardiac floor and out of my ER. Understood?”
That wasn’t a request. It was an order, and he knew it.
“Yes, ma’am,” Dr. Piers responded, snapping to attention and saluting Dr. Craig.
She returned the salute and said, “Good. Now, go. We’ll wait.”
Piers spun on his heel, executing the most perfect about-face I’d seen since OCS, then high-tailed it to the elevators. Dr. Craig accomplished more for this patient than I had all morning, and I felt ridiculous, especially when my patient was rolled onto the elevator with Dr. Piers along for the ride upstairs less than fifteen minutes later.
“Dr. Craig, I apologize that I had to…”
Dr. Craig patted my shoulder. “Don’t. That was fucking posturing. You did exactly what you were supposed to do.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“You’re welcome. Now, since everyone seems to be sick and unable to report for duty, you’re stuck working a double today. So, why don’t you take a couple of hours to grab some lunch and see your kiddo? Then come back and help me get through the rest of the day?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I didn’t give her a second to reconsider. I rushed out of the hospital and off base like my tail was on fire. Typically, I was asleep during this part of the day since I worked nights, and the ease of getting off base compared to shift change blew my mind. The trip home took half the time.
“What are you doing home?”
I turned toward my mom’s voice after removing my shoes. I smiled and bussed her cheek with a kiss, even though the tone of her voice and the look on her face told me she was ticked off about something.
“Umm. I live here.”
“Don’t get smart with me.”
I sighed. I didn’t know what crawled up inside her, but she’d been tetchy for a couple of months, and it was getting worse.
“I left my wallet here last night.”
“Umm hmm.”
“Mom, you wanted me to come home. You said Margot would be disappointed when I texted you, so I came home as soon as I could.”
“Umm hmm.”
“Daddy!”
Margot raced toward me, and I scooped up my little bit, dropping kisses all over her face and neck until she was giggling. I wandered through the house to the kitchen. Mom’s footsteps kept time with us. She wasn’t glued to my rear, but she was close enough.
I ignored her and set Margot on the counter next to the fridge. I opened the door and asked, “What sounds good, punkin?”
“You’re supposed to be teaching her German, or did you forget?”
Gritting my teeth, I turned toward Mama and smiled. “Nope. I didn’t forget.”
I looked back at Margot and asked, “Was hort sich gut an?”
Margot looked at me and shrugged as she stumbled over her words. “Ich wei? es nicht.”
We’d begun with phrases she’d use regularly, and she was picking it up like a champ.
“Yeah, I don’t know what sounds good either.”
I pulled out leftovers from the night before, and Margot danced in delight. She loved mashed potatoes. She’d live on them if we let her, but luckily, she didn’t fight us too hard about eating other things, too.
Mama was still eyeing me with that look moms get when they know you’re hiding something when she handed me the plates. I loaded the plates with the warmed food, and she took them from me. The tension between us could be cut with a knife.
As soon as she sat down, she picked up her fork, cutting into the schnitzel and potatoes. It was halfway to her mouth when I finally had enough.
“What’s wrong?”
She sighed and lowered her fork, then glanced at Margot, smiling. My little girl wiggled in her seat, dancing while she ate. It was the cutest thing, and it never failed to make Mama and I giggle.
“Mama?”
She stared straight at me, her face set firmly with that determined look I hated.
I leveled a glare at her.
“Not the time nor the place,” she said. Her eyes flitted to Margot and back to mine. “Plus, you don’t have the time for me to pick you apart with questions. I’m sure you’ve gotta get back to the hospital.”
“Mo…”
“I said no, Roman.”
I grabbed my fork and shoveled food into my mouth. The food that tasted amazing last night turned to sawdust and cardboard after a few bites. I dropped my silverware to my plate. My guts churned with the tension and anxiety her attitude had caused. I had no freaking clue what had crawled up her rear end, but I wasn’t going to sit here letting it fester. Snatching up my plate, I scraped the food in the trash.
“Roman…”
I ignored her and squatted next to Margot’s chair. “Daddy’s gotta go back to work, punkin. I’ll see you soon, okay?”
Margot nodded, dancing as she took another bite. “Ummkay,” she mumbled around the mouth of mashed potatoes.
I kissed her forehead and strode out of the kitchen, continuing to ignore my mother. In the car, I gripped the steering wheel so tight my hands ached. The leather burned my hands as I twisted them. I dropped my forehead to rest between them.
After a few breaths, I lifted my head, and Mama stood on the stoop watching me. I rolled down the window and called, “You want to tell me what’s wrong?”
She turned and went back into the house. I started the car and pulled out onto the street. The ride back to the hospital sucked. I questioned everything. I didn’t know if I’d done something to piss her off or what, but she and I were going to have a conversation because I refused to live on eggshells.
As I parked at the hospital, my phone rang, and I sighed when I saw her name on the screen.
“Is Margot okay?” I asked.
“She fine. I turned on a movie so I could call you.”
“And we couldn’t have this conversation while I was at home?”
“I didn’t think I could look you in the eye when we spoke.”
What the fuck?
“Mama, what’s going on? Are you okay?”
“Are you gay?”
My blood turned into an over-carbonated pop that had been shaken up. My vision blurred, and my head pounded along with my racing heart. Swallowing, I tried, and failed, to get the panic to disappear.
“What?” I asked, my voice cracked, giving away my anxiety.
“You heard me.”
My mind raced. I’d never come out to her, so I couldn’t imagine how she arrived at the exact right conclusion.
“Why do you ask?”
“You left your browser open on the laptop.”
Oh fuck!
My eyes fell closed slowly, and I dropped my head into the palm of my hand, resting my elbow on the console between the seats. I had no clue what she saw. It could’ve been porn, my Gmail, or Yahoo Messenger, both of which I used to arrange hook-ups.
“Roman?”
“What do you want me to say, Mama? I don’t know what you saw.”
“I want you to tell me the truth. We’ve always been honest with each other.”
“We have been, yes.”
“Then be honest with me now.”
“Mama, I’ve gotta…”
“They can wait just a damn minute. Now. Answer me.”
“I can’t, Mama.”
“Can’t what?”
“Answer you.”
“Why not?”
I swallowed and said, “The DOD says so, that’s why. And you need to keep your suspicions to yourself. Now…”
“Roman…
“Mama, I’ve gotta go. I love you. Kiss Margot for me. I’ll be home later.”
I punched the button on the screen of my phone and shoved open my car door, slamming it shut before striding across the parking lot toward the ER.
I threw myself into work as soon as I walked back through the doors, burying my head in the sand as much as I could. But nothing could block out the thoughts running through my head.
Jesus, fuck! What the hell did she see?
How could I be so stupid?
“Hey! Roman! You okay?”
I jolted. My heart rate kicked into overdrive, and I sucked in a breath as I looked up from the chart I’d been staring at. If you asked me, I wouldn’t be able to tell you a thing that was on it.
Ursula stood in front of me. Her brow furrowed and mouth turned down.
“What?”
“You’ve been stuck in that one spot for like five minutes, not moving, and I would swear you weren’t breathing.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m fine. I was just reading over this chart.”
She pulled it from my hands. “Okay. What’s the patient’s name, and where are they now?”
Nothing.
My mind went utterly blank, and that scared the shit out of me because I just treated the guy. That’s all I could tell you about the person. At this point, I couldn’t even tell you what procedures I’d done on the man.
“Right. That’s what I thought. Now, tell me what’s wrong.”
I locked my gaze on hers as I said, “I can’t.”
“Roman…”
I gritted my teeth and said between them, “I can’t .”
Her mouth opened, rounding into a silent “Oh.” She looked around us and then said, “Come with me.”
“Ursula, I’ve got patients.”
“Not in this shape, you don’t. Now, come with me. They’ll page you if they need you.”
I followed her down the hall to the consultation room. As soon as the door shut behind her, she asked, “What happened? Who knows? Or suspects?”
“My mother.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it only to open it again. She looked like someone had a remote and kept pressing pause.
“I’ve never said anything, and with Margot…”
“And the egg donor…”
“Don’t call her that. She’s still Margot’s mama.”
“She’s no mama. She was an egg-donating incubator.”
“Fine. I’m in no mood to argue with you today.”
“Good. You wouldn’t win anyway.”
She could be the most frustrating person on the planet, and I lived with my mother and a preschooler. “Ursula.”
“Alright, so does she know or suspect, and how do you know?”
“She acted funny. Like weirder than ever. She was almost nasty, refused to talk to me when I went home for lunch, but she called and asked. Blatantly. She didn’t sugarcoat it or beat around a bush.”
“Damn. How?”
“All I know is I left the browser open on the laptop.”
“Jesus! What if Margot opened it?”
“As if I need to stress about something else.”
“Right. Sorry. So, what did she see?”
“I’ve got no clue.”
“Were you watching something or talking to someone?”
“ I don’t know, ” I said the words slowly, punctuating each one.
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Were you flying solo or trying to hook up?”
“Jesus! What does it matter?”
“Well, according to what I’ve been told by someone you recently dated, I can only imagine what she read if you were hooking up, or , to take it further, where your tastes in movies run.”
I wouldn’t be kink-shamed.
“There’s nothing…”
She held her hands up. “Don’t go there. You know I wouldn’t.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. You’re freaked out, and rightly so.”
I nodded, completely thrown by the fact I screwed up so badly.
“Okay, so here’s what you’re going to do. First, you’re going to set up separate user accounts on that computer, and second, you’re going put a password on your account so people can’t just open the damn thing and see whatever you were too wrung out to shut down, post orgasm.”
“Ursula!”
“What? Don’t act like a puritanical prude now. It’s a little too late for that, what with the ropes, belts, and dirty talk.”
My face heated so fast that I probably looked like a cartoon thermometer.
“Oh my God,” I groaned.
“Oh, hush. What number was I on? Oh, right. Third, you’re going to talk to your mother. She’s a sweet lady who’s supported you in everything. She’ll be alright. And so will you.”
I dropped into one of the chairs as all the life and strength drained away. Tears welled. Ursula was right. Mama loved me unconditionally. She was just shocked. I wasn’t super kinky. I just liked to tie my partners up or hold them down. Oh, and I had a filthy mouth when I needed to get my rocks off. So, it was hard telling what sort of eyeful she got, but it didn’t matter.
“You good?”
I nodded and looked up at her. “Yeah. No. I don’t know, but I do know I will be. Thank you for talking me off the ledge.”
“No problem. I’ll send you my bill.”
“Oh jeez, I’m gonna regret this, aren’t I?”
She cackled like the Mad Hatter as she pranced out of the room, yelling, “Aye, aye, Captain.”
“I ain’t in the fucking Navy,” I mutter, which only made her laugh more.
“Yet,” she replied, sticking her tongue at me as she bounced out of the room.
I rolled my eyes, following after her to finish my shift.