1.
Who is in charge of our HR department? Do we even have one? When you find out, let me know. I’d like to file a formal complaint against Amethyst. It’s absolutely none of her business what I’m packing downstairs.
Text from Terran to Spruce
AMY
“I need you to take this into the bathroom and fill it up to at least that bottom line, okay?”
My patient looked at me like I was nuts, but I smiled at him and then rested my hand on his shoulder to nudge him toward the door, hoping he’d take a minute or two so I could talk to his mom. Once the bathroom door closed, I stepped back into the exam room and smiled at the concerned woman.
“I’m going to look at the tests, but I have to say that I’m almost positive he has another UTI.”
“Again?” When I nodded slowly, she whispered, “Shit.”
“We need to address this because it’s becoming an issue.”
“I don’t know what else to tell him! He’s six, and neither of us feel comfortable with me . . . you know.”
I shrugged a shoulder and said, “Circumcision is still an option. It doesn’t just happen when they’re infants.”
“I need a man.”
“I’m right there with you, and we can commiserate about that later, but right now, we should . . .”
The woman burst out laughing and said, “No. I need a man for him to talk to! I know he won’t be comfortable talking to you about his penis.”
“You’re right. Let me go get one of the other doctors so he can have a man-to-man discussion about penis things.”
“Would they be willing to do that?”
The exam room door opened and Jacob reappeared with an empty specimen cup. Before I could ask him why he didn’t bring me a sample, he said, “I flushed the toilet before I tried to pee, and it was working fine, so I didn’t have to go in the cup.”
I cleared my throat so I didn’t laugh and smiled at his mom before I said, “I’ll go grab him a bottle of water and talk to one of my associates.”
Jacob’s mother had her lips pulled in between her teeth to hold back a grin as she nodded. Once I was out in the hallway, I looked at the digital board and found that my next patient had canceled. I might actually have time to eat lunch. However, Spruce and Terran were both with clients, so rather than interrupt them I went on the hunt for my cousin, Roscoe, the OB/GYN in our family clinic. I found him in his office studying something on his computer monitor, so I knocked on the door frame to get his attention.
“I have a bit of a strange question,” I warned when he looked up.
“No, I have not forgiven you for telling my girlfriend I was born with a tail.”
I burst out laughing and said, “That was years ago!” When he glared at me, I laughed even harder and said, “I’m surprised you even remember that!”
“I ran into her at the gym the other day, and the trauma of that time in my life resurfaced.” I bit back a laugh, and Roscoe narrowed his eyes and glared at me before he said, “She told all her girlfriends who told everyone else, and that fall during the football season, all the guys kept pretending they weren’t staring at my ass in the shower.”
“Did I ever apologize for that?”
“No. You didn’t.”
“Can we get to my request yet?”
“You still haven’t apologized.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“You’re still not sorry at all, are you?”
“No. Now, my question?”
“What?” Roscoe asked grumpily as he lifted his bottle of water to take a drink.
“Are you circumcised?”
Roscoe started coughing and water came out his nose. I snatched a few tissues out of the box on the corner of his desk and handed them over as I tried my hardest not to laugh.
“Why . . .” He blew his nose and coughed a few more times before he was able to choke out, “Why do you want to know that?”
“There’s a six-year-old boy that I’ve treated for a UTI at least four times in the last year. He needs some instruction on how to clean himself and hopefully avoid more UTIs in the future.”
“You’re his doctor.”
“And I’m a woman. I know the science behind it and the steps he needs to take, however, he’s six and probably not too keen on having that discussion with a woman.”
“Is there not a man . . .” Roscoe’s voice trailed off and he pushed his chair back so he could stand up. “Not my business.”
“From what I understand, his father isn’t in his life, so she’s sort of flying blind.”
“Shit. I’ll go talk to him.”
“Are you qualified to talk to him?”
“I have a medical degree, too, you know.”
“I know that, but I’m asking if you’re circumcised. If you are, then maybe I should ask one of the other guys if they can do it.”
“How do you know if Spruce and Terran are?” Roscoe asked hesitantly.
“Ew. I don’t know, so I’ll have to ask them.”
“Look, I’ll go get started with the little guy. You find Terran and Spruce and ask them if they might be more qualified to do this.”
“I guess that answers my question about your anatomy, but you’re still a man, so you’ll do in a pinch. Will you take him a bottle of water, please?” Roscoe laughed when I explained the urinalysis sample fiasco and assured me he’d explain that, too, so I said, “Thank you, Roscoe.”
“Not a problem, Amy.” I turned and walked into the hall with Roscoe just a few steps behind me. I motioned toward the exam room where my patient and his mother were waiting just as Roscoe said, “Are you ever going to apologize for that tail bullshit?”
“Maybe someday if I ever feel remorse for it,” I said with a grin. “Love you, Dr. Hamilton!”
“I hate you, Dr. Hamilton,” Roscoe growled as he walked away. As he reached for the door with his left hand, he flipped me off with his right and then scowled when I started giggling. As he pushed the door open, he mouthed, ‘Fuck you!’ and then shut it behind him.
Jewel Parker, a general practitioner who I had worked with since I got my license, came out of her office with an empty leftover container in her hand, most likely going to the breakroom to rinse her dish.
“What’s got you so amused?” Jewel asked.
“Are your brothers circumcised?” I asked.
Jewel’s expression didn’t change, but she did blink a few times before she asked, “Why do you want to know that?”
I explained what was going on with my patient and then told her that Roscoe had suggested I find out if Spruce and Terran might be better qualified. When I told her that he was cranky about it and still pissed at me about the tail comment, she looked thoughtful for a minute before she said, “And you never apologized to me for turning my hair that horrible shade of orange.”
“In my defense, that wasn’t my idea.” Jewel’s blank expression was a little disconcerting, so I felt like I needed to explain, “The birdbrains dared me to do it, and your brothers are the ones who told me how.”
“I have no idea if either of them are circumcised, so you’ll have to ask them.”
“Thanks, Jewel,” I said pleasantly before I turned back to look at the board.
From the note updates, which were displayed in code so we could keep their information private, I could tell that Terran was just getting started with his patient but Spruce was almost finished and ready to dispense the patient’s medication. Since we insisted our nurses take a full hour for lunch, it was our responsibility to take care of all the patients' needs while they were gone, which was something that we’d voted on in the hopes that our nurses felt they were treated fairly. It would also keep us humble, unlike many doctors we knew. I was sure that Spruce wouldn’t have a problem quickly completing that task himself, so I leaned against the counter across the hall from the exam room where he was working and pulled out my phone to check my messages while I waited.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been standing there when I heard a man’s shout and then a loud noise. Just as I put my hand on the door, I heard Spruce pleading with his patient to calm down, so when there was another thud, I threw the door open with the worry that he might be in danger.
I took in the scene and then stood there in shock when I saw the patient standing behind the chair that was usually in the corner of the room. That wasn’t the most shocking part, though. He had one hand on the back of the chair as if he was trying to use it as a shield and the other trying to pull up his pants that were unbuckled and hanging down near his knees.
“I know it’s out of your comfort zone, but I promise it’s not going to hurt,” Spruce said calmly. “It will take less than three seconds, and then we’ll be finished.”
“Nope. Can’t let you do that,” the big man said firmly as he shook his head, his eyes wide with fear. “I thought I could go through with it, but I can’t.”
“Tiny, I promise it’s not . . .”
“I don’t give a fuck,” the man interrupted. “I’m just gonna have to die of high cholesterol.”
“Do you want me to get the nurse who took your blood at your last appointment? You seemed to have a rapport with her and . . .”
“I managed to hold my shit together while she took all my blood, but I thought that was it. I didn’t know you’d want me to do this shit on a regular basis.”
“Tiny, come on. She just took a few vials. You know she didn’t take all of it.”
“Seemed like she did.”
“This medication will help, and it’s just one shot every six months.”
“Nope!”
“Is there something I can do to help?” I asked quietly. I studied the man’s face when he looked at me and realized that I knew him from somewhere. Suddenly, it struck me where I’d seen him before. “You’re from Colorado.”
The man visibly calmed as I smiled. He finally said, “I saw you at the wedding. You’re Amethyst Hamilton.”
“How do you know my name?” I asked as I walked farther into the room. When I was standing beside Spruce, I stopped and stuck my hand out. “It’s only fair that I learn yours. What’s your name?”
“Tiny.”
I burst out laughing and said, “No, it’s not.”
The man glanced at Spruce and reluctantly let go of the chair so he could shake my hand. “I’m Tama’i Fuamatu.”
“Tama’i? That’s a beautiful name.”
“Thank you.”
I considered the man’s features and size before I asked, “Is that Polynesian?”
“My family is from Samoa.”
“I bet it’s beautiful there?”
“It is.”
“What brings you to Rojo?”
“I moved here to watch over my sister’s kids while she’s deployed.”
“Really? When is she due back?”
“She’ll be home in six months, but her husband should be back well before then.”
“That’s so sweet of you,” I said sincerely. “What a great uncle.”
He looked down at his feet and frowned. I could see by the color in his cheeks that he’d just remembered his pants were still halfway down his legs.
“Are you afraid of needles, Mr. Fuamatu?”
“Tiny.”
I laughed softly and said, “I can’t call you Tiny in good conscience.”
“Why not?”
I ignored his question because if I answered it, I’d be the one blushing. At first, I’d noticed that the hem of his boxer briefs were straining around his muscular thighs, but then I let my gaze travel just a little higher. Now the only thing I could think about was that I was suddenly well aware that this man hung to the left and quite substantially so. As a doctor, I understood the biology of the penis and that its size really had nothing to do with the height of a man although it was affected by a man’s weight. However, in Mr. Fuamatu’s case, the size of his member was most definitely in proportion with his large frame, and his thighs weren’t the only thickness being constrained by his black boxer briefs.
Considering that the man was under stress and not at all aroused, the fact that his penis hung down his leg was almost terrifying, not from a medical professional’s standpoint, but from a woman’s point of view.
Tiny was most definitely not a word I’d use to describe any part of the handsome man in front of me, even if he was a ‘shower and not a grower’ as my friends and I had joked. Most men would have to claim that they were a ‘grower’ to justify the size of their flaccid member, but Mr. Fuamatu didn’t have to say any such thing. On behalf of the woman in his life, I hoped that he didn’t grow too much because even as a medical professional, I couldn’t figure out how exactly that might work.
Get it together, Amethyst! Here you are thinking about the size of the man’s dick when he’s mortified because he’s half-dressed and terrified of needles. You’re a doctor for goodness’ sake! Act like one!
“Would you be more comfortable if I gave you the shot?” I asked.
Mr. Fuamatu looked confused when he countered my question with one of his own. “Why would that make a difference?”
“You never know. It might. Would you like to sit down and talk to me for a few minutes while you mull over your options?”
“I have a little time,” he conceded.
“Well, you’re in luck. So do I. However, I do need to speak to Dr. Parker in the hall for just a second, okay?” The man nodded, and I smiled at Spruce. “A moment, please?”
Spruce handed me the syringe he’d been holding and held the door open for me. Once he’d closed it, he said, “Thanks for the save, but he really needs this.”
“I’ll talk him into it, but first, I have a question.”
“Ask away?”
“Are you circumcised?”
TAMA’I
The second the door shut, I yanked my pants up and buttoned them, scoping out the room to see where it might be possible to create a new exit since I didn’t want to be here. At this point, my fear of needles was the least of my worries. It was the mortification of quite literally being caught with my pants down by a woman who was so fucking beautiful that she’d been dancing through my dreams since I saw her last month. The embarrassment made me want to bust through one of the walls and run out to my bike so I could leave town forever.
At this point, I was so fucking humiliated that I probably wouldn’t even bother going home to pack my shit. I’d just hit the highway and ride until the wheels fell off, hopefully while I was going Mach Five so I wouldn’t feel the impact. That was probably the only way to get over one of the most embarrassing moments in my life, and I’d had more than a few.
Honestly, anyone who’d been locked up could list at least twenty just from their first few days in prison. By the end of the first week, every prisoner seemed to lose the ability to get rattled. You had two choices - get over it or not, but either way, things were happening that you never thought you’d experience. That became perfectly clear the first time you had to take a shit on a toilet just a few feet from your cellmate who usually didn’t even pretend he couldn’t hear the havoc that the crappy prison food was wreaking on your intestines.
Right now, shitting in front of a crowd paled in comparison to looking like a pussy in front of a woman that hot.
“Get it together, man. What the fuck is wrong with you?” I muttered to myself as I paced in the small room.
I heard laughter in the hall and wondered if Spruce was really a man I could trust. I’d gotten that impression from him, and my friend Hawk insisted that he was a good man, but if he was out in the hallway laughing at me, I had my doubts. And since he was laughing, that meant the beautiful woman was laughing at me, too, which was not something I wanted to deal with anytime, but especially now, when my heart rate was just slowing down after my fight or flight kicked in at the sight of that needle in the doctor’s hand.
“I don’t know why you think that’s so darn funny, Spruce,” Amethyst said as she opened the door. She shut it firmly with a huff and then smiled at me before she said, “Sorry about that. Just between you and me, Spruce can sometimes be a bit of a smash-hole.”
“It only makes sense that he’d be laughing at me,” I admitted grudgingly.
“Oh, he wasn’t laughing at you. I asked him if he was circumcised, and one of the nurses overheard me as she was walking out of the breakroom and ended up bumping into the doorframe. He’s always been the kind of guy who finds humor in the strangest places.” I didn’t know what to say to that, so I nodded, still processing why she might want to know about his dick. “Anyway, Mr. Fuamatu, let’s talk about something else. How has your day been - well, up until Spruce tried to attack you with a sharp, pointy weapon?”
“Um. . . well . . .”
“Don’t worry. I won’t ask you personal questions like that.”
“You can if you want to,” I assured her, which made me want to drop my head in shame and make that second exit before I embarrassed myself even further. Hopefully, when I busted out of this joint like Lawrence Taylor going through the defensive line, I’d end up with a head injury and this entire day would be erased from my memory. “It’s been a day, ma’am. That’s all I can say.”
“Tell me about it.”
I scoffed before I said, “You don’t really wanna hear about my shit; you just want me to quit being a pussy and get out of here so you can bring in the next patient.”
“Your mind-reading skills need some work, Mr. Fuamatu, because that’s not at all what I’m thinking.”
“Tiny.”
“I sincerely doubt it.” It was her turn to be mortified because she realized the implication of what she’d said and started sputtering. “I mean . . . I wasn’t . . . I’m sure . . . Ugh. Great googly-moogly. I need to invent a surgical procedure to install filters on people like me.”
I burst out laughing and assured her, “If you figure it out, I’ll be your guinea pig.”
“Don’t make me a promise you won’t keep, Mr. Fua . . . I just can’t bring myself to call you Tiny. I have no idea why calling you by your nickname is so abhorrent to me considering that until my little brother was born, I had no idea my father’s name wasn’t Lout.”
“That’s his nickname?”
“I think it would be considered his road name, which is the biker version of a nickname, I guess.”
“Your dad is a biker?”
“He is.”
“Do you like motorcycles?”
“I do. Some of my favorite memories of my childhood are riding with my dad to get ice cream.”
“So just short trips?”
The doctor laughed as she shook her head. She explained, “When my dad would ask one of us if we wanted to take a ride to get ice cream, he didn’t mean he was going to take us to a local place. That meant he wanted to take a long ride, make a circle around the lake, and then stop for the treat in a little town about forty-five minutes away before we took the same winding route home.”
“Must be some good ice cream.”
“It’s just a Dairy Queen, but that wasn’t ever the point of the ride. We’ve got a Dairy Queen in Rojo, but it’s more fun to take a ride with someone you love while you decide which kind of Blizzard you want.”
“Butterfinger every time.”
“How boring is that? You should mix it up, Mr. Fua . . . Darn it. Tell me your name again.”
“Tiny.” The doctor smiled as she rolled her eyes. “Call me Tama’i.”
“Thank you, Tama’i. Anyway, life is all about experiencing new things. Speaking of which, why don’t we work on some breathing exercises so that you can stay calm while I give you the injection you need.”
“I’ll take the shot on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You’ll take a ride with me and then help me decide which Blizzard to get when we get to our destination.”
“That’s blackmail.”
“It is,” I agreed, hopeful that she wouldn’t be offended and that I hadn’t just given myself something else to lament about later.
“I’m not above that myself, actually.”
“Well, what do you think?”
“In the interest of your health and the fact that I never say no to ice cream, I’ll take a ride with you if you let me give you a shot.” The doctor put her hand up and gave me a pointed look before she said, “But . . .”
“There’s always a ‘but,’ isn’t there?” I asked petulantly.
“I’m not going to get on a motorcycle with a man I just met. That’s reckless for more than a few reasons, the main one being that I don’t know you well enough to trust you with my life in more ways than one.”
“I’m a safe rider, it’s the assholes driving with their phone connected to their fucking noses that are the problem.”
“I don’t disagree with that, however, you’re still a stranger and riding off into the great beyond with someone who may or may not be a serial killer goes against everything my parents taught me.”
“I didn’t go to prison for murder,” I assured her, not sure why I felt the need to explain myself. Suddenly, I realized I might have just shown more of my hand than this burgeoning friendship could handle, so I said, “I guess the cat’s out of the bag.”
“That you’ve been to prison? Was that supposed to be a secret? Motorcycle clubs aren’t a foreign concept to me. I know that the only way you can become a member of the Time Served MC is to have actually served time.” When I nodded, she said, “The fact that you were convicted of a crime does give me pause, but that’s only because I don’t know what you went in for.”
I shot my shot again, this time in the hopes that she might give in. “I guess that will give us something to talk about on our first date.”
“Which will be in a well-lit and populated place.”
I smiled because I took her stipulation as confirmation that my luck was changing for the better. “It doesn’t bother you that I’m an ex-con?”
“That depends on the crime. What really bothers me is the fact that you got caught.”
I burst out laughing and asked, “ That is what bothers you most?”
“You’ll come to understand why if you ever meet my family.”
“That’s an option?”
“Let’s get through our first few dates before we start planning for that encounter,” Amethyst said hesitantly. “My family is a lot. ”
“A lot of what?”
“Practical jokers. Overprotective uncles and cousins. A father and younger brothers with no filter who have made it their mission in life to harass every man my sisters and I have ever dated until they’re a shell of their former self, and a mom who is not afraid to stand on a chair and go nose to nose with anyone who deserves to be put in their place.”
“Sounds like a fun challenge.”
“But you have to fulfill your end of the deal in order for us to take that first step and exchange phone numbers.” I tensed, and Amethyst rested her hand on my arm. “Just focus on what I'm saying, not what I’m doing.”
“Okay.” That was harder to do than she could imagine, considering that I felt warmth spreading up my arm from where she was still touching me. “I’ll try.”
“Good job, big guy. Now . . . drop your pants.”