Chapter 16
Sixteen
I hate it when my kindness doesn’t kill anybody.
—Sage to Gentry
Gentry
“Ms. Ryan…”
“Mrs. Ryan,” I found myself correcting the angry-sounding woman.
“Could you come to my office, Mrs. Ryan?”
I pulled back and winked at Sage, then grabbed my shades from her hand and put them back on my face.
Her fingerprint smudges made my lips twitch as I stepped back and pointed at the microwave. “I’m just going to heat this up.”
Sage shot me a look, her cheeks heated, and left.
I watched that perfect ass of hers walk out of the room and into the office next door.
Tanny watched with a smug smile on her face.
I used the microwave instead of making it worse and telling this Tanny bitch what a cunt she was.
The door next door didn’t close, which was why I and everyone else in the hallway got to hear exactly what was said by the supervisor to Sage, and Sage to the supervisor.
“Would you like to tell me what just happened?” the supervisor asked.
I popped the lid half off my enchiladas and stuck them into the microwave.
Pressing the two button, I walked toward the breakroom wall and leaned against it, listening.
Not bothering to hide it, either.
“What do you mean?” Sage asked. “The kiss?”
“The kiss is fine,” the supervisor said, making me snort. That kiss was anything but fine. It was everything. “I’m talking about what I heard from the other nurses that you said to Tanny S.”
Tanny S.
Why not just call her by her last name? As far as I was aware, there were no other Tannys in the hospital.
Hell, I wasn’t aware of any in the entire county.
Tanny was an odd name.
“What I said was that she needed to back off,” Sage grumbled.
“I have to listen to her acidic diatribe every single day. Let me tell you something, ma’am.
” Sage’s accent thickened. “I can tell you why you have retention problems at this hospital. And it’s all because of her and her posse of asshole friends.
From the moment that I got here, I hated it.
That hatred has everything to do with her.
She’s mean, vindictive, and disgusting. Let’s talk about the fact that she has her friends assign me all of the bad patients.
I’ve had literally every single patient you never wanted assigned to me, which is understandable.
I know it must suck that I’m making more than they are doing the same thing.
But I get the bad patients that are hard to take care of one on one, let alone five to one.
I’m also getting the leftovers that no one wants to take care of.
Like that farmer today that I was assigned.
They treated him as non-emergent. They looked at him, saw a man sitting there waiting patiently and thought, oh, he’s not that bad.
But he was. He had half his freakin’ arm hanging off.
I was the one to go out there to find a patient and see him waiting there so patiently.
I was the one to take him back and get him assessed by the doctor.
And who was in triage with a friend today? Tanny.”
Silence.
The microwave dinged, letting me know my lunch was done.
Great, dinner and a show.
I gathered my food while I listened to Sage continue to go off.
“But that’s neither here nor there,” Sage continued.
“Let’s talk about the work environment here.
I have spoken to six people in town that have seen me in my scrubs.
All of them came up to me and asked me where I worked when they found out that I was travel nursing.
All of them were previous workers here, and every last one of them told me that they quit because of Tanny.
Which I’m sure you know,” Sage pushed. “I mean, it’s not like everyone’s not aware of her atrocious behavior.
Just today, I had to hear all about her love for married men, and how she gets such a high when she can get those married men to pay attention to her.
But no, today she fucked up. She went after my married man. ”
More silence.
“I have been silent through all of this, because I was hired to do a job, after all. But today, when she was supposed to be in triage as our first line of defense on the patient front, she was at the nurses’ station two rooms away.
Talking about how she wanted to fuck my man.
While I was in earshot. Then, she laughed when a runner came down here to pick up a patient and made fun of her because she’d had her married man once before and thought it was funny.
Funny, ma’am. Let me tell you something,” Sage raised her voice. “It’s not fucking funny!”
There was a long moment of silence and then the supervisor said, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware.”
“Bullshit, ma’am,” Sage called her out on her shit.
“Everyone’s aware. It’s hard not to be aware of Tanny’s shit here.
She’s very free and shares it with everyone.
You are aware, you’re probably just unable to do anything about it because her daddy’s on the board.
Or her mommy is. I don’t know. But let me tell you something, your little board is going to have to keep paying out the ass to get people here because she is going to run them all off with her slutty ass, can’t keep it in her pants self. ”
Someone cleared their throat, and it wasn’t Sage or the supervisor.
I realized I’d made a mistake and hadn’t seen a man approaching from the side hallway because I’d been so engrossed with what was happening beside me.
I finished off the last of my enchiladas as the man said, “I’m sorry, but I think this needs to be done more privately. Everyone in the entire hospital can hear you two. If I’m not mistaken, several of them are also recording.”
A doctor.
He looked amused.
Hell, I was amused, too.
I loved watching my girl lay waste to a hoe.
The doctor turned to me then. “I know that you’re enjoying your lunch, but you may want to hurry. I had to sedate the patient you’re transporting again because he keeps trying to bash his head against the hospital door to get out. You may want to remove him before we have to keep him longer.”
I held up a thumb but didn’t reply since my mouth was full.
That was when Tanny’s eyes stopped on me.
She didn’t look amused.
She looked pissed.
She also had her phone out, and she was typing furiously.
Probably proving Sage’s point and contacting mommy and daddy to save her job.
I grinned at her, likely showing off chunks of enchiladas as I did, and went to get my lid.
I searched through the lockers until I found Sage’s, then opened it and shoved my dirty Tupperware inside.
I’d need both hands to get the patient out.
As I passed the open door of the supervisor’s office, I saw Sage standing there, hands on her hips, hip cocked, glaring at the supervisor.
I bounced into the office, placed a kiss to her cheek, and walked out.
The people that I passed made no attempt to make it look like they weren’t hanging on every word.
I dropped my head and smiled the entire way to our new guest’s room, as well as the entire way out.
Once I got him comfortably inside his new digs at the station, I pulled my phone out and texted Sage.
Me:
Meet me at the clubhouse tonight. We’re having beer and tacos. I’ll feed and walk Neo. Come straight from work.
Sage:
I need different clothes. These are gross.
Me:
I’ll snag you some from the RV.
Her reply came a couple of hours later.
Sage:
Fine.