Chapter 17 – QUINN
QUINN
Taylor Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl” blasts through the OR, and all of us are dancing to it.
Why? Well, this was one hell of a tib-fib repair on a teen who had a nasty fall off her skateboard.
She told me that Taylor Swift is her favorite artist. Call me crazy, but I believe the brain works in mysterious ways, and I try to play the patient’s favorite music while they’re under the knife.
That said, depending on what it is, that may be limited to one song.
Taylor was an easy choice, and we’ve been having fun with her for the last three hours.
The surgery is successful, but she’ll need at least one more.
I’m hopeful that with some good physical therapy, she’ll make a full recovery and walk without a limp despite having more screws than she’ll ever want to think about drilled into her bones.
The Saturdays that I work are typically my trauma days since I cover the ER—life of a resident, not quite as glamorous as a showgirl’s.
I don’t mind it, though. I love sports and sports injuries, but there is something about trauma that gets your heart going and challenges you in ways planned surgeries can’t.
“Who wants to close?” I ask since I have three junior residents and two interns in here. What can I say? It was a slow day for surgeries, so the gang’s all here.
“Oh! Me!” Valerie raises her hand like she’s in kindergarten.
“You got it last time. It’s my turn.” Chuck practically knocks Valerie out of the way to get closer to the table. Then there’s Carol. Quiet and timid, she needs to step up.
“Carol, you’re up, and I want a perfect, precise line with no staples.”
Honestly, staples would be fine, but it’s good practice for surgeons to learn how to suture like it’s their mother on the table. At least that’s what my mother taught me.
“Ugh. Jealous!” Valerie exclaims. “But I guess that means we can ask you about him now.”
Great. I assumed some people would ask about the press conference since my name was in it and a little online, but so far, I have managed to escape it today.
“Yes,” Sandra, my circulating nurse, jumps in. “We all want to know. Especially since he’s outside.”
That last part catches me. “What? Who?”
“Russel Jones,” Valerie practically screeches. “He bought donuts for the floor.”
I choke. “Are we cops now? Donuts? That’s sad. He should have brought gourmet pastries. Did he at least bring coffee?”
I’m trying to keep my tone light, but what the fuck is he doing here?
“He brought coffee for everyone and a separate one for you.”
Fabulous. Motherfucker clearly wants his balls severed this time instead of smashed.
“Alexa,” I call out. “Play ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.’”
Everyone laughs, but I don’t. I’m fucking pissed. He has no right to show up at my work. Not at the stadium, but sure as hell not here.
“But seriously, you dated him?” That’s Chuck, but I can feel the eyes of everyone in the room. Thankfully, Carol is doing her job and keeping her mouth shut and her focus on the patient.
“Are you stupid enough not to know who my family is?” I clip back.
He shifts his weight, but most everyone in here is used to my bark. “I just didn’t know you dated players, is all. Hell, I didn’t know you dated anyone.”
I don’t. Or, I didn’t, thanks to Russel. Then I met his dad.
I keep my gaze on the field over Carol’s shoulder. “It was back when I was a medical student.”
“He’s so hot.” Valerie fans her face. “And clearly wants you back.”
“Last I checked, this isn’t General Hospital, and we’re not a soap opera. We have a patient on the table who deserves all of our attention.”
Shockingly, they let it go. The surgical fellow is up in the gallery ‘observing’ the surgery, which isn’t protocol, but he trusts me and my work enough at this point that he can get administrative stuff done while I work.
Once he gives me the thumbs-up, we send the patient to the PACU, and I go to scrub out.
“Should I keep the sharps from you?” Sandra asks.
“Nah. I won’t kill him here. Too many witnesses and people who could save him.
” I wink at her, toss my paper towels in the trash, and go toward the nurse’s station, expecting to find him there, but I don’t get that far.
He’s off to the side, leaning against a wall and talking on the phone.
The bridge of his nose is a dark purple that matches two streaks under each eye. Crew really nailed him.
He spots me, says something into his phone, then tucks it in his pocket before offering me a smile.
“I got you this.” He extends his hand with a to-go cup of coffee in it. “It might be a bit cold now. You were in there longer than I expected.”
I don’t take the coffee. Instead, I ask, “What are you doing here?”
His smile slips, and he glances around, noting the people coming and going who are watching us without attempting to disguise it. “Do you get a break?”
“Not really.”
He sighs. “Come on, Quinn. Give me five minutes.”
I walk past him and head for the double doors at the end of the floor. I hit the pad, and they swing open. He’s behind me but quickly falls in beside me as I climb onto the elevator.
“You look cute,” he says in a low tone, and I twist to glare at him.
“Pardon?”
He waves his finger at my cap and scrubs. “I never got to see you like this. All doctored up. It’s a cute look on you.”
“Cute?”
Now I sound like Rhett, which actually makes me laugh, considering what I called cute on him. “I’m a surgeon, not a candy striper.”
He holds up his hand as other people climb onto the elevator, crowding us back. “Fine. Not cute. Cool. Badass. Fierce.” He eyes me up and down. “Don’t slice off my nuts for saying this, but you look beautiful too. Really beautiful.”
I should have accepted something sharp from Sandra.
“You don’t get to say that to me.”
He grunts, and we’re quiet the rest of the way until we reach the ground floor. He follows me outside, annoyed that I brought him here.
“Can’t we talk inside? Where it’s cooler.”
“No. I don’t want you in my hospital, and it’s easier to get rid of you if you’re already out here instead of in there.”
His hands dive through his hair, and he paces for a moment. “Fine. Out here. I have two things to tell you, and then I’ll be on my way.”
I pan a hand toward him, indicating he has the floor.
He stops pacing and stands directly in front of me, forcing me to look up at him. “The first is that the trade went through, and I’m officially a Boston Rebel again.”
I don’t react. Crew texted me this morning about that. I already knew.
“And the second?”
His eyes flicker back and forth between mine. “I’m sorry.”
“For?”
He laughs, but there’s no humor to it. “I’m sorry for the way I broke things off. It’s something I should have done in person, and I didn’t because I knew if I saw you and told you to your face that I was leaving, that I might not go, and I needed to. I’m sorry. I’m truly so sorry.”
I don’t know how to respond, so I don’t say anything.
“Quinn, I fucked up. I know I did. I hurt you, and you deserved better than that and better from me. I hope you can accept my apology and eventually forgive me.”
I narrow my eyes suspiciously. “Why?”
He tilts his head, surprised by my question. “Why what?”
“Why are you apologizing to me? For my brothers? So they’re okay with you being on the team and don’t kick your ass again?”
He smiles as if my question were comical. “No, though them not breaking my nose in your honor again would be nice. What I did to you, letting you go the way I did, has haunted me since I left. I loved you. You’re the first and only girl I’ve ever loved, and this is my chance to make it right.”
“Apology accepted. You’re forgiven.”
He blinks, his eyelashes fluttering. “Really? Just like that?”
I shrug indifferently. “Sure. It was a long time ago, Russ. Like I told Crew and Mason, I’m over it.” And I like your dad’s dick more. I nearly snicker. I’m sick.
His smile falls, his eyes flickering with disappointment, but I honestly don’t know what he was thinking. That he’d apologize and we’d pick back up where things left off four years ago?
“Quinn, I’m going to be spending a lot of time with you—”
I shake my head, cutting him off. “Nope. You’re not. I don’t spend time with the players. I treat them if necessary. You’ll be on the field where you belong. That doesn’t concern me.”
He kicks a small rock and watches it skitter away. “So much for forgiveness.”
I scoff. “Forgiveness doesn’t mean anything beyond that.
Frankly, the only reason I forgive you is that I no longer care.
I’m not the same person you walked away from.
Honestly, I’m a hell of a lot better. I don’t know what you could possibly have in mind with me four years after the fact, but Elsa that shit now. ”
“Huh?”
“Let it go.” I move around him and head back toward the hospital. “Best of luck with the team.”
The automatic doors swoosh behind me, and I continue without looking back. It isn’t until I reach the wall near the elevator and the coffee kiosk that I slink off to the side to catch my breath.
I wasn’t lying to him. I do forgive him.
I knew exactly why he left me all those years ago. His reasons were clear, and I understood them.
That doesn’t mean I agree with how he behaved or that I would ever consider getting back together with a man who did something like that.
But to hear the things he said… fuck him. He doesn’t get to do this. He doesn’t get to mess with me. Not again.
Unfortunately, the worst part of this is that Rhett is his father. It makes me hate Russel a little more than I did before. Because while Rhett claims I’m the first woman he’s liked in decades, he’s the first man I’ve liked since his son.