Chapter 1

Lainey

Time was standing still. Or maybe it had just slowed down dramatically, like in the movies when someone leaps over a table to fling themselves in front of a bullet, yelling a long, distorted, “ NooOoooOooOooooo!”

At least, that’s what it felt like. It was hard to gauge, considering everyone around me had stopped moving, too. You could hear a pin drop in the Cardiovascular ICU. The shiny, pristine floors and mirrored windows all reflected my frozen face back at me.

Across the heads of my residents, my favorite nurse practitioner, Rija, widened her eyes at me. That, too, seemed to happen underwater.

The man before me wasn’t helping. Most days, I didn’t mind talking to Dr. Samuel Reese. His slow, methodical demeanor could be a pleasant change of pace to the hustle and bustle of the cardiac unit. Usually, interactions with him felt like pumping the brakes. Today, it was more like running into a brick wall.

“Sorry, could you repeat that?” Surely, I had misheard him.

Golden lashes lowered in the slowest blink known to humanity. The residents around us held their breath as Reese responded with: “Collaborate with Jones and come back to me with some different options.”

“ What the fuck? ” someone whispered from the back of the group. To my left, I could practically feel the smug satisfaction radiating off of Dr. Robert Jones, the other fellow in my year. I did my best to ignore him.

“I…” I faltered. Having never been denied an OR before, I wasn’t sure how to proceed. “The patient’s repeated episodes of angina make her a strong candidate for a bypass.”

Reese continued studying me, expressionless. I bit my tongue to stop from filling the silence with more details that Reese probably didn’t even need. I’d already reported everything on the patient, her comorbidities, and all the justifications for her surgery. Maybe he didn’t fully comprehend what I said. The man was a solid surgeon, but for all the reaction he was giving me, I might as well have been speaking to a bowl of oatmeal.

“I understand.” Reese paused here, blinking again. He tipped his head towards my colleague. “Jones recently had a similar case. He can help. Hold that OR till you consult with him.”

My turn to blink. Surely I was having some sort of end-of-shift, oatmeal-induced hallucination. In my three years as a fellow at Chicago’s Cedar Hospital, and five years as a resident here before that, no one had ever denied me an operating room. Ever. Certainly not Reese.

Dr. Whitaker may have been the hospital’s educational program director, but Reese, who was just a few years older than me, had taken on a lion’s share of voluntary resident and fellow responsibilities. Working at a teaching hospital like Cedar, everyone was expected to educate the next wave of doctors. Reese took it to a whole new level, personally shepherding the baby residents until they got their sea legs. Over the last few years, he’d taken more and more duties over from Whitaker, too.

He was basically the unofficial resident dad, at this point. I didn’t have a problem with him or his general slowness, since he usually signed off on my cases and approved every surgical procedure I recommended.

Until now.

One bracing breath later, I was about to calmly, and frickin’ politely, ask Reese where he got off. But the porridge wasn’t done.

“I also rescheduled you off that EVLP with Cooper next week. You’ll scrub in with Mitchell on a quad bypass, instead. Jones, you’re scrubbing in with Cooper.”

Jones sucked in a breath right as mine whooshed out. Sucker punched.

“I…I…You mean the Ex Vivo Lung Perfusion and transplant?” I asked, just in case there was another super cool and amazingly rare and complicated surgery Dr. Gabriel Cooper was performing next week, also called an EVLP…and I was just confused. “Dr. Cooper specifically asked for me on that case, sir.”

Because Dr. Cooper always requested me for his cases. Especially the cool ones. Only five years out of his own fellowship, and he’d made a name for himself by pushing the boundaries of surgical innovation. Almost daily, he dealt with complex, cutting-edge procedures, and I geeked out on them as much as he did. I was his freaking protégé . Reese couldn’t just take me off the case.

“I’m aware. We’ll make it work next time. Jones, get with Cooper to review the patient files.” After one last expressionless look, Reese nodded, then turned to trudge down the hallway.

“Next time?” I muttered through gritted teeth. There wouldn’t be a next time for years. It was an advanced procedure, and Cooper had been putting all the pieces in place for this surgery for months . And I was one of those pieces, darn it.

Around me, the residents scattered, as we always did after evening rounds. A few patted me on the back, or muttered apologies. Some of them looked as shocked as I felt. I could only imagine what was going through their heads. “Carmichael got taken off a case? Now I’ve seen everything…”

Jenkins, a first-year resident, placed a Snickers bar on my tablet. “Maybe you need this more than me,” he whispered before scuttling away. I’d slid it into his pocket not even an hour ago, after word had made it around that he’d gotten kicked out of an OR this afternoon for failing to exhaustively list the various causes of sepsis.

Residency was brutal, and we’d all had those crushingly bad days. I’d hoped the chocolate, and a little support, would give him a boost. “It’s Reese on rounds tonight. You know he’ll go easy on you,” I’d told Jenkins. More the fool, me.

“I’m assuming now would be a bad time to gloat?” Jones’ grin could have lit up the whole surgical ward.

“Yeah. Probably.”

“Don’t take it so hard, Lainey. I’m sure there’s a good reason,” he cajoled as he followed me down the hall, undeterred by my stomping feet.

“Yeah. I’m sure it wasn’t personal,” I muttered, ducking into the break room. Rija leaned against the quartz countertop, waiting for her coffee to brew. Her big brown eyes widened as she pointed towards the main floor, where I’d just smacked face-first into failure.

“Um, what the fuck was that?”

“Reese denied her OR request for Mrs. Marquett until she could consult me on it. And I’m on the EVLP now.”

For a self-professed “friend” of mine, Jones didn’t have to sound so smug about it all. Not that I was surprised. As the only cardiothoracic surgery fellows of our year, we were constantly paired together. Despite working so closely, I’d never grown accustomed to his smarmy vibes.

“We can salvage this, though. Let’s grab some drinks and talk about the Marquett case.” He tousled his chestnut-brown, prince charming hair, eyes scraping up the front of my scrubs.

Exhibit A.

“Jones, you little shit, I wasn’t talking to you. You’re not helping anything, and she doesn’t want to go out with you. Especially not after she just got bitch-slapped during rounds by an attending.” Rija scowled, and I once again thanked God for her existence. I was in no mood to deal with Jones tonight.

Everyone else tip-toed around him, hesitant to piss off the grandson of the head of Cedar’s surgical quality board. He made it a point to remind everyone, as often as possible, that his grandaddy, Robert Sturmond, had almost single-handedly made the shiny new hospital I stood in a reality.

Thankfully, when everyone else walked on eggshells around him, Rija didn’t hesitate to verbally smack him around a little bit.

“Double whammy, huh?” Rija reached out to rub my shoulder as Jones shuffled out the door. I felt bad enough that I let her console me for a few seconds before I crossed to the coffee bar. Her hand fell.

“I don’t even want to talk about the EVLP. I’m going to have to get with Cooper to see if he can pull rank. And when I asked about the OR for Marquett, Reese told me to get Jones’s input on it. As if I didn’t just conduct that successful bypass graft two weeks ago by myself? Frack that. I should have just waited and asked Cooper when he’s on call tomorrow.”

Cooper would have given me OR priority in a heartbeat, as long as he’d be able to make some cuts. Nearing the end of my fellowship, with interviews just around the corner for an open attending surgeon position at Cedar, I was desperate enough for surgical time that I’d hand him the scalpel myself.

She nodded, considering me. “I know you don’t cuss, so I’ll go ahead and say it for you: what the hell, Reese? Fuck off!”

“Thank you!” One of the great things about Rija—she had a mouth like a sailor and I always appreciated the assist. Sometimes, telling someone to “frack off” just wasn’t as effective.

“Any time. Sending you to Jones was a low blow. You’re perfectly capable.”

“Thank you,” I breathed while I grabbed a tea bag. The familiar habit of filling my beat-up insulated mug with hot water soothed a modicum of the rage swirling inside me. “Stupid Reese. What does he know, anyway?”

“Well…” Rija quibbled, fiddling with a few buttons on the fancy chrome espresso machine.

“What?” My voice was as flat as Reese’s, which was an accomplishment. Just thinking about his slow, bland take down in front of the residents boiled my blood. “Talking to him is like trying to speak to a bowl of oatmeal. How did he even get a job here?”

“Ouch,” Rija sputtered out a laugh, eyes darting around the empty black leather couches and pristine white tables of the lounge. “Pull those punches a little, lady. He’s not a bad surgeon.”

I scowled at the hot water in my cup. So, maybe he wasn’t the worst surgeon on the floor. But I was too caught up in my feels to admit that, yes, Reese was in fact a very competent doctor. He’d have to be to end up here, at one of the most prominent cardiac programs in the country.

“I mean, maybe he’s not the most exciting guy in the world. But he takes care of the baby residents. It’s that ‘Northwestern’ in him; the teaching hospital DNA. The residents learn more from him than all the other attendings, combined.”

Ok, fine. Reese was also a good teacher. And he had a habit of pointing us in the right direction and letting us figure things out for ourselves, which I usually enjoyed. But right now, in this moment, he’d humiliated me in front of freakin’ Jones and my residents, and that made me want to key his car.

“Aaaand…” Rija handed me a cup of ice, leaning back like I would bite.

“What.” I anticipated betrayal.

Rija flung her hands up to her shoulders. “I’m just saying Jones is an ass, but he isn’t a complete dummy, either. He just had two CAD cases last month. Let him look at the files. Can’t hurt, you know?”

I sipped my tea. Apparently, there were two cars to key tonight.

Rija steered me out of the room. “Listen. You’ve been here since five a.m. and were supposed to go home an hour ago. Let Jones look at the files, chat with Cooper in the morning, and let the anger go. Be the bigger person. Even the great Lainey Carmichael can take an L every once in a while.”

She gave me a little push towards the staff locker rooms. I glared at her, knowing somewhere deep, deep, deep down that maybe she was right. Maybe.

“Jones still sucks, though,” I growled. She patted my head.

“Yes he does, sweetie. I’ll tell him to fuck off again when I see him next.”

I slumped into the lockers to grab my stuff. Keying two cars in my current state would have been too much work, anyway.

◆◆◆

I slept poorly. Even though I didn’t have to be at work until eight (practically afternoon, in the surgical world), I swung out of bed as soon as my alarm rang at five-thirty. I’d spent the night tossing and turning, beating myself up, and was eager to pound something else into the ground. I yanked on a workout set from a pile of unfolded laundry in my closet before padding across the apartment to start water for tea. I’d lived in this unit for three years now, upgrading to the shiny new building as a reward to myself for bagging the Cedar fellowship.

The tall ceilings and fake-wood floors might have seemed homey, if I’d bothered to decorate. But I didn’t spend enough time here to invest much in hanging pictures, or whatever.

That could come after I was an attending, perhaps, and had some more time and money on my hands. For now, I had a gray Ikea couch and a few chairs if I needed a place to sit. A dining room table from Target I’d only used once. The most color in the place was in the corner where I’d set up my desk, which was covered in Post-it notes, index cards, and medical journals. When I wasn’t at the hospital, I was usually there, working on research.

While the kettle warmed, I brushed my teeth and flicked through emails. Jones had already sent over his thoughts on the case. The notes were thoughtful, his recommendations sound, despite the strong whiff of superiority practically oozing from my screen. Jones also didn’t recommend surgery. Frack. I flicked to my other emails, vowing to think on it later when I didn’t feel so crabby.

A night spent thinking about Reese and the case and the patient had given me some distance from the roaring anger I’d felt last night, but my ego still sported a dent. It would take me some more time to fully get over it.

I glossed over a few notes from a research partner at UCLA who was working with me on a paper, a note from my mother reminding me about the upcoming reception for a regional cardiology association, and…

I froze, toothpaste dripping down my chin, staring at the name I’d have sworn I’d never see in my inbox again.

From: [email protected]

Subject: DON’T DELETE - CHI JOB - PLEASE READ!!

Blood froze in my veins before blazing through my body. A thrumming sound filled my ears and my eyes narrowed, tunnel vision burning a laser beam into the email that I wanted to print out just so I could shred.

Seeing her name obliterated any semblance of calm I’d cultivated last night. The anger sprang back to life, hot and illogical.

I slammed the sink on, slurping water and flinging my toothbrush into its cup, nearly shattering the ceramic. My reflection in the mirror looked wild; normally unruly brown curls spiked in crazy disarray from my restless night. Freckles were stark against my usually tan skin, bleached now by outrage and something that felt uncomfortably close to fear. Beneath arched, disbelieving brows, my brown eyes were wide open. What did she think she was doing?

I swiped to delete Katie’s message without opening it and fled my apartment, water droplets still sluicing down my face. I needed to pound something sooner rather than later.

My building was conveniently located between Cedar’s new hospital and my gym. Work five minutes in one direction, workout fifteen minutes in the other. When embroiled in a tumultuous fury, the gym commute was closer to ten. Gravel spewed as I pulled into the parking lot behind the building.

R 3 had opened just last year and ticked all my boxes: It was new, clean, well-equipped, and it didn’t hurt that since I’d been coming here for the last few weeks, I’d struck up something of a flirtation with the gym’s hot owner, Will. His brother, Conner (also hot, but sporting a wedding band), ruled over the other half of the business, a high-tech physical therapy practice specializing in athletic recovery.

The prospect of working off some steam and getting a little shameless flirting in was appealing. Maybe Will would wear me out and charm me senseless so I could stop feeling like I wanted to strangle someone. I didn’t want to think about Katie and her email, so my brain helpfully supplied the next best person for me to imagine pounding into the gym mats. Reese . The oatmeal, himself.

Rija’s words bounced around my head. “He’s a good teacher.” He was, darn it, and the interns and residents universally favored him. All that boring translated into boundless patience, which meant he didn’t lose his crap when we messed up. It would also be just like him to send me to Jones to make me work on my collaboration with other doctors or whatever. Or to help me see for myself if I was making a wrong call, so that I could self-correct before he stepped in.

But that didn’t mean that for the next hour, I had to like him. “Be the better person,” Rija had said. Well, sure. I could do that. But only after I imagined my punching bag was his face for a while.

“There’s my favorite regular!” Despite my mood, I couldn’t help but return Will’s smile as I walked through the doors. He was standing at the reception desk, talking to a tall man while the rest of the class spread out by the mats. “Hey, I’m not sure if you’ve met my other brother, Sam? You’re usually a morning person and he’s mostly here at night.”

My smile froze.

“Dr. Reese?” I sounded out the syllables of his name through gritted teeth.

“Lainey.” He nodded at me. I was so caught off guard seeing him here, in my inner sanctum, I almost didn’t notice that he’d called me by my first name. Not Doctor, or Carmichael. Lainey . The familiarity grated.

“I didn’t know you worked out here.” Translation: What the frickity-frack are you doing at my gym?!

His head tilted ever-so-slightly towards Will. “Brother.”

Right. That made sense. Looking between the two of them now, I could kind of see the resemblance. Though Will was clean-shaven with brown hair, they had the same blue eyes. The same big, tall build and, if I thought about it, the same thoughtful, focused way of moving. Even Conner lumbered around like that. Reese gave the same patient encouragement to freaked out residents as Will did when people in class were almost ready to give up.

I felt stupid that I hadn’t seen these similarities before, or bothered to look up Will’s last name. It took some of the wind out of my sails. If it was Sam's brothers’ gym, this place had been his long before it had been mine. Maybe this was his inner sanctum? Though that didn’t quite compute.

Considering he was the most boring man alive, I hadn’t given any thought to Reese’s extracurricular activities. I just assumed he’d left work, driven his boring car to his boring house, and stared at the wall till it was time for work again. Like a surgical robot.

But now, suddenly, he was here in my gym, wearing something other than scrubs. Without an OR scrub cap, his dark blond hair was thick and wavy, like he’d run his fingers through it a few times. It matched a short beard that was a little more unkempt than I was used to seeing it. Clear blue eyes seemed sharper here than they did within the hospital walls.

The quick-dry fabric of his t-shirt clung to his muscles. I’d never seen those before. I knew he was tall, but all at once I realized he was jacked. Jacked like he worked out all the time. Jacked like his brother owned a gym. Like he wasn’t such a robot after all.

Frack.

“So, you two know each other?”

“Yeah.” I tried my best to fix my falling smile. It wasn’t Will’s fault that his brother was on my “cars to key later” list. “We work together at Cedar. Dr. Reese is…just…great…” I swear I heard something pop in my jaw from all the grinding.

Dr. Reese, as usual, didn’t even put in the effort to respond verbally. He opted to nod his head a few times and call it a day. It made me want to howl. Why couldn’t he just speak ? Why did he and his oatmealness have to crash my OR dreams and my gym?

Well, you know what? Fine. If I could be a bigger person with Jones, I could be a bigger person with Reese. I’d been hoping to burn off my ire with some serious circuit training. So now, I’d just have to do that while he was in the room with me. Whatever.

“Well, I’m going to go warm up.” I gave them both a tight smile.

“Sure thing! We’ll start in a few.”

I gave Will a thumbs up over my shoulder without looking back.

Whatever.

Fine.

Oatmeal.