Chapter 1 #3
“What do you want?” I ask, debating whether I should text Hyacinth for backup.
Luke glances back at me, like he’s trying to gauge how I’m feeling. I give him the slightest shake of the head.
Please don’t leave me here with him.
And then, like the high-value, alpha male he is, he walks right past David and out the door.
Fucking gunner!
David’s hand drops, but not before I see his eyes flash.
Huh. He must not have expected me to have a glimmer of a spine.
“You look nice today,” he lies, but he’s barely even looking at me. Something is simmering, shrewd in how his eyes flash.
He steps forward, leering over me, and I stumble back, tripping over my own feet.
“I’m talking to you, Stephanie,” he says, and my pulse hammers.
Ugh. I almost forgot.
He thought Persephone was too difficult and insisted he would call me Stephanie instead.
Who the hell is Stephanie? And why did I put up with it for so long? Especially when he can just call me Percy?
I quickly glance over at the residents’ work side of the lounge, but the vast majority are filing out, oblivious.
David takes another step forward, and I flinch.
I whip out my phone, deciding to hell with decorum, texting SOS, David!!! to Hyacinth.
“I’m sure Calypso looks great, too,” I say flatly. “How’s she doing?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see him leaning against the wall, arms crossed. “We’ve talked about this.”
I play dumb, finally putting my phone away when I see Hyacinth’s COMING!!! text. “Talked about what?” I ask. “Oh, that’s right—how you were late to my birthday party because you were having sex with her?”
He straightens up immediately. “For the love of God, Stephanie, we’re at work.”
“I heard you were having sex with her at work, too,” I add, since I might as well drag both Stephanie and him down together.
“I was depressed!” he argues, looking as indignant as ever. “You have no idea how much stress I was under. I had a shelf exam every four weeks, on top of working 60+ hours a week—”
“And I didn’t? I’m not exactly a housewife!” I whisper-yell back.
Every time, it’s the same circular argument. And we never get over it, because I. Am. Not. Forgiving. Him!
And because my work is not Any! Less! Important! Than his!
I’m going to be a doctor!
And that’s somehow worth less to him, because what? Because he forgets every time it’s convenient to him? Because he can’t step off his lofty, self-made pedestal to come down to a woman’s level?
David’s the kind of charmer who believes he earned the nickname of ‘Golden Boy’ within our class, though I distinctly remember when he changed his VainstaGram handle first, and the nickname followed.
“You should be honored to date a man who’s going to be a doctor,” he drones on. “I mean, I can make millions in the course of my life—”
“And I can’t?”
He continues with his talking points as if he didn’t hear me.
“Women would kill to tell their friends they’re dating a doctor—”
“So where’s Calypso?” I ask pointedly. “Even the side piece doesn’t like you anymore. That’s why you came crawling back, right?”
He scowls.
Bingo!
And then when I go low, he sinks all the way to hell.
“You can’t expect loyalty when you don’t even put out,” he growls. “Men are physical creatures. Nobody is ever going to love you if you keep waiting.”
I resist the urge to slap him.
Poor, betrayed, wanting David. How difficult it must be to want a meretricious whore stuck in a virgin’s body, while you have the dick regulation skills of an emotional terrorist.
“We dated less than two months before you couldn’t wait any longer—”
“Men need sustenance! It’s not normal to wait this long! I’m 26 and unmarried, for God’s sake—”
“Waiting? What have you ever waited for? You haven’t been a virgin since high school!”
His face hardens with anger, and I instinctively step back, hitting the counter.
“It’s not like you’ve been waiting,” he accuses. “I heard you asked Dr. Demon out yesterday—”
“What?” I gasp. I thought the rumor was that he made me cry, not that I asked him to hook up. How much did the residents coming in hear?
“Aw,” he mocks. “Poor Stephanie, getting rejected for the first time in her life. It must be painful, huh? Knowing that even the biggest loser in this hospital won’t fuck you?”
BANG.
We both jump, and then David slams into the wall, dwarfed in size by the 6’4” menace holding him up by his trachea.
“Stay the fuck away from my girlfriend,” Dr. Demon hisses. “Or I’ll drag your ass down to the Title IX office at Cornfield myself.”
Oh my God.
Girlfriend?
Stars dot my vision.
David gasps, clawing at his throat.
In the corner of my eye, I see Hyacinth, lurking in the corner, watching Kane with the fascination of a witch who’s never crafted a better spell in her life. What has that maniac done?
David blanches, face draining of color as Kane suspends him. “Girl-girlfriend?”
David and I are in matching states of shock.
Across the room, the remaining few residents are stunned silent.
Dr. Demon shakes him like a toy, and he squeals like a trapped mouse.
“Where do you get off?” he demands. “Harassing a girl? Were you raised without morals? Is there a layer of hell I should return you to?”
“Nope,” David wheezes, shaking his head frantically.
“That’s enough!” a deep voice erupts.
Dr. Demon drops David, who scurries out of the room, ashen and shivering.
“Kane, what the hell?” the same voice booms, and I recognize the general surgery chief abandoning his Phoenix to storm in. “I’m trying to finish rounds, and I get a page saying you’re attacking a medical student!”
“He was trapping my girl in a corner; should I have stood by and watched?” His words come out clipped, barely restrained.
Dr. Demon is a phenomenal actor. I’ve never seen the stony, nonplussed doctor get so thoroughly agitated. He’s practically shaking, pacing around the room like a caged animal.