Chapter 30 – QUINN
QUINN
“Dude, what’s up with Yang?” Hirsh, a general surgery resident and all-around twat of a human, says as if I’m not standing five feet from him, charting.
“She doesn’t like it when people call her that to her face.”
“That’s exactly why I said it.”
See what I mean? Total twat.
“What do you mean, what’s up with her?” Jaime, a PACU nurse, questions.
“She’s been… nice today.”
“Has she?” she asks curiously, and now I can feel her staring into the back of my head. “How nice?”
“She let her intern use the bone saw on her BKA.” BKA means below-knee amputation, and this is a teaching hospital. If I want to be the best surgeon, I also have to be the best teacher and have the best team. That’s all that was.
“That hardly sounds extra nice. Just, you know, being a fourth year.”
“Thank you,” I call out.
“See what I mean!” Hirsh is practically jumping up and down and pointing at me like a buffoon. “She said thank you.”
I roll my eyes. “I always say thank you to the nurses. Only assholes don’t.”
“She’s right on that one too,” Jaime agrees.
“Fine. But she was singing during the surgery.”
Now everyone around us pauses. I glare over my shoulder at him. “I was not.”
“You were.” He’s emphatic. “They had on the Rolling Stones, and you were singing.”
I’m less than impressed with that. “Everyone sings along to the Rolling Stones. They’re the Rolling Stones. That’s like not singing along to The Beatles.”
“Dr. Reyes, are you having sex?”
“What?” I gasp in outrage, but because I’m a freaking fair-skinned redhead, I’m also blushing. Thanks, Dad, for these genes. “We’re in the middle of the PACU, Doctor. Patients are recovering here.”
“Oh shit.” He covers his mouth, laughing. “You totally are. Who is it? It can’t be someone who works here. Everyone is too afraid of you.”
I grunt and return to my computer.
“Is it that football dude? Your ex?”
“Don’t you have patients to see and try not to kill, Hirsh?”
“Nah. My intern will let me know if there’s anything I need to do.”
“And that’s why you’ll never rise above surgical mediocrity. How did you get into this program anyway?”
“I screwed my way to the top. You should try it.”
I snort a laugh. “Considering my mother is my boss and before her it was Dr. Limpdick, I’m all set. And I don’t need to screw to get ahead.” I give him a cheeky grin. “I’m already ahead. How old are you? Thirty?”
“Like every other fourth year,” he retorts. “We’re not all social freaks like you.”
“Wow, that was so sad. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised or expect better from you.”
I finish documenting the patient’s surgery and complete his medication orders so the ICU nurses don’t kill me, since that’s where Joe is going, at least for the night. He does have good taste in music though.
Classic rock.
“He must be good,” Jaime teases conspiratorially. “She’s smiling.”
Shit. Was I?
“I know I’m beautiful, but you’re staring a little hard. Do we need to have an HR consent moment?”
“What’s he like?” Jaime asks, ignoring my barbs. “I mean, gorgeous, yes, but ugh, I’m so jealous you get to date hot football players.”
“He’s all yours, babe. He’s not what I’m into anymore.” But his father is.
I snicker, and Jesus, I’m losing my edge.
I turn my back on their shocked expressions and head out of the PACU.
It’s somewhere past eight, and my shift ended over an hour ago.
I’m hungry and tired, but today was a good day.
I saved lives. I was in the OR for most of it.
And other than Hirsh and Jaime, no one asked me about Russel Jones.
“Well, heya, love bug,” comes from behind me. I spin around to see Braelyn walking with Sorel.
“Hey! What are you two doing here this late?”
“We had a trauma that kept going,” Braelyn explains, pulling out the elastic on her ponytail, setting her curls free.
“Yikes. Did the patient make it?”
“We’ll see,” Sorel states. “We got him up to the ICU. Drug overdose. We’ll have to see about brain function.”
I grimace. “This is why I work with bones and not in the ER.”
“Yeah, well, I have a bath in my future,” Sorel says through a yawn. “Hopefully with my husband.”
“Um, ew. That’s my brother.”
She snorts out a laugh. “Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that in front of you.”
“The things my ears can’t unhear.” I tsk at her as we head out of the building.
“You’re not dating Russel, right?” she continues. “Mason wanted me to ask in a girl chat kind of way, but I don’t really do that so well so I’m just going to straight up ask you.”
Braelyn is watching me too after the stunt Russel pulled at Starbucks last week.
I haven’t had a chance to talk to her about Rhett and what happened while we were away.
Truth be told, I could use some girl talk.
Like ordering our favorite pizza, drinking a bottle of wine, and asking for advice, kind of girl talk. But I can’t do that with Sorel, can I?
Rhett is her husband’s coach.
I’m hit with the same pinch in my chest I had when I lied to Crew. It doesn’t sit well with me to have this kind of secret, but I’m also not sure what the benefit of them knowing is. Rhett said let’s give it time, which I took for that but also as a euphemism for keep it a secret.
“Nah. Come on now. You know me better than that. I’m done with him. Besides, I caught him face-deep in a woman’s tits on the road trip.”
They gasp. “For real?” Brae asks, her nose scrunched up in disgust.
“Yep. So even if I were considering a reprieve, which I wasn’t, I’m definitely not now.”
Both of them look very relieved, but I can see the question in Braelyn’s eyes all the same.
“Is everything all set for the baby shower this weekend?” I ask, changing the subject. “Is there anything I can bring or do?”
“Just yourself,” Brae tells me. “As far as I know, Rina, Halle, and Octavia have it all covered.” Rina is Skylar’s mom, Halle is Aston’s, and Octavia is Skylar’s grandmother, the matriarch of the Fritz family.
This baby shower is no small affair when the Fritzes get involved.
There will be well over a hundred women and more presents than Skylar and Aston have room for in their house.
“This is why I’m not having another baby shower,” Sorel notes.
I cough out a laugh. “You mean because your water broke at yours and you went into labor?”
She points at me. “Exactly. God, please tell me the guys aren’t crashing this the way they crashed mine.”
Braelyn shakes her head. “Definitely not. Micha and a bunch of guys are taking Aston and all the kids to a Red Sox game.”
“Oh, that’s fun.”
“It’ll be nice,” Sorel agrees. “They have the Fritz box so the kids can run wild. I’m glad they’re not planning any secret shenanigans.”
I snicker. “I’m glad I’ll be at the shower.”
She hiccups out a laugh. “Me too. Except Skylar and I will be enjoying mocktails while the rest of you get champagne.”
“We’ll drink for all four of you.”
“Damn straight we will.” Braelyn looks up and down the street. “Where is the cold weather? It’s fall.”
“This weekend it will be. You’re at the game on Sunday, right?” Sorel questions.
“Working it.” I twist my lips as we linger in the area between the sidewalk and the garage. Brae is likely dropping Sorel home on her way to the Seaport District now that she and Roman are married for real and live in his ridiculous penthouse there.
“I’ll be there with Nolan,” Sorel promises. “We’ll pop down and say hi.”
“I’ll be working,” Brae laments. “But you know, we should plan a spa day or something for us. Something that helps us all chill out and relax.”
“I’d love that,” I tell her.
“Same.”
“Cool. I’ll shoot something to the big group text and see if we can figure out a date.”
“Sounds good. I’m going to head home.” I wave to both of them. “Have a good one.”
“You too,” they singsong.
This is why I love working in this hospital. It’s so much more than simply the grind of work and then home. I get to run into my people. I was hoping that sometime this week, I’d get to shoot up and do some indoor boarding, but with how this week is looking, I don’t think I’ll be able to.
I cross the street and a few blocks up, take a right. I’ve resisted it all day, but now I pull out my phone and scroll through my texts. They’re mostly random ones from our various group chats, but the one that’s missing is from Rhett.
I get closer to my door, but my eyes are on the building at the top of the cross street where his house sits.
There are lights on, and I debate being the big girl and texting him.
But then I think about Sorel’s question and my conversation with Crew.
About the fact that I was smiling and singing today at work.
I’ll fall in love with him.
I can already feel the beginnings of it happening.
But the reality is, he’ll choose his son if he needs to, as he should. It’s his son. And I have my family to think about as well as my life and my heart.
I put my phone into my scrubs pocket and continue up the hill. Maybe I’ll take a page out of Sorel’s book and take a bath. With a glass of wine. And a good book. Possibly even one of my vibrators, since I don’t have the guy to take my bath with.
Except when I reach my door, there’s a man sitting on my stoop.
“What are you doing?”
Rhett lifts his head to peer up at me before he stands. “That’s a really good question.”
I blink at him, his body illuminated only by streetlights since it’s dark out.
“How long have you been out here?”
He chuckles ruefully. “About an hour and a half or so. I didn’t want to miss you, and I thought you got off at seven.” There are white plastic bags on the top step, but more than that, there’s something in his tone. In his body language and the way he’s looking at me.
I stop in front of him. He’s so tall. So broad. It makes me feel so small when I stand before him like this.
I put my hand on his chest and lift my chin to meet his eyes. “I didn’t call or text you today.”
I get a half-grin. “I know. Trust me, I noticed. I didn’t either.”
“What was your reason?”
His cold hand cups my jaw, and he steps forward until our chests are nearly touching, and I have to crane my neck to see him. “I’m falling for you.”
My heart lurches. “Oh.”
He smiles. “Hell, if I don’t love it when a woman responds that way to me after I tell her that. Then again, you’re the first I’ve ever said it to as an adult.”
I laugh and drop my forehead to his chest. I can feel his heart pounding beneath his sternum. “I think I’m falling for you, too.”
His hands run down my hair. “Quinn, I’ve never had that. Not for real. Not this way. I don’t know what to do.”
“Me neither,” I admit. I kiss his chest and step back. “Are you coming inside?”
“That’s such a loaded question.”
“Are you? Inside my house and inside of me?”
His knuckles drag along my cheek. “After you.”
“Stalker.”
“Yup. Super stalker. I’m shocked your neighbors didn’t call the cops on me.”
“You’re hot. And you brought food. No one in their right mind would call the cops on you with that.”
“Quinn… I almost didn’t do this.”
His honesty cuts me to the quick, and I pause on my step and turn back around to face him. “Oh?”
He grins, but it’s uneasy. “That’s your word tonight, and I deserve it this time.
Every time I see you, I tell myself I don’t care about the repercussions, and when we’re apart, and suddenly I’m working out in the gym with your father or I see your brothers and my son at practice, then I care a lot.
I’m torn in two between what I want and what’s right, and I don’t know how to reconcile that. ”
“Same,” I agree. “I was talking to Sorel not even ten minutes ago, and I almost said something off the cuff about you, but I caught myself. I’m also smiling and singing at work. It’s throwing people off. I’m not warm or fuzzy there.”
He shifts his weight and takes my hands in his. “I’m sorry. I really needed to think without your magic pussy rattling my thoughts.”
“Magic pussy?”
He scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Like you don’t already know you have one.”
“I mean… it feels pretty good when I fuck myself so I can only imagine it for you.”
A laugh bursts from his chest, and he wraps his arms around me.
“I couldn’t stay away. I got home, and I was alone in my house, but my clothes that you wore last night were on my bathroom floor, and the dishes we used were in my dishwasher, and I missed you.
I mean it. I’m really falling. Hard. I just wish we had an easier footing to climb on, and I wish I didn’t struggle so much with being with you. ”
I shake my head. “Don’t be sorry.”
If he didn’t struggle with this, I wouldn’t like him nearly as much. He’d be like Russel. He wouldn’t be honorable.
“I am sorry. I don’t want to hurt anyone. But fuck it if I’m not in this with you and past the point of no return.” With that, he picks me up and covers my mouth with his, snags the food off the stoop, and carries me inside.