Chapter 24

Sam

“You’re never going to believe this.”

“Hmm?” I looked up from flipping a grilled cheese. Lainey and I had stayed in bed well past noon. Both early risers, we’d kept commenting on it, how odd it was to still be horizontal after the sun was up. But inevitably, one of us would reach for the other and it would be another hour or so before we brought it up again.

Finally, we’d dragged ourselves downstairs for sustenance. I’d have kept her up there all day, but we were burning up a lot of calories. I had to feed her if I wanted her again later.

I’d suspected my crush on Lainey was intensifying the more time we’d spent together. Last night had blown straight past a crush and into let’s go to a jewelry store and catch a flight to Vegas territory.

It wasn’t just the sex—although, God Almighty the sex was phenomenal—it was the way she fit with me. Burrito bowls and workout sessions. How she looked in my t-shirts and did everything within her power to make me laugh.

I honestly felt a little too smug about it. The first time I’d ever seen her, our eyes had met over a patient’s bed and she’d knocked my breath out.

That’s the one, I’d thought to myself. That’s the one. I’d been right.

So damned smug. The multiple orgasms and nail marks down my back only fueled the contented hum in my chest.

“My phone’s blowing up. Is yours?” she asked, coming down the stairs in a pair of leggings. She’d stolen another one of my shirts. At this rate, I was going to have to buy more. Worth it.

“Mine’s upstairs on silent. Something wrong?”

“Not wrong.” She laughed, staring at her screen. “We’re viral.”

“What?” I tipped the sandwich onto a plate. I wasn’t a viral type of guy.

“I’m serious, look!”

She peered over my shoulder while I watched the video of us and the nursing team dancing in the scrub room yesterday. Cedar had posted it on their Instagram channel. We were up to half a million views already.

“What...” I repeated.

She reached around me to press play again when the video stopped. In the second it took to reload, we racked up a few hundred more likes.

“This is…” I watched us two-step while the nurses did a little shuffle in the background. Video Sam spun Lainey. Video Lainey grinned.

“Crazy? I know! They’re calling us the dancing doctors.” She accepted her phone back, as well as the grilled cheese, still looking at the screen as she took a bite. “Who can blame them? You got mooooves, Reese. Where’d you learn to dance like that?”

“Lessons for my brother’s wedding, remember?”

“Ah, right. He wouldn’t let you lead. Bet you never thought they’d come in handy like this.”

“It may have crossed my mind that women like dancing.”

She hummed, looking up at me through her lashes. “Maybe with the right steps, you could convince said woman to come home with you. Hop into bed?”

“Nah.” I leaned over to press a kiss into her cheekbone. “I don’t watch documentaries with just anyone, you know.”

We watched another episode while we ate. Got distracted during the next. Our phones lay, all but forgotten, on the counter. The more I had her to myself like this, the more I wanted. By the time dinnertime rolled around, I was completely enchanted, hanging on her every movement while she dabbed on makeup and swept her hair up. The sleeveless dress she had on showed off the freckled skin on the top of her shoulders.

I could barely keep my hands to myself on the drive to the restaurant, though my touch lingered on her back when I opened the door for her. The look she gave me told me to behave, while somehow also inviting me to come closer.

“Oh, my God! Aren’t you the dancing doctors?” A voice snagged my attention away from Lainey’s teasing eyes.

“Um…” I blinked, the woman in front of me whipping out her phone.

“Can I get a picture with you two? My friends and I have been texting about that video all day! Too cute.” She held her phone up for a selfie, the screen showing her excited grin, my baffled face, and Lainey’s alarm-filled expression. I grabbed the phone, covering the camera with my palm as I lowered it.

“Sorry, not right now.”

“Oh, I just—” The woman frowned, looking put out.

I didn’t care if this woman wanted to take our photo, even though it was weird as fuck. She didn’t know us, even if she had been texting about us with her friends. Also weird. If Lainey didn’t want her picture taken, it wouldn’t be.

“We’d like to keep a low profile, if you don’t mind.”

“We’re, ah, here to discuss a patient case. HIPAA laws, you know?” Lainey chimed in. I frowned, not entirely sure what HIPAA had to do with our date, but it seemed to make sense to the woman, who nodded and went to sit back at her table after telling us to “keep up the good work and keep dancing!”

A few other patrons had turned to look at us while a dark-haired woman in an apron bustled to the front counter.

“Reese? Table for two?” she grabbed a pair of menus while surveying the restaurant. A few tables continued to stare. “I had you set up by the windows, but let me see if we can get you settled somewhere more private.”

She led us to a booth in the back, partitioned off by a frosted glass panel. While I walked, I tried to wrap my brain around the fact that we needed any privacy to begin with. We had a viral video. How fucking bizarre.

“You two come and sit down now.” She gathered a few plates and cups from the previous diners. “Just give me a second to get this out of your way.”

“We’re here to discuss a patient case,” Lainey blurted, perching on the edge of the booth. The woman blinked, gathering a few napkins on top of the dishes she held.

She took in Lainey’s dress and my sport coat, but didn’t comment other than to say, “Discuss whatever you like. I’ll be right back with some fresh waters for you.”

“Oh my God,” Lainey hissed, whipping her phone out and thumbing through apps. She buried her face in her hands, whispering, “Frack.”

The video had ten million views. As her phone lay on the table, several texts and social media notifications pinged, mostly people congratulating her. She stared at it, forehead to palm, in horror, like it had turned into a snake. While I watched, a text from Jones popped up, asking her if she wanted to go out to celebrate.

“It’s weird, but it’ll be okay,” I murmured, making a mental note to trip Jones the next time I saw him in the hallway. She flinched away when I raised my hand to stroke her arm.

“You cannot touch me in public.” She went so far as to scoot a few inches over the booth. My hand dropped to my lap.

“Lainey, it’s just a video on social media. It’ll blow over.” I didn’t know this to be true, but it seemed right. Tomorrow, there’d be a video of a panda sneezing or something and everyone would go crazy over that.

She scoffed, falling silent the moment the dark-haired waitress reappeared with a basket of breadsticks and two waters. Lainey let out an audible breath when the woman left the booth.

“Hey,” I coaxed, clenching my hands to stop myself from reaching for her. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

“It’s not just a viral video. Rebecca Carmichael’s daughter, the heart surgeon, going viral post-op won’t just go away. Jesus, they’re going to drag my mom into this…”

She crumbled, and the smug/happy/satisfied feeling I’d had all day deflated. I hadn’t considered the implications of the video for her. Maybe she hadn’t, either, until we’d been confronted head-on by a woman waving her camera in our faces.

“What if someone took a picture of us walking in here? What if it gets back to the hospital?”

I mentally retraced our steps from where I’d parked on the street into the building. I didn’t recall anyone pointing a camera in our direction. Then again, I hadn’t known to be on the lookout for something like that.

“I told you before, the hospital won’t care.”

“I’m a fellow. You practically run the fellowship program. You’re leading the hiring committee for my next job. This will look awful.”

I wasn’t exactly in charge of the hiring committee anymore, but I hadn’t decided when to bring that up with her, or how. Certainly not now. I glanced around the booth. Under any other circumstances it would have felt secluded. Cozy. Now, it felt like we were trapped.

“Could we ask them to take it down?” Something, anything to pump the brakes on some freak social media event that was spiraling quickly out of control.

“They have complete authority to use it. Our contracts have image and likeness clauses in them. My mom’s lawyers fought to get them removed when I was a resident, but Cedar wouldn’t budge.”

“We could still ask.”

“We can ask,” she agreed, but she was shaking her head as if she didn’t hold out much hope. I wasn’t holding out much hope for the rest of my night with her, either. Her mother’s face popped up on her phone, and I knew we were done.

“Crap. I have to take this. Do you mind getting the car?” Lainey lifted her phone with her fingertips, looking warily at her mother’s face on the screen.

“You sure? You want to leave?” I didn’t like the idea, but I hated her feeling uncomfortable even more.

“Yeah, sorry, I…yes…Hi, Mom, how are…no, I didn’t see your calls, sorry. I was away from my phone.”

I escaped the restaurant without much fanfare. When I pulled up to where she stood at the curb, she was still on her phone, looking distraught. She ducked into the car.

“Well, I don’t appreciate you talking with my directors without my knowledge, Mom. No, I didn’t intend for it to go viral. I didn’t even take the video! One of the nurses must have sent it around and Cedar picked it up.”

She nodded and muttered, “uh-huh” as I drove back to my place. I could hear snatches of her mother’s voice coming through her speaker. Lainey crossed her legs and arms, clenched up.

“No, I don’t need media training from your team again. This is going to blow over…Because I want it to blow over. I’m not making this any bigger than what it needs to be.”

She shook her head, glaring out the window. “No. I’m not leaving the rest of my fellowship to do a media tour with you…Because it’s my career and I want to finish what I started!” A massive sigh. “Taking me out of the OR would make me miserable…Well, tell Kathleen I’m not doing it. I’ll give them a sound bite or a quote or something.”

On and on her conversation went like that. She didn’t make any moves to get out of the car when I pulled into the garage, so I sat with her while she tried to wind down the call. Her mom sounded excited. Lainey sounded like she’d rather drive a nail through her eye than contemplate more media exposure.

“Okay, that’s fine. Have them email me whatever and I’ll sign off on it…Yes, I’m sure. No interviews.” Her mother’s voice rose excitedly. I caught the words “Harvard” and “New York Presbyterian.” Lainey’s fingers clenched.

“No. My life is here . I don’t want to move to the East Coast.” She flung her hand out, dropping it into my lap. I wasn’t sure she knew she’d done it, but I scooped her fingers up like they were a lifeline. Just a few hours ago she’d been wrapped around me, naked. Now I was just glad to have her hand. The night had taken a truly bizarre nosedive.

“I’m not leveraging a viral video that has nothing to do with my surgical training to get a job in a different state. I know I had help getting into Cedar the first time, but I can do this by myself now.”

Her voice sounded steely. I couldn’t really do anything for her except stroke my thumb over her hand, but I hoped it came across as supportive. I listened as she hurried her mom off the phone, promising to schedule a call with someone named Lawrence later tonight. She practically flung her phone into her bag when it was done.

“I feel like I should apologize.” For what, I wasn’t sure, but I knew for certain that the day was completely ruined and I’d had something to do with it.

“You have nothing to apologize for. Even whoever took that video and sent it to Cedar couldn’t have foreseen this would happen.” She leaned over the console, sliding her other hand up my leg.

“I’m sorry it ruined our date. I was looking forward to this all week. At least we had a good day together. Didn’t we?” She fluttered her eyelashes. My gaze dropped to her mouth, remembering what she’d looked like on her knees…

“Yes.” We’d had an excellent time together earlier today.

“I know I did.” She smiled when our lips brushed. We’d been doing this almost nonstop for the better part of twenty-four hours. We’d gotten a rhythm down now. I knew when she wanted to tilt her head. She knew when I wanted to get deeper. It was heaven, kissing her.

“I was looking forward to an encore performance.” I nodded towards the door, already planning how we’d salvage our night together. We’d start on the couch because I wasn’t sure we’d make it to the bed, let alone the stairs.

“I wish I could,” she groaned, giving me a few more pecking kisses. “But my mother’s PR team is in a frenzy. I have to talk with her communications person to draft a statement they can give to the media. And NPR wants a sound bite in time for Morning Edition tomorrow. I’m just going to head home.”

“NPR?”

She was already heading out of the car, checking her phone. I could see the screen lighting up with notifications all the way from here. Within minutes, she’d grabbed her bag from inside, loaded up her car, and was driving away.

I stood in my garage wondering what the fuck had just happened.