Chapter 31

Sam

“I know I don’t have to tell you this, but it happens to everyone.” Caplan squeezed my shoulder. I appreciated his attempt, but it did little to alleviate the pit in my stomach.

I’d lost countless patients before. I had protocols for it now: Go home, take a scalding shower after pumping some iron in my garage, watch some mindless show or see if Jas and Conner were up for some company. Early to bed, then back at it again in the morning.

Like all specialties, cardiothoracic surgery had its ups and downs. A bypass was common practice for me now, but some patients had a harder time bouncing back than others. Some people’s bodies just couldn’t recover. I knew this, but it was hard to tell a family that a routine procedure had taken the life of their loved one.

“Listen, I know this isn’t the best time for this, but I wanted to get to you before you heard it from someone else.” At Caplan’s grimace, I steeled myself for even more bad news.

My life had been going pretty well recently. In fact, it had been a fucking dream. I was with Lainey. My family was happy and mostly healthy. My work was going well, barring the intermittent drama with board oversight.

Maybe that’s why today had been miserable.

Lainey had already been in the shower when I woke up, which threw me off kilter before my eyes had even opened. I was used to her lying around with me in the mornings, chatting or checking her phone or just laying there together. Later, over her tea, she’d been…fine, just like she had been this weekend. Nothing overtly wrong or off, just a little distant. I’d still gotten a kiss before we parted ways at her car, but it lacked any of the heat I’d grown used to when her lips were on mine.

Work had hit me like a freight train the second I stepped into the building. My patient in the ICU was rapidly deteriorating, not to mention three back-to-back stent procedures.

I’d come out of the third surgery to a nurse with sticky notes all over her binder. The patient in the ICU had passed away. My brother had called to let me know Jas was back in the hospital after a concerning check-up. On and on and on. One emergency after another.

Now, three hours past when I was supposed to leave, with a tension headache pounding between my eyes, I braced for more. Caplan looked like he’d swallowed something sour.

“We’re naming Dr. Whitaker’s replacement for program director this week. We’ve decided to go with Garcia.”

I stared, head throbbing. Garcia. The man who’d never shown an interest in the residents past how much work he could shove off on them or which one he could take his anger out on during a bad day? Garcia, the doctor nearly as old as Whitaker?

“I know what you’re thinking.” Unlikely. “But he’s old buddies with someone on the board, and he’s losing his edge on the OR. This lets us keep him around and minimize his time with patients. It was a win-win.”

The board. Why did it always come back to that, these days? I’d heard more grumblings over the past few weeks about it than I’d heard my entire tenure at Cedar.

“That’s a bad call.”

Caplan drew back, but I didn’t have it in me to soften the blow. Not today. He waited, but I didn’t explain any further. We both knew exactly how shitty this move was. For the residents, and the rest of us. With Garcia at the helm, they’d be hard-pressed to get a holistic experience, much less the support they’d need to get through some of the most stressful years of their lives. The quality of the residents’ experiences trickled down to the rest of us, including patients.

Caplan cleared his throat. “I’m afraid my hands are tied on the matter.”

I wasn’t sure that they were. Maybe Caplan was between a rock and a hard place, but his job was to lead the fucking department. Not grab a trampoline when the board told him to jump. My silence must have said as much. He studied his shoes.

“There’s an enormous amount of pressure in this position. Not every decision I make is popular.”

“That’d be fine if it was really you deciding.” I hiked my backpack onto my shoulder. I was over this conversation. This day. “Just don’t be surprised when people get fed up when there’s no one around to stick up for them.”

◆◆◆

The knots loosened from my shoulders when I saw Lainey’s car parked by my house. I wondered how much better my protocols for losing a patient would be when she was around. In the shower with me, snuggled up watching a war documentary. Then early to bed with her wrapped around me. That was the kind of thing I could get used to.

She brightened up everything. It made me want to beg her to move in. Keep her forever. Was it too early to offer her a drawer? Half my closet? A ring?

I dropped my bag, feet scraping up the stairs. I was exhausted. And angry. And hungry.

“Sweetheart?” My voice barely carried across the first floor. Anything louder and my head was bound to pop off my neck. I made a beeline to the kitchen, throwing back two Tylenol and sticking my head under the sink. A glass was too much work right now. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lainey padding across the living room.

I turned to give her a tired smile. “Hi.”

I knew something was wrong before she even opened her mouth. Something about that blank look on her face, the way she was standing there clutching a sheaf of papers, warned me. Too late.

“You reported our relationship to HR.”

Oh. Fuck. My temples pulsed.

“Yes.” There was no use denying it. I hadn’t technically been keeping it a secret from her. More like waiting for the right time. And now it was catching up to me at the exact wrong time.

I wanted to be holding her and talking about ordering Mexican for dinner. Not fighting. But that’s what this was gearing up to be. The tilt of her chin told me she was spoiling for it.

“Were you planning to tell me about it at any point?”

I paused, choosing my words carefully. The process was difficult, given how tight the invisible band around my skull had become.

“Don’t stand there and think about what you want to say, Reese. Just say what’s in your head!” The papers cracked as she swiped them through the air. Jesus.

“Of course I was going to tell you. I was waiting for the right time.”

“Ooh, sure. The right time. Probably before Sturmond blindsided me with it when he accused me of sleeping with you to get the attending position.”

“What?”

“Yeah, super swell meeting today. Because of your little stunt”—she waved the papers around again—“he knows we’re together. He’s threatening to expose us unless I keep up my media appearances. We’ll be a laughingstock.”

“How did he know?” I rubbed my eyebrows. I’d specifically asked Gina in HR to keep it quiet when I’d turned in the paperwork informing the organization of my relationship with Lainey. It had been too early to say anything publicly, but I couldn’t keep doing whatever it was we were doing together when I was interviewing her.

“Apparently, his spy network is impressively large. How could you, Sam? You said we’d take this slow.”

“We are taking things slow. I told you not to worry about the hospital finding out.”

“Yeah, because they already knew about it. Does Caplan know? Who else, Sam?”

“It’s a massive conflict of interest, Lainey. I’m biased as hell towards you. There’s no way I could have kept going pretending like everything was fine while I interviewed other people for a job I want you to have.”

“You should have told me! That’s what normal people do!” Her face twisted. “It’s called communication. I know it’s a foreign concept for you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” My brain throbbed, vision going blurry. She was coming at me hard and everything seemed all wrong.

“It means you don’t give me anything to work with! I never know what’s in your head. I watch you filter every word that comes out of your mouth. It’s ridiculous!”

“ I don’t give you anything? The only thing I’ve gotten from you is red lights. You’ve been against this, us, from the start.” My palms dug into my eyes. Little fireworks exploded at the pressure on my lids. “Forgive me if I couldn’t find the right time to tell you I was fulfilling a moral obligation to tell the hospital about us, when you made it very clear you didn’t even want a relationship to begin with.”

“You know why I had my reservations about this. And guess what?” She waved the papers through the air again. “I was right. Once again, my life is falling to pieces all because I picked the wrong guy.”

“Now, hold on—”

“I told myself not to get too tangled up; not to mix work with my personal life. But you went ahead and did all the paperwork without me. You had no right to make this decision for me.” The papers spun where she tossed them on the granite countertop. “Now, Stumond is breathing down my neck and both of our reputations are on the line. I’m already on thin ice because of how I became a resident here. Now, it just looks like I’m using someone else to get to where I want to go. Like I can’t get there on my own.”

“No, it will look fine.” When it all blew over. No one would give us a second look when we were celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary. But I couldn’t say that. Not without pushing her away even more. Not when she was looking at me like she wanted to fling a dagger at my neck.

“It will not. You know, the ridiculous thing is that you’re right. I didn’t want this. I knew better.” I watched the emotions play across her face. The anger, rage, now edged with resignation. The grim acceptance that flickered in her eyes spiked my heart rate. It didn’t look like she was spoiling for a fight. It looked like she was giving up.

“Wait, Lainey. I know you’re mad, just…” Her bag was sitting beside the front door. Fully packed. “What…what’s happening here?” The band around my head contracted a bit more.

“I’m leaving.”

“Hold on. Just…dammit, Lainey, wait. Let’s talk about this.”

“Oh, now you want to talk? It’s too late.” She grabbed the handle of her duffel. I took the corner around the island so fast, I banged my hip hard enough to bruise.

“Fuck. Listen, I know you’re mad right now. But—” I reached for her, but she just kept backing away.

“Yeah, I’m mad…and disappointed. I thought I could trust you.” Betrayal was written all over her face. I felt like the smallest piece of shit on the planet.

“Honey, you can—”

“Not when you go behind my back like this. I’ve done this once before, Sam. Losing my relationship, all my friends, my job? I’m not doing it again.”

“Lainey, you can’t leave—”

“That’s the only thing I can do.”

“I’m in love with you!” I blurted the words, pain and panic sending my brain into a fever pitch. Her chin quivered. Then she turned on her heel and left without another word.

◆◆◆

Was four-thirty in the morning too early to call a woman after you broke her heart? Probably. Still, I stared at the screen of my phone, knee jiggling.

Five was possibly more acceptable. Lainey was an early riser. I watched another minute go by.

I’d stood frozen in my living room long after she left. She hadn’t even slammed the door. All I’d had to mark the moment she walked out of my life was a jumbled pile of papers and the memory of her disappointed face.

But she couldn’t just leave like that. It was one fight. We could fix this. She just needed some time to cool off.

At least, that’s what I told myself last night, laying in bed, clutching my phone as sleep eluded me. Now, I wasn’t so sure. For the hundredth time, I replayed the best hits from her tirade.

“Once again, my life is falling to pieces all because I picked the wrong guy.”

“I didn’t want this. I knew better.”

“It’s too late.”

Four-thirty-five wasn’t too early, was it?

“What’s wrong?” Tiago yanked on the door handle, impatiently gesturing for me to unlock it. The door jerked open. “Is it Jas and the baby?”

“No.” I pulled myself out of the car, feeling sore. My headache hadn’t fully dissipated. My limbs were dead weight.

“Your mom? Will?”

“Everyone’s fine, T.”

“Well, what the fuck, Sammy? There’s a reason you’re sitting in front of the store at four a.m. looking like someone died. You’d better spit it out.”

“Lainey left.”

Jordan wrapped his arm around Tiago’s waist, thumb stroking his side. They shared a glance more intimate than any caress. I looked away.

“Come in, Amor . I’ll make you a cup.”

Parking my ass between R 3 and Molido before the sun came up had been a strategic move. Lainey liked to work out the morning after a bad day, and Tiago was one of the best listeners I knew. I figured one of them would eventually show up and put me out of my misery.

While Jordan prepped the ovens and pulled out rack after rack of dough from the walk-in, Tiago cranked up the espresso machine. I helped him flip chairs off the tables and told him the whole story.

“It didn’t occur to you to talk with her before you reported her?” His hands planted on his hips while he watched me.

“I didn’t report her , I reported us.”

He’d only turned on the bronze star lanterns clustered on the ceiling. I let the dim glow and increasingly powerful scent of coffee ease some of the tightness in my skull.

“I’m not sure there’s much of a difference when you do it behind her back.” Tiago clicked his tongue, not bothering to help me with the rest of the chairs.

“I didn’t…” I rubbed gritty eyes, sagging to a seat. “It wasn’t behind her back.”

He rubbed my neck as he placed a Cubano and biscotti in front of me. “I know you were doing what you thought was best, Hermano , but consider this from her point of view.”

“I am.” I had been up all night thinking about all the ways I'd let her down. When I tried to figure out what I could have done differently, better, I kept coming up empty. “But you didn’t see how skittish she was at the beginning. I had to hold her lightly or risk scaring her off. I’m in love with her, T.”

“I know, Sweetie. That’s why you should probably hold on even tighter.” He sighed, wiping down cups for the day’s service. “There’s no use dwelling on it now. What are you going to do next?”

I glanced down at my phone. Four-fifty-one was late-ish, right? “Call her?”

“You want to run that by me again without sounding like you’re asking permission?”

“I can’t stop thinking about how hurt she looked last night. Like I’d failed her. I don’t know if she even wants to speak to me right now.”

“It’s too late,” she’d said. Fuck, maybe it was too late.

“She might not.” He shrugged. I stared, waiting, but he offered nothing else.

“Then, what do I do? If she needs space—”

“Sammy, you tried holding her lightly. It backfired all over your pretty face. You need a trim, by the way.” He stroked his own bare jaw where my beard had gotten scraggly. “So now you try something different.”

I scowled into my coffee. “You say that like it’s easy. What am I supposed to do , Tiago?”

“Call her,” Jordan sang from behind the counter.

“Call her!” Tiago flung his towel down, drowning out Jordan’s words. “Go to her apartment. Text her. Tell her you love her.”

“Tried that. Still couldn’t get her to stay.”

“Hey, Eeyore!” Tiago snapped his fingers in front of my face. “You had a fight. People fight. They get mad and walk away. Is this girl the one?”

“She’s the one.” I knew it down to a cellular level.

“Then tell her that, again and again. Apologize. Find a way to be better. Hold on tighter, Sammy.”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. Tiago was right. I’d been too cautious, treating this relationship like it would disappear into thin air the second I made a wrong move. Now, though, there was nothing left to lose.

If I stayed silent, just let her walk out the door, she might never come back. And I’d never recover.

“Just don’t stalk her, or anything.” Jordan’s rumble split through the heavy air in the cafe. Tiago scoffed.

“You stalked me and it worked out fine.”

Jordan placed a kiss on Tiago’s nose before turning to disappear into the back. “You were a special case.”

They worked around me, prepping and stacking, letting me think.

At five-thirty, I tapped Lainey’s contact information. Her Cedar headshot popped up. I’d wanted to replace her picture in my phone with the photo Jas had snapped of us a few days ago. The one on my porch, me hugging Lainey from behind. Both of us happy. But I hadn’t wanted to risk someone at work seeing it.

I dialed. Waited. She didn’t pick up.