Chapter 2 #2
“And?”
“And I knew I wouldn’t run into them all the time for the duration of my career, but I learned my lesson and changed my interest to women who aren’t in the nursing field.”
“I’m enjoying the lessons,” Lawson said as his smile got bigger. “You’re working late tonight.”
“I’m finished with my patient. She’s in the care of an entirely different floor of nursing staff that are hopefully safe from you.”
“Which floor is that?”
“The fifth.”
Lawson got a dreamy look on his face before he said, “You’d think they’d be safe, but I know how to work an elevator.”
“Can you take a break from your libido and drive me home? I’m fucking exhausted and ready to pass out on my feet.”
Lawson stood up immediately and said, “Let me call it in that I’ll be out of pocket for a few minutes. Are you ready now?”
“I am.”
“Let’s go then,” he said as he picked up the tablet he’d probably been using before his interlude with that nurse.
“Thanks, man.”
“You owe me. She still had twenty minutes left of her lunch break.”
“I don’t owe you shit. We both know it wouldn’t have taken you more than two.”
“Fuck you, Hamiton. You can walk your ass home.”
◆◆◆
I woke up to a text from my brother listing the woman’s safeword selection and laughed when he commended her on her choices.
I assumed that she’d started to sober up by the time she listed out puma, platypus, prairie dog, panda, and - my personal favorite - pterodactyl.
A few of those weren’t even on my original list, so I had to give her credit for creativity.
Thank God I wouldn’t be seeing her again for a follow-up.
The last thing I needed was the drama that a woman like her would bring to my life.
I’d tried dating and then changed lanes and shifted to one-night stands and hook-ups.
Those got the job done, especially in my younger days when I was a resident and rarely ever left the hospital to do anything other than sleep.
Now, my coworkers and I left the television on in the breakroom at the office and often watched what we considered a comedy but millions of viewers had deemed a romantic drama.
Grey’s Anatomy and other shows like it got some things right - but mostly just the occasional storage closet hook-ups and neverending drive to impress the attendings and stay in the program.
That was much harder than the television dramas made it seem.
So, when the characters hung out together in an empty hallway and talked shit while they ate crap from the vending machines, the other doctors in my practice and I found it laughable.
First of all, if a med student had a single minute of peace, they spent it sleeping or studying, not gossiping and discussing the meaning of life.
I spent years away from the family I loved, missing birthdays, holidays, and everything in between.
I wasn’t about to waste that time shooting the breeze with my fellow residents about unnecessary bullshit.
I’d been in the trenches with plenty of people who caved to the pressure or became burnt out and dropped out of the program; there were even more I still remained friends with to this day.
Now that we had gone our separate ways to focus on our specialties and had found our niche either in hospitals or private practice, we had a little time for ourselves.
I could guarantee that none of them spent it relaxing on a gurney in the bowels of the hospital talking about mundane bullshit.
Even though I had only gotten a few hours of sleep and could probably use a few more, I decided to follow my usual Saturday morning routine and got dressed for a run.
A quick text to my brothers Cruz and Ranger told me that they were doing the same thing, so we made plans to meet up at our usual spot.
I checked the weather and got dressed, chugged a bottle of water, and then walked out on my porch to stretch while I waited on Ranger.
He and Noble had purchased homes in the same neighborhood I’d chosen, which made sense since it was created by good friends of ours. Josh and his brothers, Adam and Heath, transformed an old air base neighborhood into a thriving community and were still working on the other half of the development.
When they came up with the idea and approached a few of us with their plans, I was happy to go into business with them - not because I wanted anything to do with the creation or running of the development, but because I wanted first pick.
A few others in our group also wanted in, and a successful partnership was created.
Now, I had a home I loved in a neighborhood surrounded by people I trusted and had a sizable chunk of money coming in every quarter as a return on my investment. So far, it had been a win-win for all of us, and I was happy I’d made the decision to be part of it.
I saw Ranger round the corner and jogged down the stops to meet him.
Without a word, I got into step beside him so we could follow our usual path toward town and our former high school where we would meet Cruz.
When his schedule allowed, Noble joined us on our run, but since he worked last night, I knew he wouldn’t be there today.
Ranger and I had been working out together since we were teenagers and joined the same sports teams. Since we saw each other almost every day, we didn’t have anything to catch up on, which was good because neither of us would have the spare breath to chat anyway.
Once we got to the school, Cruz was already there running laps around the track.
We joined him for a few, and then the three of us took off through the neighborhood toward our parents’ house for breakfast.
As was their Saturday morning norm, Dad was in the kitchen making breakfast while Papa sat at the table and sipped his coffee.
Ranger and I took our usual seats at the table with Papa while Cruz walked through the kitchen to get us water to drink while we talked to our fathers and waited to eat together.
“Do you guys have any pressing plans today?” Papa asked.
“Other than checking on a few patients at the hospital, I’m free,” I told him.
“I planned on going to the office, but I can do that later. What do you have in mind?”
“I got a call from New Horizons last night. Noble brought in a woman who needs help, but I’ve got plans with your dad to spend the day shopping.
” When Ranger and I just stared at Papa in shock, he took a deep breath and shook his head before he said, “Call Marla and make arrangements to meet with the newest resident. She needs legal advice and just got a positive pregnancy test, so she should talk to a doctor. I’m not sure if she’d be more comfortable with you or Wren, so you might call her and see if she can join you for the initial meeting. ”
“I’ll do that and then go home and shower,” I assured him. I looked at Ranger and asked, “Want to ride over together?”
“Sure,” Ranger agreed. With that business taken care of, he looked at Papa and asked, “Now, explain how Dad convinced you to spend your Saturday shopping.”
Papa raised his eyebrows as he said, “He’s decided that he wants to peruse thrift stores to find a few furniture projects for us to work on together.”
“You make it sound like I’m planning to drag you behind the truck and dump you in the river,” Dad said huffily. “We need a hobby, and you’re the one who said I couldn’t jump into this project by myself!”
“Why don’t you start golfing or something?” Ranger suggested. “Do you remember what happened the last time you decided to refinish furniture?”
Papa grimaced at the reminder as Dad spun around and pointed the spatula he was holding at Ranger. “Yes, I remember, but that was a freak accident. It’s not going to happen again.”
“It’s okay to not be the kind of man who works with his hands,” Ranger assured Dad, just digging himself even deeper into the hole he had started digging. “Maybe you should find a hobby that doesn’t include power tools or dangerous chemicals.”
“You got rid of the heat gun, right?” I asked so only Papa could hear me. When he gave an almost imperceptible nod, I sighed with relief.
“I’ll bite. What happened last time?” Cruz asked as he tossed a bottle of water toward me and another toward Ranger. He sat down across from Papa and grinned before he said, “I can already tell this is going to be a good one.”
“Dad passed a garage sale and found a big piece that he thought would look great in the living room . . .”
“It was a vintage hutch with a buffet,” Dad interrupted Ranger.
“I have no idea what he just said,” Cruz admitted.
“A cabinet thing on top of a dresser,” I simplified. “Dad pulled over, bought it, called Uncle Lout to come help him get it home, set it up in the garage, and promptly forgot about it for about six weeks.”
“It was the holidays, and I had a lot on my plate!”
Papa chimed in and said, “When he decided to start sanding and refinishing it, the weather was horrible.”
“It was the middle of winter, and there’s no heat in the garage,” I explained. “Dad sanded it for days.”
“Burned through two sanders in the process,” Papa muttered.
“He finally decided that he should just strip the paint off so he went and bought something the guy at the store recommended.”
Ranger laughed before he said, “He followed most of the directions but missed the part that specified what temperature it would need to be to get the results he wanted.”
I was grinning when I explained, “He got the stripper all spread out and . . .”
Papa, Ranger, and Cruz began snickering as Dad huffed. “The paint stripper, you perverts!”
“That sounded like the beginning of a really bad joke,” Cruz said through his laughter.
“Anyway, the stuff froze, and Dad thought it would be a good idea to use the heat gun to thaw it out,” I explained.
“Dad also missed the part that read ‘Liquid and fumes are highly flammable. Keep away from open flame,’” Ranger told Cruz before he sniffed back another round of laughter.
“Dad turned on the heat gun, aimed it at the vintage hutch with a buffet, and set the garage on fire.” Cruz was howling with laughter, and Ranger and I were laughing almost as hard when a pancake came flying through the air and slapped me in the face.
I picked it up off the table and took a bite before I grinned at Dad who was standing in front of the stove glaring at me and said, “Love you!”
“Kiss my ass, Roscoe! Teasing the cook will get you poisoned.”
Papa was wiping the tears off his cheeks as he sputtered, “And that’s why I told him he can’t start a project without supervision.”
“Did you hear what happened to the smoke alarm?” Cruz asked, changing the subject.
“All of you are about to go hungry,” Dad threatened.
“When we buy the supplies for this project, I’ll restock,” Papa said with a grin.
“Did he kill it with the broom again?” Ranger asked.
“No. He used a rolling pin this time,” Cruz explained.
“It was the butter,” Papa added.
“I’m going to figure out how to make croissants if it kills us all!” Dad declared. “And if you guys keep picking on me, it just might!”