Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Quinton
I was the kind of person who sat in a staff meeting, nodding thoughtfully at graphs about patient load while secretly doing Olympic-level finger gymnastics under the table, hitting refresh on my inbox like my life depended on it.
Sunday morning was spent drafting mental arguments that could win me gold if overthinking were a competitive sport.
It’s just a concert. Totally normal. Friends do these things. Viv said we’re friends. Therefore, concert = friendship, not a romantic doom spiral. The Killers in October—just two colleagues, enjoying loud music and zero heart complications. I am a model of platonic restraint.
My phone buzzed. My heart did that thing where it tried to escape my rib cage—possibly out of embarrassment.
TICKETMASTER: Your order has been confirmed! The Killers - October 14th - Mohegan Sun Arena.
I stared at the screen. Two tickets. Section 104. Row F. I was officially going places—possibly to purgatory if Viv decided this was a date.
Two tickets. Section 104. Row F. Should I have gone for the aisle, in case of emergency exit? Too late now.
If there was a moral compass, mine pointed toward “pitiful.” I was going to hell. At least the music would be good.
“Quinton?” The voice belonged to Julien, who possessed the uncanny ability to sound both exasperated and gentle, like a dad who wanted you to succeed but also wanted to throttle you just a little.
I looked up. Julien was staring with the expression of a man who’d just realized the wall he’d been lecturing was actually a very distracted, ticket-buying Quinton. I blinked, mentally scrambling.
“Sorry,” I said, pocketing my phone. I tried to look alert, like someone invested in fiscal quarters. “What?”
“I asked if you had any scheduling conflicts for the third week of September.” Julien, ever the schedule wrangler, was probably dreaming of spreadsheets and color-coded calendars.
“No conflicts,” I replied, trying not to sound as guilty as I felt. My inner narrator wanted to add, “except for existential ones.”
“Are you sure? Because you’ve been staring at your phone for the past ten minutes like it contains the secrets of the universe.” Julien again, his patience somewhere between saintly and strained.
“I was checking my email.” Technically true, if checking for concert confirmation counted as work-related.
“For ten minutes?” Nathan piped up from across the table. Nathan: the hospital cynic, whose sarcasm could sterilize a wound. He grinned, clearly enjoying the show.
“I get a lot of emails,” I offered weakly. My inbox was a war zone: patient charts, supply alerts, and—today—one ticket confirmation that felt like a bombshell.
“You’re an ER doctor. Your emails are mostly ‘Patient vomited in Exam 3’ and ‘We’re out of gauze again.’” Nathan snorted. He wasn’t wrong. If medicine was glamorous, he’d missed the memo.
“Those are very important emails, Julien. Gauze shortages are a serious concern.” I tried to look solemn, but I wasn’t sure ER humor translated well.
Hayden sighed. Across from me, Gabriel—the peacemaker, eternally sandwiched between chaos and calm—looked like he was about to intervene.
Julien pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can we please focus?” His voice rose with the stress of someone carrying the hospital on his back.
I wondered if we should buy him a cake or just a vacation.
“I’m trying to finalize the schedule before the end of the fiscal quarter, and I need everyone’s input on—”
“Before we continue,” Nathan interrupted, “can we address the fact that Fitz looks like he’s about to throw up?” Nathan, always scanning the emotional weather, never missed a hurricane—even if it came in the form of Fitz.
We all turned to look at Fitz. Fitz: resident mystery, part-time disaster, full-time wearer of sunglasses indoors. If anyone could make Monday morning weirder than me, it was Fitz.
He did, in fact, look like he was about to throw up.
He was sitting very still. Unnaturally still, with the kind of rigid posture that suggested he was either trying to blend into the furniture or preparing for an imminent disaster.
His face was pale. His eyes were bloodshot.
And he was wearing sunglasses indoors, which was never a good sign. “I’m fine,” Fitz grumbled.
“You’re wearing sunglasses indoors,” I pointed out, unable to help myself.
Fitz leaned back in his chair, waving a hand dismissively. “The fluorescent lighting is very aggressive.”
Gabriel grinned, “It’s the same lighting we have every week.”
Fitz shrugged, still refusing to remove the sunglasses. “Well, this week it’s particularly aggressive.”
Julien eyed him carefully. “Fitz, are you hungover?”
Fitz’s answer was swift and unconvincing. “No.”
Julien raised an eyebrow. “Are you lying?”
Fitz hesitated. “Possibly.”
Gabriel shot back, “Definitely.”
Hayden, who had been silent up until now, looked up from his tablet and deadpanned, “You smell like a distillery.”
Fitz grinned, unbothered. “That’s cologne.”
Gabriel chimed in, “No cologne smells like that unless it’s called ‘Regret’ and sold exclusively at gas stations.”
Fitz insisted, with mock seriousness, “I’m fine. Can we please continue with the meeting? I’m very interested in the fiscal quarter schedule.”
I gave him a skeptical look. “You’ve never been interested in the fiscal quarter schedule.”
Fitz straightened his posture, feigning sincerity. “Well, I’m turning over a new leaf. I’m a changed man. I’m invested in administrative efficiency.”
Julien smirked, “You don’t even know what fiscal quarter means.”
“It’s the quarter where we... fiscalize things,” Fitz replied, causing Nathan to laugh so hard he nearly fell out of his chair.
Julien looked as if he were reconsidering every life choice that had led him to this moment.
After a moment of laughter, Julien sighed and tapped his tablet, signaling a return to business.
“Okay. Fine. Fitz is hungover, but we’re going to ignore him and move on because I have triplets at home who haven’t slept in three days, and if I don’t finish this schedule, my spouse is going to hex me with some kind of universe-based punishment that I don’t understand but am genuinely afraid of. ”
“That’s fair,” Gabriel said, flashing a sly smile.
“Very reasonable,” I agreed, still amused by the chaos.
“Now,” Julien continued, “as I was saying, the third week of September is going to be challenging because we have two doctors on vacation, and I need to make sure we have adequate coverage for—”
The door slammed open.
Winnie stormed in.
And when I say “stormed,” I mean she entered that conference room like a category-five hurricane with a personal vendetta against one specific British OBGYN.
Her hair was disheveled. Her eyes were wild.
And she was holding a Starbucks cup as if it were the only thing keeping her from committing homicide.
“Fitzpatrick Lovejoy, I am going to kill you.”
Fitz went very, very still, his face draining of color as the reality of his predicament set in.
Nathan grinned, eyes sparkling with anticipation, rubbing his hands together like a kid about to witness a fireworks show. “Oh, this is gonna be good.”
Julien straightened his posture, adopting his trademark air of professionalism. “That’s a very serious threat, Ms. Potter. I’m not sure it’s appropriate for the workplace,” he said, though a weary resignation crept into his voice.
Winnie’s grip on her Starbuck’s cup tightened. “Do you know what that British walking disaster had me doing at three o’clock this morning?” she demanded, shooting Fitz a glare that could shatter glass.
Nathan didn’t miss a beat. “Sleeping?” he offered, his tone teasing, clearly enjoying the drama.
“WRONG! He had me at the New Haven Police Department,” Winnie said, her voice rising with every word, “bailing his drunk British ass out of jail because he was arrested for public intoxication and disturbing the peace.” Her outrage was as palpable as her exhaustion.
Silence fell, heavy and absolute, amplifying the shock in the room.
I looked at Fitz, whose eyes darted downward, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze.
Fitz stared intently at the table, caught between shame and stubborn defiance, silently begging for the moment to pass.
Gabriel’s mouth hung open, astonished, as if words had completely abandoned him for the first time all morning.
Nathan was grinning as if Christmas had come early, clearly relishing every second of Fitz’s humiliation.
Hayden had removed his glasses and was pinching the bridge of his nose, dreading the inevitable fallout from Fitz’s antics and already mentally calculating the hours of damage control ahead.
Julien just stared, narrowing his eyes. “You got arrested?” he asked, voice as even as ever—though his disbelief was unmistakable.
Fitz slumped on the edge of his chair, his cheeks still pink from the night’s escapade. “It was a misunderstanding,” he mumbled, rubbing his temples as if hoping to erase the memory.
Winnie paced back and forth behind the conference table, her hands clenched tightly around the cup. “A MISUNDERSTANDING?” she thundered, her voice sharp enough to cut glass. “You serenaded the entire New Haven Police Department with ‘God Save the Queen’ at two in the morning!”
Fitz offered a crooked smile, never missing a beat. “It’s a very patriotic song. I thought it might improve their night.”
Winnie huffed with exasperation. “YOU’RE IN AMERICA, FITZ!”
“I was feeling homesick!” Fitz shrugged, the corners of his mouth twitching upward as if daring her to see the humor.
“You were feeling DRUNK,” Winnie shot back, her glare unwavering.
Fitz stretched his legs out, flashing her a mischievous grin. “Those two things are not mutually exclusive, Winnie. You should know that by now.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed, the sound echoing off the conference room walls.