Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
As Nico and I exited the infusion room, I felt listless. I drifted aimlessly in a cloud of confusion and self-recrimination. I floated distractedly on the despondency that accompanies getting exactly what you want and then realizing what you want is stupid.
Nico, apparently a gentleman, held the door open, and I walked out. Therefore, I saw Dr. Ken Miles first. He stood tall and fit and pretty, and leaned against nothing. Rigidly upright, he glared at something behind me.
Dr. Ken Miles’s stare darted to mine. I frowned at his plain hostility because, honestly, I was perplexed by his presence. He had no reason to be on the fourth floor. He had no business in the CRU. Furthermore, he had absolutely no right to needle me with pale blue eyes rimmed with accusation.
I drew in a slow breath, preparing myself for a temper tantrum of some sort, and shuffled over to where he stood—then I saw it, just over his shoulder. It was a smirk. More precisely, a Megalomaniac-Meg smirk.
When Brutus betrayed Caesar, I’m sure that all the people in the general vicinity were shocked out of their brains.
I’m guessing Rome collectively voiced baffled disbelief when the news spread.
Millennia later, it’s still a big deal—maybe one of the biggest oh snap moments in the history of forever.
Meg’s readiness to monkey-wrench me wasn’t at all shocking. Rather, it was annoying in its expectedness, and most of my irritation was focused inward. I really should have seen it coming. Placing trust in her was like placing trust in the Borg. You just didn’t do it.
I closed my eyes against an epic eye roll and paused some feet away from Dr. Ken Miles and Meg’s smirky face.
Nico halted at my side, his bicep brushing against my shoulder as he crossed his arms. I glanced at two nurses who were watching Nico with rapt attention.
I almost asked if they were planning to pass out popcorn.
Dr. Ken Miles’s jaw was clenched, and he was smiling with his mouth only, which he had too carefully shaped into a grim line that curved just enough on the ends to consider it a smile.
It gave him the air of someone who’d just tried cocaine for the first time or was making a halfhearted attempt to control anger.
Everyone was looking at me, waiting for me to speak. I imagine I might have looked a bit like a petulant teenager when I lifted a single eyebrow and prolonged the thick silence. Finally, and with great reluctance, I sighed.
“Hi, Dr. Ken Miles.”
His features were pinched, and his eyes bounced between mine as if he was measuring my response before I gave it. “Meg called me.”
“Oh? Did she need a consult?”
“No. Do you want to introduce your friend?” If a man could sound prissy, it was Dr. Ken Miles, and he perfected prissy in that moment.
“Sure,” I said woodenly, knowing this was a complete farce. I turned slightly toward Nico and indicated to him with my hand. “Nico, meet Dr. Ken Miles. Dr. Ken Miles, meet Nico.”
Neither of them extended a hand to shake. I was nearly blown over by the gusting funnel clouds of testosterone.
“I know who you are. You’re that funny guy, right? That guy from that show—I can’t remember the name of it.” Ken’s eyes moved over Nico as though sizing him up. It was all rather weird and vexing.
I allowed myself a brief glance at Nico. He shrugged. “Yep. That’s me.”
“Huh.” Dr. Ken Miles’s grin morphed into another weird smile as if he smelled something bad but was trying to disguise his discomfort with a smile. “You should do something funny then.”
“Excuse me?” Nico sounded distracted, as though he hadn’t really been paying attention to the conversation up to that point.
“You know,” Dr. Ken Miles rebutted, and then he crossed his arms over his chest and braced his feet apart, the X-ray he carried dangling from one hand. “You should do something funny, right now. Say something funny.”
“I don’t know if I can make you laugh, but I guarantee I can make you uncomfortable.”
I glanced at Nico again. A whisper of a smirk hovered over his lips. I was both surprised and impressed by the continuing nonchalance of Nico’s tone paired with the not-at-all veiled threat of his words. It was…attractive.
Dr. Ken Miles’s eyes narrowed for a beat then he flashed a sharp, white grin and chuckled. “Yeah, ok….”
I briefly thought that he was going to challenge Nico’s assertion, but after a protracted moment, Dr. Ken Miles shrugged, seemingly worked to clear his throat, and looked away.
I felt Nico shift behind me. I felt the heat of him at my back, and then his hand tugged my elbow and turned me to face him. “I’m going to get out of here.”
I searched his eyes and found them shuttered. “Ok.” I experienced a swallow misfire; they were becoming quite frequent. “I’ll arrange for the screening tests…for the study…for Angelica. Is tomorrow too early?”
“No. It’s fine.” Nico’s frown deepened as he studied my face; the soberness in his eyes made him look older. “I’ll see you later.”
I nodded once, but before I could speak, he leaned down and placed a soft, lingering kiss full on my mouth; then he turned away and walked to the clinic room where Rose and Angelica were waiting.
My fingers automatically lifted to my lips and touched them, my brain not quite able to process what had just occurred.
Dr. Ken Miles’s voice brought me back to the present. “Can I speak with you for a moment—privately?”
Déjà vu.
I stared at Dr. Ken Miles for a beat. My mouth felt strangely sensitive and hot.
I knew I was expected to answer, even though I wanted to just stand in place and touch my lips all day. I eventually said, “Yeah, ok, fine.”
He motioned with his chin toward the infusion room I’d just exited.
I ignored Meg’s glare as well as the nurses’ curious stares.
It felt a little ridiculous marching back into a room I’d just vacated; but I walked through the door anyway, tucked myself into the farthest corner of the small space, and faced him.
Dr. Ken Miles shut the door and issued me a stern, scolding expression, as though he expected an apology. Not even my father looked at me that way. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“I thought we were on the same page, Elizabeth.”
“What page would that be? Because you’re on a weirdo page and I’m not comfortable with weirdo pages.”
He sighed. “We’ve known each other for, what—eighteen months? We’re both ending our last year of residency. We’ve sown our oats.”
“Did you just say sown our oats?”
“We’ve been building toward something. The two of us together make a lot of sense.”
I opened my mouth, released a confused puff of air, and frowned. “Yesterday, you said I needed to grow up, and now you’re… what? Wanting to pee on my leg to mark me as your property?”
“Is that what this thing today is all about? You flirt with me non-stop over the past year; you play practical jokes on me……”
“I play practical jokes on everyone.”
“Are you mad at me about something?”
“No.” I rubbed my forehead with my fingers. “No, Dr. Ken Miles.”
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Why do you always call me Dr. Ken Miles? Why don’t you just say my name?”
“I don’t do that.”
“Yes, you do. You’ve done it since we met.”
I stared at him unseeingly. “I don’t….” My eyelashes fluttered as I thought about his complaint. I realized he was right. I did almost always think of him as Dr. Ken Miles.
I suddenly realized that I hadn’t really ever thought of him as having a name like a person has a name. I’d thought of him as a project—a target. He was Dr. Ken Miles, not Ken or just Dr. Miles, and I had planned to eventually cross him off my I’d do that list.
I huffed. “Fine, Ken, I’m not upset with you, ok?
I’m just trying to enroll a patient in the Cystic Fibrosis study.
I don’t know why Meg called you.” That last part wasn’t true.
I did know why Meg called him: because she was a raging eyebrow-tweezing horn-dog rhinoceros who was trying to embarrass me in front of Nico… yep, that summed it up.
Dr. Ken Miles lifted his chin. “I want to be exclusive.”
“Um…what?”
“You and me. You’ve been flirting with me for months. I know you’re interested in me.” To his credit, the words were plainly spoken, with no hint of cockiness or arrogance.
“Oh, for the love of….” I sighed and glared at the ceiling.
He crossed the room to my corner in three short steps then rested his hands on my shoulders. “Let’s stop pretending. I know it’s what you want too.”
“Ken, listen, I….” I huffed again, and recognized that I would likely end up hyperventilating if I didn’t reign in my huffs and puffs.
I was trapped. I was cornered, and the only way to break free from relationship doom with Dr. Ken Miles was to tell him the truth.
He would either be disgusted, which would send him running, or intrigued, which would give me the option of getting laid by a very nice-looking, disease-free Dr. Ken Miles.
I gritted my teeth and braced myself for his reaction, and then I said, “The thing is, I did want you. I wanted your body.”
He smiled. I’m sure he thought it was a dazzling smile. “I want you, too.”
“No. Listen. I wanted to use you—your body—and have sex a few times, maybe weeks, maybe for a few months, and hopefully there would be oral involved. But, hey, I was willing to accept just the basics—and no butt sex. I don’t do that.
I’ve seen enough rectal tears in the ER to last a lifetime.
However, just so we’re clear, I was never interested in dating you. ”
He frowned. “You wanted to use me for sex?”
“Yes.”
“Like friends with benefits?”
“No, like benefits with no friends—no friendship.”
“Are you…are you still interested in that kind of arrangement with me?” Dr. Ken Miles’s expression was inscrutable.