Chapter 10 #3
Once it’s washed, I peel back the skin with my forceps, angling my needle driver in to sew.
Deep to superficial. Superficial to deep.
Exit, re-enter, tie the knot.
Jade watches me like a hawk, studying every stitch, every suture.
We fall back into that rhythm again, all of us studying each other intently. The temperature escalates in this closet with the three of us in it, sweat beading on my brow while I focus.
It’s sweltering, with Kane’s ragged pants breaking through the silence as I stitch.
After a few minutes, Kane startles us both when he says, “Jade, you should go.”
“What? Why?”
“You’ll be late for rounds if you don’t leave soon. Remember, you only agreed to have Percy help so people wouldn’t see me, and therefore, Dad wouldn’t freak out?”
“Technically, I didn’t agree to anything—”
“Go,” he insists. “Percy knows what she’s doing.”
Jade frowns but opens the door, giving me one last entreating look as she goes.
“Take care of him,” she says, but for once, it’s a request, not a command.
“I will,” I say, slowly tugging the skin closed.
It’s edging together easily, not as deep as I thought, the ends smoothing together like silk.
Kane continues his silent assessment while I work, and the quiet is so loud, I swear he can hear my thudding heart when he brushes his hand across my shoulder.
My watch dings.
Elevated heart rate detected!
I shrink back, so mortified I don’t know if I can speak. My face feels hot, my stomach tumbling with butterflies, and I have no idea why my body feels so awkward when it’s just him and I.
I don’t know why I feel like I’m being carried by him again, so close it’s hard to tell where one thought ends and the space between our bodies begins—
“I’ll ask my aunt to check my bandages and see how they heal,” Kane says, withdrawing his hand to rub the back of his neck.
My face falls. “I want to check on you myself.”
Then I add, with a bit of hurt, “Unless you don’t think I did a good job.”
I pull the last piece of skin together, working on tying the final knots so that I don’t have to look at him.
He releases one of his signature, weary sighs. “That’s not why, Percy.”
“Well, then I want to see how I did—”
“You’re not treating me,” he argues again, low and slow, “because I’ve never been attracted to a surgeon like I am right now.”
“Oh!” I say, lips parting in surprise.
My blood heats.
When I dare to glance up at him, he looks physically pained.
“You’re too good a surgeon,” he says, “it’s… damning,” he mumbles, refusing to look at me again.
“Oh,” I repeat, a flush creeping up my neck.
The concession is so raw, untamed, it’s spoken with a fervor that sounds close to revulsion. Rival emotions dance over Kane’s face: attraction, respect, and envy warring for control all at once.
Kane is as jealous of me as he is attracted to me.
Is it gunner of me to be… flattered?
Yes, I decide, there must be something irreversibly flawed inside to feel so disarmed and vindicated by him. To feel like preening under the attention of a man who likes me for more than just my looks.
Though he seems to loathe it.
How ironic. The doctor everyone hates is incapable of hating the medical student everyone loves.
But I’m not in the business of torture, so I don’t let myself feel flattered long.
“I’ll get out from between your legs, then,” I say, rising, “and you can be free.”
“My God, Percy,” he groans, standing to face me.
I expect exasperation. A sarcastic remark. Maybe another complaint about my bedside manner. Instead, he just stares at me.
The room tilts off its axis. His gaze catches on mine and won’t move. Something shifts in his expression. Melts. The usual walls aren't gone exactly, but for one, reckless second, they slip.
My breath falters. There’s nothing amused about the way he's looking at me. Nothing teasing. Nothing careful.
Just want. Raw and startling and entirely unguarded.
The look he gives me is pure, unadulterated longing.
Pre-bargain, unfiltered, ravishing.
It looks so much like how he looked at me in the hallway the day after we first spoke.
It looks so much like how he always looks at me.
He steps forward, head about to dip, full lips parted.
Panicking, I step back.
He inhales sharply. “I can’t, Percy.”
He charges past me, door rattling, vanishing without so much as a thank you.
My heart beats wildly, thudding in my chest.
And for the first time since I’ve met him, I don’t know how to get it to stop.
1 Narrator’s notes: Lidocaine is an anesthetic.
2 Narrator’s notes: Physician assistants are master’s degree holders who work closely with doctors.
As a two-year professional degree, it means that while Percy is still in the trenches, her friend has graduated and been practicing emergency medicine for two years.
As in, she’s far better prepared to both triage and steal medication than Percy is.
3 Narrator’s notes: Do not, under any circumstances, for any reason whatsoever, steal medications from the hospital. Jade has Daddy Owns the Hospital? privileges in case she gets caught. You do not.