Chapter Four
Four
Monday rolls around. I drive to work with circles under my eyes, knowing that I will be desperately needing to stop in at the very coffee shop that haunted me all weekend for my much-needed caffeine fix.
I’ve been sleeping like crap for the last two nights, no thanks to a certain unwelcome visitor who keeps infiltrating my dreams. It seems like every time my eyelids flutter shut, Julian is there behind them, giving me the same infuriating, knowing grin from a table or behind the espresso machine or at my kitchen counter.
I jolt awake what feels like every few hours, my body humming with so much frustration that I almost text Dave, the cute but self-impressed law professor who’d bought me a drink a few weeks back, to come over and relieve it.
What is wrong with you? I think as I step into the back of the line at Brews and Beans. He’s just a pretty man you had one sort-of romantic moment with. Get over it.
My phone buzzes: one of the cath lab nurses, Pamela, sending me a text.
Patient’s in preop, Sean. Rolling in five.
Shit. It’s the morning rush, and the line for coffee stretches around the corner of the shop.
A single beleaguered barista bustles behind the bar while another takes orders in a brusque, businesslike tone.
Maybe it’s time to cut my latte habit and invest in an office Keurig.
I look at the cath lab schedule on my phone: my first patient is a complicated case and will probably take at least an hour.
My male colleagues could get away with strolling upstairs late with a cup of coffee, but I learned quickly that the staff and patient families tended to be less forgiving of me.
Blowing out my frustration, I step out of line… and right into a firm chest.
“Sean?” a voice says.
It’s familiar, deep, with a perfect, musical tone, and it takes me a second to realize that it’s the same one that’s been echoing in my skull for the last two nights. Except now it’s here, in the exact coffee shop where I’d last imagined it. Where I’d last imagined him.
I sputter. Blink. Bite down hard on my cheek. The pain is like a lance—sharp, bright, real. I am, to my relief, most assuredly awake.
“Owww,” I say, raising my hand to my face.
Julian looks down at me. He looks confused but pleased and not at all like the smug creature who leers at me in my dreams.
“Sorry about that,” he says, holding an arm out to keep me from toppling over. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
Without my heels, Julian is a full head taller than me, and I have to tilt my chin up to properly meet his eyes.
Even dressed simply in a maroon sweater and jeans, he’s stunning, and the simple fact of his beauty is irritating.
Even more irritating is the steaming cup of coffee in his hand.
My uncaffeinated goblin brain stews with envy.
“What are you doing here?” I say.
“Had some business in the area,” he says vaguely. Before I can ask more questions, he grins. “I see I’ve caught you in your natural habitat.”
I grimace. In my OR bonnet, yellow lead-lined radiation goggles, and too-big hospital-issue scrubs, I know that I’m a far cry from the glamorous woman who’d caught his eye at the wedding.
“Yeah, well, only briefly,” I grumble. “My first patient’s almost on the table and this line is too long. Nice seeing you, but I’ve got to run.”
A hand closes over my upper arm before I can make my escape, and I glance down at it, affronted. I thaw some when I look up to meet Julian’s face; his expression is tender.
“Wait,” he says. “How do you take your coffee?”
“Either black or loaded with milk foam and flavored syrup, no in between,” I answer automatically.
Julian drops my arm, then holds out his cup.
“This is a caramel latte,” he says. “Take it.”
My jaw drops, and I look from his earnest face down to the proffered coffee.
“No, no, I couldn’t do that,” I say, shaking my head. “I should have gotten here earlier, I—”
“I haven’t drunk from it, and I can always get back in line and grab another,” he says. “You, however, should be adequately caffeinated before you go up there and save lives.”
“Don’t go invoking any emergencies for me today,” I grumble, my hand already closing over the cup. It smells divine. “But thank you. I appreciate it.”
Julian doesn’t let go. Our fingers overlap, the knobs of his joints sliding against my skin, and the touch sends a curious, bracing sensation through me, like I’m being pinched awake by a cold breeze.
“And in exchange,” he says, “I’m going to insist on getting your number this time. No running away.”
I snort. In my front shirt pocket, my phone chimes; probably another text from Pamela telling me to get a move on.
“You’re so persistent,” I say, but both of us recognize that it’s not a rejection, and I watch the corners of his eyes crease with victory. Out of the light of the setting sun, they are a normal, human brown.
Julian’s stare smolders as I type my number into his phone.
“Great,” he says, saving my contact. “Try not to be a stranger.”
“Yep,” I say, already scurrying away.
“I mean it!”
“Okay!” I call back, then make a break for the elevator and try to tell myself that the flush in my cheeks is all exertion.
My patient is not yet prepped when I burst into the cath lab control room.
“Oops,” Pamela says. She’s dressed like me in scrubs except for a face that looks like it’s been given the star treatment in a makeup artist’s chair. “Probably could’ve given you a bit more time. Just didn’t want us to leave the patient waiting.”
She’s right, of course. If she applied that principle more evenly, I probably wouldn’t resent her for it, but I know she wouldn’t dare call Krause a second before he was needed. Sighing, I collapse onto a chair and log on to a computer, taking a long draw of my ill-gotten coffee.
“Who’s on call again today?” I ask. “Because it better not be me.”
“Pendersen,” she says.
“Brandon?” I repeat, stunned. “Isn’t he on his honeymoon?”
Pamela screws up her mouth like she’s hiding a secret. Which, well, she probably is. She’s a veritable vault of cath lab secrets, if a vault could be reliably cracked opened with two tequila sunrises and five minutes of hopeful nudging.
“He canceled it,” she says. “And he signed up for, like, all the moonlighting slots this month. Methinks wife number two is a little expensive.”
I pull up the schedule, and lo and behold, there he is: B. Pendersen, signed up for half the shifts. Between clinic, his intensive care blocks, and lab days, he’s left himself three days off this month.
“He’s going to die,” I mutter, just as the door to the control room opens and Brandon storms in.
He looks harried. Whatever glow he had in the ballroom of Edison Mansion is gone, replaced by the gray, wan expression he’d worn during much of his divorce proceedings.
“Where is my patient?” he says to Larry, the nurse manning Cath Lab 2. It’s a tone that would earn me serious side-eye and a feature in the group chat as the bitch of the week, but Larry looks up at Brandon, nonplussed.
“Still in preop,” Larry supplies. “Ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes?” Brandon says. He makes a show of looking at the board. “It says up there that this case was supposed to start at seven thirty. It’s eight fifteen. What’s wrong with the picture here?”
Pamela turns to give me a look, both perfectly shaped eyebrows arched high. There’s a loud screech; Larry, scooting back in his chair. He’s been working in the cath lab since Brandon first learned his ABCs and is known to take very little shit.
“Things run late sometimes,” he drawls, with the patience of a saint. “Don’t know what to tell you.”
Whatever bluster Brandon had been sporting seconds ago blows out. He scratches the back of his neck, suddenly sheepish.
“Sorry,” he says. “It’s been a long week.”
“I was about to ask whether we needed to go get you a Snickers bar,” Larry huffs. “Coming in here like a diva.”
“Just trying to see what I can get away with,” Brandon quips.
They both laugh, and the cath lab warms back up to its normal temperature. I turn back to my computer screen, pulling up my patient’s chart to prepare for my next case. I’m so immersed that I don’t notice the presence behind me until I hear someone clear his throat.
“Thanks for making it out Saturday, Sean,” Brandon says. He looks a bit hopeful, a bit guarded, and I refrain from rolling my eyes. “And for taking care of Sophie. I really appreciated it.”
“Don’t mention it,” I say. I turn back to my computer screen, scrolling through the results of my patient’s last stress test. Behind me, Brandon doesn’t budge.
“And for getting her home after,” he continues. Then after a pause, “How’s, um, Winny doing?”
My fingers still over my keyboard. I want to snatch Winona’s name out of his mouth, cut out his tongue like a vengeful medieval king might his impudent subject.
“Why don’t you ask her yourself? She’s the mother of your child. You talk every week.” I push away from my desk and make to stand. I can practically feel Pamela’s drama-seeking antennas extend toward us with interest.
“O-Of course,” Brandon stammers, and I tamp down the part of me that still sympathizes with him.
He’s always been like this: capable of feeling shame, but also of blowing through the discomfort of it to get exactly what he wants and then expecting absolution afterward.
Maybe if circumstances had been different.
If he’d gone about things the proper way—informed Winona that he was developing feelings for someone else, moved out, done the administrative work of filing for divorce—I could have given it to him.
As it stands, the most I can offer him is tolerance.
I peek through the window that separates the control room from my cath lab. My patient is ready. Stepping around Brandon, I strap on my lead skirt and apron, then step outside to wash my hands.