Adriana
She was standing at the central desk when the automatic doors slid open, the ambulance’s flashing red lights casting a brilliant gleam on the clinic’s windows.
Trapp looked exactly as he had the last time she’d seen him — immaculate, rigid, his uniform shirt buttoned to the throat despite the stifling humidity outside, like an advertisement for public safety, the navy-blue fabric stretched over his biceps in a way that tested every single thread.
“Before I accept the transfer of this patient, I require a physical demonstration of your field diagnostic verification.”
His eyes locked on hers, fury trembling his jaw when he arrived at the meaning of her words. It was the first time he’d looked her fully in the eye since before she’d filed her complaint against him, and the fire she saw there thrilled her.
“Patient is presenting with acute lower quadrant abdominal pain, suspected appendicitis. Core vitals are stable. The data is on the electronic run sheet, Doctor.”
“I see the run sheet.” Adriana kept her hands plunged into the pockets of the lab coat so that he wouldn’t see the way she trembled.
“What I don’t see is the documented confirmation of a negative Swillup’s sign to rule out cholecystitis.
Your report lists a generalized abdominal assessment.
Per Tri-County protocol Section 14, assessment must be performed and verbally verified in front of the receiving physician for all non-traumatic abdominal distress cases. ”
A weak huff of incredulous laughter escaped the troll at Trapp’s side, the young EMT taking a small, seemingly involuntary step back towards the glass doors.
“I performed the assessment in the field, Doctor,” Trapp said, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly register that vibrated with barely-suppressed fury. “The abdomen is rigid in the lower right quadrant. It’s the appendix.”
“Your verbal claim is not a clinical verification, Medic.” She took a step closer, if only to let the smell of him invade her fully.
Pine and black pepper, spicy on her tongue, cut with something bright, like a juicy orange.
Her mouth watered, and she hoped he was not able to tell that her knees were shaking.
“Palpate the right upper quadrant. Right now, let’s verify it together.
Unless, of course, you’re unsure of the anatomical boundaries for a localized gallbladder assessment. ”
It was an insult to his medical knowledge, his training, especially galling as she knew for a fact he had the same medical education she did .
. . but that wasn’t the fucking point. He wasn’t the doctor on this floor.
He wasn’t going to come into this clinic over and over again and try to humiliate her.
His knuckles were white around the metal rail of the stretcher, tendons raised on his sinewy forearm, showing her how tightly he was holding himself. Trapp turned back to the patient slowly, deliberately, his huge hand hovering over the orc’s upper right abdomen.
“Take a deep breath in, Gil.” The orc inhaled sharply, holding it without any sudden catch or pain. “Negative Swillup’s sign.”
His eyes met hers once more, gleaming with an unadulterated hatred that caused a rush of heat between her thighs, her own breath catching instead. The air between them felt pressurized, as if all it would take was a single spark to ignite.
“Differential diagnosis confirmed. Are you satisfied with my anatomical boundaries, or do you need me to recite the vascular supply to the biliary system next?”
Her heart hammered against her ribs, the sheer physical proximity of him making the entryway feel suffocatingly hot.
Had he always been this big, this muscular?
No, she decided, chest heaving. He’d always been athletic and toned, but hitting the gym hard had clearly been a priority in the intervening decade since she’d seen him last. If she thought he’d been able to lift her like a doll then, it would be nothing compared to the way he could manhandle her now.
She was able to sense the growl of his wolf and the snap of his jaws.
A whimper from within, but whether it was in fear or in need, Adriana couldn’t be sure.
The anger radiating off him was intoxicating, a venomous cocktail of wounded pride and competitive adrenaline that she found herself leaning into, wanting to taste his skin. What is wrong with you?!
“The assessment is acceptable,” she choked out, her voice tight, sucking in a rasping breath when he stepped back, breaking the moment between them. “But he’s going to need a CT scan, which we can’t do, and a surgical consult. Why wasn’t he brought next door in the first place?!”
“Because they’re currently on a three-hour throughput,” he snapped. “All bays are full. The appendix hasn’t ruptured yet. If you get him into the system and call for an emergency pick-up—”
“—He’ll be seen by someone before the appendix ruptures in triage,” she finished, swallowing hard.
That was the point of the clinic, Dr. Marsh had told her.
To ease the burden on the busy hospital next door and give non-critical patients the opportunity to be seen for minor maladies without waiting weeks for an appointment upstairs.
Are you working together for the greater good? Is that what this is?
Adriana nodded, sucking in a stabilizing breath.
“Transfer of custody is accepted. Take him to exam three.” She stepped back as he and the troll wheeled the orc past her, but not far enough, and the fabric of his uniform sleeve brushed against the hand she had wrapped around the cot Shileen had been wheeling.
It was brief and accidental, but it felt like an electric shock, one that went straight to her core, and her clit throbbed.
Is this what you like, Adi? I want you to come on my tongue before we get back to work.
She was able to perfectly envision his heavy-lidded eyes sparkling up at her from where he knelt on the library floor, his cocky grin, the stroke of his tongue making her whole body shake.
Adriana shook her head, forcing the memory of the past away.
The ambulance was long gone by the time she left the exam room, leaving Sora to deal with the bulk of the strep-infected third graders still coming in every day.
He hadn’t cracked. He hadn’t thrown a fit, had met her play for play, and it was clear from the way he looked at her that he hated her, hated every molecule of her entire being. Adriana didn’t know why the thought thrilled her so much.
It would be better to let this go, to petition for another doctor to be hired . . .
She closed the office door, needing three minutes alone to clear her head, to push him from her thoughts.
An impossibility, for he’d occupied every inch of her brain space that wasn’t devoted to work since that very first day his ambulance had pulled up to the doors.
Now, she could do nothing but replay the past.
What she had neglected to mention at both the coffee shop and over those oversized glasses of sangria was that once upon a time, she’d had the type of crush on Trapp Hemming that took her breath away when she thought about him, which was every minute she wasn’t studying.
She would try to imagine what it would be like to be in a relationship with someone like him. Someone who’d never wanted for anything, someone who came from a life of abundance, the type of people who buy all their furniture at the same time, her Aunt Rita would have said.
It wasn’t long before “someone like him” wasn’t good enough, once he’d approached her to study together, for there wasn’t anyone like him, not that she’d ever met.
Adriana found it impossible to believe that there was anyone else in the world as smart as him, as funny and as charming, who shared his sparkling eyes and bright smile, someone as warm and kind as he had been.
She’d had a persistent daydream, one that involved them matching into the same residency program, relocating together across the Unification, far away from her life and anyone else she knew.
It wouldn’t matter where she was from, once the hospital wiped everyone’s slate clean.
It wouldn’t make a difference when she was intubating a patient that the only generational asset she possessed was trauma, wouldn’t matter that there was a portrait of his great-uncle hanging in the Mercycrest library when they were both working back-to-back twelve-hour shifts.
It wouldn’t matter who they’d been — only the doctors they were becoming and the life they shared together.
He would bring her coffee, and she would ensure there was a plate waiting for him when he came trudging home at 7 a.m., bleary-eyed and exhausted.
And then after that one fucking exam everything had changed.
He was cold, ignored her when he could and was antagonistic when they were forced together.
She couldn’t imagine where he’d learned such professional meanness, but he’d employed it at every opportunity.
They spent that last year of medical school hating each other, and by the end, he and his equally mean girlfriend were living together, planning the life together that she had first claimed.
She needed to let this go.
She needed to put the past back in the past and focus on who she’d become since then.
And who is that? A burnt-out, anxious wreck?
Someone who had to run away from the last decade of her life?
She needed to focus on herself, her new future here.
Needed to put all thought of Trapp Hemming out of her mind for good.
Eyla had forwarded over the reports she’d requested.
The digital footprint he left behind every single time his ambulance had pulled up to these doors.
It was almost disappointing to remember that she hadn’t even been there for thirty days, and the list was short.
Eleven runs. Still. It gave her somewhere to start.
Eleven opportunities to find a single, tiny flaw in Trapp Hemming’s perfect record.
He hated her, and that was fine. He could go on hating her. And if she found something, anything on these sheets, it would be a way to force him under her authority, and maybe she’d get to smell his fury and see that angry gleam in his eyes up close one more time.