Chapter 19

Lainey

I laughed when Sam sent back an emoji of two eyes looking speculative. The day after my interview, I was on top of the world. The heady combination of nailing it with the interview panel, precluded by the best orgasm of my life, made me feel like I spewed rainbows every time I opened my mouth. It had been so hot. And unexpected.

Medical training took a long time, and Sam and I weren’t even close to being in our twenties anymore. I wasn’t sure what had compelled us to fold ourselves into my backseat and claw at each other like we were in heat, but I’d loved it. I wanted it again. I was so obsessed I could hardly even hear the worried voice in my head reprimanding me over what I was about to do.

An unfamiliar sound bleeped from my phone. Samuel Reese wants to share his location with you.

I stopped so fast a nurse nearly ran me over with a crash cart. I offered her a smile as I scooted to the side of the hallway, out of the flow of traffic. The little green notification pulsed on my screen.

Samuel Reese wants to share his location with you.

I swallowed, fingers stupidly unsteady when I clicked ‘Accept’ and shared my location back to him when prompted. The little screen loaded and there he was, a few yards away in one of the conference rooms.

Against my better judgment, I thought about Nate as I walked. I’d asked more than once for us to share locations, to make it easier to track each other down around campus and at the hospital. After a while, he’d snapped at me uncharacteristically, “Jesus, Lainey, we’re around each other all the time. Can’t we get some space?”

He’d apologized for it later and I’d forgiven him. Or maybe I hadn’t, because here I was in a completely new city, walking towards a completely different man, still unable to forget every detail of the interaction. Maybe I’d known even then that something wasn’t quite right.

Sam beckoned when I knocked on the door. I cracked it open, an excuse on my tongue for whoever he was meeting with, but he was alone. Smiling a little smile just for me.

Nate who?

“You’re alone.”

“I’m alone.”

I glanced at his laptop. “You okay with some company?”

“Only if it’s you.”

I tried to suppress my smile. “Good, because we need to straighten this out once and for all.” I plopped my laptop next to his and scooted a chair closer, showing him the screen for our schedule request portal.

“You want to sync our calendars.”

I paused. When next month’s schedule request had gone live an hour ago, this had seemed like a great idea. Maybe it was the orgasm talking, but I was no longer interested in just seeing him once a week for rounds or if our schedules opened up. I wanted every minute of his free time I could get, and even some of his professional time, too.

He’d already told me that the board had green-lit his ablation, and I’d be standing right next to him through the whole thing in two weeks. One surgery with him wasn’t enough. I wanted to be a burr stuck to his side.

Only it had just now occurred to me he might not want that. Nate’s stupid freaking face flashed in my head. “I mean. If you’d like to. We don’t have to request every day off together. But it would be nice to see you more.”

“Thank fuck.”

I barely heard it, he whispered so low. “What?”

“Thank God,” he said louder, self-correcting his curse. “I’ve wanted to do this for years.”

“Years?” He nodded, guiding his cursor across his screen to the request portal. “Why didn’t you?”

He hummed as the program opened. “Creepy.”

“Ah, but consent can turn creepy into fun.”

“Here, here.”

His gruff admission reminded me of all the things he’d whispered to me in the backseat. No one had ever spoken to me like that before, in bed or out. Sex would never again be the same.

Even better, I didn’t think he remembered it. Or maybe he did. When he told me while I jacked him off on my stomach that I was beautiful covered in his come and he wanted me to know I was his, maybe that was just his standard fare. It was not mine. But I wanted it to be.

Honestly, I’d gotten the impression at the end there that he hadn’t been fully conscious of what he was saying, which made it all feel kind of precious and untouchable. Sam’s true filterless thoughts revolved around how he wanted to come on my tits then go down on me for hours. His words, not mine.

It was the caveman stuff that I generally avoided like the plague, but for some reason, those words spilling out of the most quiet, thoughtful person I knew made me want more. Later, during my interview, it had been a miracle I’d been able to pull any coherent thoughts together. He’d sat there so normal and blasé, and I’d been squeezing my thighs together under the table.

We clicked through next month. I practically drooled at the amount of on call and off time he had. A dream. But it was all balanced out by the staggering number of non-clinical days he had to work. I’d seen other attendings’ calendars, and it was nothing like this.

“How do you even function?” I pointed at the three days he’d blocked off in a row to prevent any surgeries from getting scheduled. “No wonder we never see each other.”

“Teaching days, admin. Interviews. You have an admin day then, too.” He pointed at the third day, enlarging it so I could see the title: Second Round Attending Interviews - Dr. Lainey Carmichael.

“I haven’t gotten my interview date yet.”

“You didn’t hear it from me.”

“Right.”

We lined everything up as perfectly as we could for two surgeons who were also juggling other projects. My cursor hovered over the ‘submit’ button, checking one last time before I put in the request.

“You’re sure no one will think this is weird?”

“For one month? No.”

I clicked submit. “Even if anyone notices, it’s not like we’re doing anything wrong, right? Right?” I repeated it when he paused. His fingers scratched his beard. It was getting longer than he usually liked it. I wonder if he was planning on trimming it soon. Was it weird if I asked to watch?

“Right.” He clicked submit, too.

“Because we’re not dating.”

“Mmhmm.” He didn’t look at me. If he did, I probably would have been able to see the words “bullshit” plastered across his forehead in big, flashing letters. But he didn’t say anything else on the topic, allowing me to keep my no-strings, trial-dating illusion intact, at least for now.

◆◆◆

We had another week before our beautifully coordinated schedule began. In the meantime, we tried to make due with hopefully inconspicuous chats during the day and ridiculously long phone conversations at night. And I tracked his location like it was my job. If he knew how often I checked his little dot, he’d revoke my access immediately. I was a fiend.

On my off night, his little dot still pulsed at the hospital when I walked into R 3 .

I snapped a picture of me in the R 3 parking lot, as close as I could get to the spot we’d practically melted the gravel down. He liked the image immediately.

“Holy crap!” I gasped, staring down at the text. Who the heck was this, and where was my oatmeal attending? I palmed flaming cheeks, glancing up to make sure no one was around, like somehow his text was lit up like a bat signal of impropriety above my head. Only a few folks trickled to the front of the building and none of them seemed to sense the aura of horniness around me. My phone buzzed again in my hand.

I stumbled up the sidewalk, thumbs flying.

“I need your help busting out of this joint.”

A hand whipped out to grip my arm. Jas shook me, looking frantic.

“Whoa. Hey, you okay?” After one night in the hospital and a minor preeclampsia diagnosis, Jas was on strict orders to check in with her doctor every week and “take it easy.” For Jas, this equated to working from her home office and relying on “Gammy June” more than usual to look after Eli.

For Conner, that meant bed rest whenever possible, and hauling her to the gym the rest of the time to keep a close eye on her. She’d been texting me sporadically about Conner’s ridiculous hovering ever since her hospital stay.

The texting had been nice. Low-key, though we got along well enough that she’d talked about going out for drinks or dinner after the baby came. But today was the first day she’d physically accosted me. She had crazy eyes, and I told her so.

“He’ll hardly let me out of his sight to pee , Lainey. It was cute at first, but now I just want to have a minute to myself.” Her fingernails bit lightly into my skin. “Last night, I went to bed at seven thirty to watch Bridgerton and he followed me. As if I wanted to watch the carriage scene with my husband right there!” she hissed, eyes darting around like Conner could pop out from the mats at any moment.

She shouldn’t have worried. He was standing right behind her. I had clear sight lines to where he was instructing a patient to stretch their knee out, while he stared at us.

“Alright, Jail Break.” I checked the clock on the wall. I had time for a quick stroll as long as Will was cool with me being a few minutes late. “How about a walk around the parking lot?”

That was about as far as I would travel with Jas, especially knowing that her helicopter husband wouldn’t be far behind.

“Yes. Yessss. Tiago has been making me these adrenal mocktails. Let’s have a drink. Omigod. Lainey, a drink! With a girl! Without a child hanging off me. Girl time!”

“Shit.” Tess stomped out of the ladies’ locker room. She was usually an early-bird like me, but when I’d texted to let her know I was taking a late class, she’d agreed without hesitation. After a few weeks of regular classes together, I liked her quiet, sharp wit. I’d never heard her curse before, and had definitely never seen her with that violent, bitter look on her face.

As she picked up the water bottle she had dropped, the top came off and water spilled onto her hands. She pelted it down onto the bamboo flooring, where it bounced and rolled to a stop at my feet. “ Shit!!” she whisper-shrieked, grabbing at her ponytail.

Jas and I exchanged wide-eyed looks. “I’m not the only one who needs a girls’ night,” she muttered. “Hey! Tess, right? I need to get the fuck out of here. You coming with?”

It only took her a few minutes of prodding to get Tess and I to agree to skip our workouts and head over to Molido’s, where apparently they turned off the espresso machines and transformed into a wine bar after five p.m. She sold me on the promise of cheese.

“And don’t you dare just stand out here for the next hour while I’m in there. For fuck’s sake, Conner, go do something that has nothing to do with me or the kids. Your mom is watching Eli for the night. Get wild!” Jas yelled across the parking lot. Conner paced along the line separating R 3 ’s parking lot from Molido’s, looking caged.

“It’s not like I’m going to go hit up a strip club or something, Jas. I need to be here in case—”

“In case nothing! Go! Be free! Look at some titties!” She threw her hands up like she was at Mardi Gras, then ducked inside the packed cafe.

Conner ran hassled hands through his hair, then held them up to me, pleading. I gave him a thumb’s up, following Tess up the stairs. “I’m on it. I’m a doctor!”

He was still pacing when the door closed behind us.