Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
ERIKA
We’d driven all day, which gave me far too much time to replay the argument with Josh on an endless loop.
I was angry that he still had the power to unravel me with one kiss, a kiss that felt nothing like any other man’s.
How could I have responded to it like that after all the years of working to forget about him?
I melted into him like no time had passed at all.
And yet, I was stupidly flattered that he’d been jealous at the mere idea of me and Drew. Warmed by the fact that some protective instinct over me still lived in him, buried under all that history and hurt.
That was the worst part. The warmth. Because it might just mean I wasn’t over him.
By the time the miles finally ran out, nothing in my head was resolved. If anything, the drive had only stirred everything up—anger, longing, pride, regret—until I couldn’t tell which emotion was steering anymore.
Bottom line? I was a hot, tangled mess by the time Vinny and I walked through the doors of the Philly emergency clinic at 8:15 on Sunday night.
The aroma of bloody diarrhea immediately punched me in the face. Nothing says “you’re late for work” like a full-scale fecal massacre in the lobby.
“Eww.” Vinny pinched his nose. He looked over at the six dogs waiting with their owners in the lobby. He whispered, “I think the greyhound over there took a dump in the flowerpot. Is it a real tree?”
“I think it’s a fake ficus. We better get out of here before they rope us into cleaning it up.
” I led him to the back, to the shared doctors’ office.
Tracker stayed right next to him, even off leash.
“For now, wait here with Tracker while I figure out if it’s okay for you to stay in the break room. There’s a couch in there.”
“Am I supposed to go to school up here tomorrow?” He looked like he might throw up.
“Probably not.” I tried to figure that out in my head on the drive up, but I didn’t know the first thing about enrolling a kid in a school.
I didn’t even know what school district Vinny would be in.
And as for private school? I didn’t know if there was a wait list or if I could even afford it.
I’d start by calling the local elementary in the morning.
“I’m hungry,” he whined.
“You slept through dinner. I’ll have something delivered, I promise.”
A cheerful voice piped up, “I brought bundt cake tonight. Want some?”
I spun around and hugged Sarah. “I missed you. Thanks again for helping with that surgery.”
Her normally frizzy hair had been tamed into neat braids, pulled into a bouncy ponytail. Her smile crinkled the dark skin around her eyes like warm chocolate. She extended her hand. “You must be Vinny. I’m Sarah, your sister’s best friend up here.”
“I’ll take some cake.” Vinny shook her hand like a man on a mission.
“What’s the plan? What’re you doing with the clinic and Mr. Hota—” She snapped her mouth closed and shot me an “oops” with her eyes. “Mr. Hotstuff down there?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Sarah leaned down like she was about to spill the juiciest secret to Vinny. “Do you think Dr. Hurst has a thing for your sister?”
Vinny giggled. “I don’t know. She accused him of pooping in his pants. Then they had a nasty argument after the funeral yesterday.”
Sarah’s eyes went wide. “You did what? Pooping in his pants?”
“He rubs me the wrong way.”
“Bet you want him to rub you in some way,” she muttered.
I hit her shoulder with mine as I started to walk past her into the office.
“I can’t do another week without you here, girl,” Sarah said. “You are staying, aren’t you?”
“I—”
“What the hell is that doing here?” Jay boomed down the hallway behind us.
He pointed a finger at Vinny as he paced our way.
He looked disgustingly good, like always—scrubs crisp, white coat pristine, dark hair in a perfectly tousled and moussed style.
He was Italian-olive handsome, the kind of handsome that makes you want to trip him just to restore balance to the universe.
He was living evidence that beauty was only skin deep and the jerk underneath was fully intact.
“Later,” Sarah whispered and left.
“Dr. Renfroe, this is Vinny, my brother.” I pulled Vinny into me with a hand across his chest.
“We don’t allow kids back here. We definitely don’t host bring-your-kid-to-work day. And personal pets? Absolutely not.” Jay crossed his arms and leveled a death glare at Tracker and then us.
“Vinny can’t stay by himself at my place. He’s eight. I just pulled in from driving all day, so I didn’t have time to run Tracker home.” I despised being on the defensive with Jay.
“This was your mess to clean up. You were supposed to put the kid up for adoption or have a child service take him away. You’re not the kind of person who can be a parent.” He looked at Vinny like he was a piece of trash someone forgot to take to the curb.
Vinny looked stricken as if someone had told him he was kicked off the baseball team. He looked up at me. “You meant it when—”
“No. I never said that.” I gave him a small squeeze against me.
“I said if you went into foster care, it could be like that. You’re not going anywhere.
” To Jay I said, “Back off. You forced me to drive up here immediately after the funeral to make my shift. We’ve been on the road all day.
We got in five minutes ago. It’s not like I can pull a babysitter out of my ass.
I don’t even know people that might do that overnight. ”
“That’s not my problem. You can’t have a kid here.”
“What would you suggest, then?” I noticed Tracker had moved to stand between Jay and me.
I wondered if he’d protect us. The dog had never been tested in that way.
He’d never been allowed in the same room when Jay got a bit aggressive.
Although, I had heard him barking at the door to get to me when it happened.
“I don’t know, but he can’t be here. Call a babysitter.” He rolled his wrist to check his watch. “You’re late for rounds.”
“You’re being ridiculous. This is about the fact that I caught you cheating in my bed and threw your lying ass out.” I shoved Vinny behind me, stepping toward Jay. “You better be gone from my place. Completely gone.”
“I moved my stuff to give you space.” He took a fast step forward.
My stomach dropped. His right hand lifted suddenly, and instinct yanked me back. Tracker’s growl rumbled, low and dangerous.
Jay scoffed, flicking his hand like the whole moment was beneath him. “This will blow over. You’ll come to your senses. I’ll be back in your house—our house—in a week.”
He glanced at his watch again. “I’m docking your pay by an hour for this waste of time.”
“If Vinny can’t be here with me, I’ll go home with him.”
“He can’t stay,” Jay said. “And if you walk out that door and you’re fired.”
“What’s going on?” asked Dr. Stillwell, the owner of the clinic. The man seemed to be at work all the time. He barely left the building.
“She showed up with a kid. We have a strict ‘no kids in the clinic during shifts’ policy,” Jay said. “She also brought her own dog.”
“He left me no choice, Dr. Stillwell,” I said. “We just drove fourteen hours from North Carolina in horrid traffic and snow to be here.”
“Let’s take this into my office.” Dr. Stillwell led the way to the back of the clinic and into an office with papers stacked almost to the ceiling in every corner.
There were a few dusty models of animal parts on a top shelf next to a bunch of decades old textbooks.
Boxes of unused stethoscopes likely bought on sale years ago were stacked ten high and three wide on the corner of the desk. He ordered, “Sit.”
I sat with Vinny on the two-person mini-sofa near the window. Tracker sat on my feet. Instead of a curtain or blinds, a black sheet had been thrown over the window to block out a view of the street.
Jay refused to sit. Instead, he paced. Back and forth. “She has no more time off days after her flu in January. She just took four more days to go to North Carolina.”
“For a funeral. My father and stepmother died in a car accident last week,” I interrupted.
“They’re dead. Do you understand what that means?
They’re gone. I am their only adult relative.
I had to deal with everything for their funeral.
I’m not even sure what to do yet with Dad’s house and business. I’m also my brother’s sole guardian.”
Jay continued as if I hadn’t interrupted. “She brought a kid here. That’s a violation. If she takes off tonight, she loses her residency.”
“That is a problem,” Dr. Stillwell said. “We need you working tonight, Erika.”
“Exactly,” Jay added like the two of them were a married couple that finished each other’s sentences.
There was no hope for me to win this war. I slouched on the sofa and waited for them to make up their minds about my future.
They bickered about things marginally related to me. They complained about the other doctors and taxes.
“I want to go home,” Vinny whispered. “I want to be closer to Mom and Dad.”
“I know.” I pulled him into me, holding him tight. “I know this is hard.”
He buried his face in my chest. I hoped he wasn’t crying. If he was, I wasn’t sure I could keep it together myself.
After a moment he pulled back, swiping at his nose. “Coach would never yell at you like that. He’d let me stay at the clinic.”
I brushed my thumb under his eye. “He would. He’s good like that. He’d want you where you feel safe.”
“He likes you,” Vinny said quietly. “I think Sarah’s right. The way he stared at you when you played that game at the bar wasn’t how he looks at anyone else.”
Heat spread through my chest, surprising me. “Maybe,” I said gently. “What I do know is that he thinks you’re pretty great. He was really upset about you leaving.”
Vinny hesitated. “Can I play baseball up here? What if they don’t like me?”
“You belong on a field anywhere you want to play. If someone doesn’t see that right away, that’s their problem, not yours.”
His lip trembled. “Kids call me stupid because I have to take all those learning classes. They’ll do that again here.”
My chest tightened. “Hey.” I waited until he looked at me. “Needing help doesn’t mean you’re stupid. It means you’re learning in your own way. I promise I won’t let anyone make you feel small.”
He sniffled. “I want Mom.”
“I know.” I hugged him again, slower this time, steadier. “Until we can get you closer to her, I’m right here. You don’t have to do this alone.”
Damn it, Josh was right. This was too much for Vinny.
I stared around the messy office that had no heart.
There weren’t any pictures of cows or favorite patients.
No cards decorated the walls. There were no plaques of sports teams the clinic had sponsored.
There wasn’t even a picture of a child or significant other.
I couldn’t remember a moment when anyone personal to Dr. Stillwell visited the clinic.
Even my small quarter-of-a-desk had pictures of patients I’d lost and a few I’d saved. I had a little kitty figurine from the owner of a cat I’d helped years ago. I kept all the thank-you cards in my cubby. Surprisingly, we got more for deaths than we did for anything else.
Returning to Vision meant swallowing my pride in front of Josh, which I dreaded. But the business wasn’t settled, and neither were we. In the pit of my stomach, I felt it—our story wasn’t done. That flicker of possibility? Yeah, it helped.
I glanced skyward and blinked away the burn in my eyes. I should have felt more grief about walking away from years of work. Maybe I would later. Right now, all I felt was a quiet certainty.
This was the right choice.
Vinny would wilt here. No community. No church. No friends. No baseball. A kid like him needed roots and somewhere he was known for more than what he struggled with.
That didn’t mean this was easy. I didn’t want to work in a small-town clinic forever, treating dogs with separation anxiety and cats that peed outside the litter box.
I didn’t want to pull another calf or deal with a sheep’s uterine prolapse.
But wanting something didn’t automatically make it worth the cost.
I looked down at Vinny. “What time is practice on Tuesday night?”
“Five.”
“Do you think you can help me pack tomorrow? Can you survive one more long day of driving on Tuesday? If we leave early, we can make practice.”
His face lit up. “Really? We can go home?”
“We can.” I smiled despite the tightness in my chest. “You have to promise me one thing.”
He straightened, suddenly solemn. “What?”
“When I inevitably argue with your coach, you’re on my side. He and I are probably going to clash.”
He held out his hand. “Deal. We’re on each other’s team first.”
“Team Chomping,” I said, shaking on it.
Then I stood and said it out loud. “I quit.”
The men didn’t stop their discussion. I clapped my hands. Both turned to look at me. “I said, I quit.”
Jay looked like he’d seen a ghost doing taxes in his living room. “If you walk away from your residency, you will lose your chance to take the board exam. Didn’t you already pay the fee?”
“I’ve learned a few things this week. The most important is that I don’t need either of you. The second is that this job is not what’s most important right now.”
“You’re a second-rate ER doctor at best,” Jay snarled.
I forced a smile. “We both know that’s not true.”
“There’s a $1500 breach of contract clause.” Jay stared down at me, sneering with superiority.
“I’m sure you’ll take it out of my last paycheck. That’s the least of my problems right now.” I held out my hand for Vinny. He put his hand in mine. “We’re leaving.”