Chapter 8

Sam

You couldn’t have paid me to go near the purple concoction on Lainey’s tea flight, but her groan of delight made me want to reconsider. And buy her a lifetime supply.

“How do you know Santiago? No offense, but it’s hard to imagine you as friends. You seem so different.”

Her eyes rolled in her head as she sampled another drink. I shifted in my seat, undecided on whether this was amazing or horrible. I frowned down at my coffee, seeking a distraction from the foreplay Lainey was having with her cold foam across the table. “I’ve known him since middle school. He’s practically a brother.”

“And does he know why you became a surgeon? That’s what we’re supposed to be doing, you know. Talking about your origin story.”

I swallowed, watching her rub a glass straw across her lip and trying not to become hypnotized. “It’s not that good of a story. Or a long one.”

“Conner said it was a good story.” Lainey widened her eyes, palm pressing to her chest. “Or are you telling me he had some sort of ulterior motive for forcing you to take me out for a coffee?”

“He didn’t force me.”

Her lips tilted up. Something about my response had pleased her.

“Regardless, embellish a little. It’s going to take me a while to get through these.” Ice clinked in her glass. All at once, I felt edgy. My origin story, as she’d call it, wasn’t dramatic or flashy. But, like most people in medicine, it was important to me. It had never occurred to me until now that sharing it was like sharing a part of myself.

I picked at a pastry. “The short story is my dad died of a heart attack when I was six.”

She offered a customary apology for my loss. I had very few memories of him. Mostly, all I remembered was how hard my mom had worked to keep a roof over our heads. I took a bite and hummed my approval, clapping Jordan on the back as he passed by. He gave me a nod, then a sly grin as he passed Lainey’s chair. God.

“What’s the long version?”

Stalling, I took another bite and followed it up with more coffee. “I saved someone’s life once.”

“I’ve seen you in the OR. I think that number is higher than one.”

Her nose wrinkled when I gave her a flat look over the rim of my cup. “In college, before I was a surgeon, I worked at a gym near my university as a trainer. One of my clients was an older guy. Had a heart attack right on the bench.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah, it was a bad day. I started CPR while someone called an ambulance. And he lived. Came back a few months later to thank me. The CPR had saved his life.” I plucked at the folds of my napkin. “We didn’t have much growing up. Single mom, three boys running around. I’d always assumed the gym was the best I could do. I liked helping people. It was good work. But that day…I just spent hours staring down at my hands. I’d saved someone’s life. Everything else felt like a waste of time after that.”

I shoved the rest of the coconut thing unceremoniously down my throat, nearly draining the rest of my cup at the same time.

“That’s a legitimately good origin story, Reese.” Her use of my last name killed me a little, but the feeling went away when I saw the look on her face. Surprise and something close to awe. More than I deserved for a story about administering CPR. Not when I knew what she could do.

“What about you?”

She set her cup back on the tray, choosing a croissant with some sort of sausage inside. “You know my story. Everyone knows my story. Mom’s a doctor, dad’s a medical engineer. They meet and have a baby. It’s incredible. It’s ingenious. It’s a pioneer in cardiac medicine.”

She wiggled her fingers like she was putting on a show. I propped my elbows on the table as she chewed. I’d never discussed this part of her life with her before. Her background— her origin story. She was correct. Everyone in our field already knew it.

Her parents were young when they’d paired up on the research project that cemented their names in medical history forever. The Carmichael-Davis stent had been a new category of medical device, including a new, specialized approach to insertion that had nearly doubled the rate of patient success and reduced scarring by 50%. The two had launched the stent, raked in the cash from the patents, and then gone their separate ways. Somewhere in there, Lainey had made her appearance as well.

“Was it hard to grow up in the shadow of Carmichael-Davis?”

She nearly choked on the last bite of croissant, smirking. “No one’s put it like that before. ‘The shadow of Carmichael-Davis.’ Sounds kind of ominous.” Despite her grin, she placed another pastry onto her plate, peeling off a few of the layers, one by one. Santiago swapped my cup for a fresh one while I watched her fidget. “I guess so, yes. But you know my mom.” She pulled more pastry apart until she hit the chocolate filling in the middle.

“I’ve met her before, yes.”

Her eyes rolled, tongue darting out to lick the sugar from her thumb. I nearly missed what she said next. “You and everyone else. She’s the most famous heart surgeon in the world and she hasn’t stepped foot in an OR in over twenty years. I grew up with an anatomically labeled heart poster above my bed. Ending up a surgeon was practically destiny.”

Following her success with the stent, Dr. Rebecca Carmichael had made a name for herself, lecturing passionately about patient-centered care and surgical innovation. Her career transitioned from practicing medicine to speaking on the circuit. She was on a few boards and had founded a nonprofit helping underserved patients receive life-saving heart care. Years ago, I’d heard a rumor that Dr. Carmichael was being considered for the surgeon general’s office. Somewhere around that same time she’d appeared on Oprah.

But that didn’t tell me how Lainey had ended up here, far from her home in Texas, talking with me. And I really, really wanted to know what cosmic whateverthefuck had aligned to make all this happen. “That’s her origin story. Not yours.”

Silence settled again on our table. Around us, customers bustled in and out. The milk steamer screamed. Tiago shouted for another chair from the back. Lainey frowned, but the pouty downturn of her mouth only made her more beautiful.

“I’ve lived a very privileged life. I had the nannies and the chauffeurs and everything. But people out there are suffering. There’s not enough food or money or… love. I’ve never struggled once in my life. It feels like I shouldn’t waste that opportunity, you know? Not everyone has my advantages, but we all have hearts. And I know hearts. If I can use that knowledge to help someone live a better life or have more time on this earth, I have an obligation to do so.” She stared down at her plate, visibly uncomfortable.

“I don’t know. Maybe that’s a stupid reason to get into this. I’m good at it. I like it. I like that I can help improve the world, even if it’s just one artery at a time. Your story is better.” She polished off the last of the chocolate thing.

“I like your story.” I loved her story. It was honest, and she was self-aware enough to understand it. I got the feeling that, like me, she wasn’t used to sharing this facet of her past with people, and I loved that she trusted me with it.

“Yours didn’t have a butler.” She huffed, crossing her arms as she sat back.

“A butler?” I whistled. A freaking butler. And I’d grown up scrubbing the mold off the walls with just my little brothers to help. We were worlds apart. And yet, not really.

“Two. Divorced parents, right? Everything is duplicated.”

“So, you left the butlers behind and went to med school in Texas. How’d you end up in Chicago?”

A burning question, often hotly debated at Cedar. According to the rumor mill, she’d matched with Houston Presbyterian for her residency and switched to Cedar at the last minute. Something normal people couldn’t really do, but Lainey came with the advantage of a hefty medical legacy. Having the favor of someone like Dr. Carmichael could open major doors for an organization.

All Caplan would say on the matter, when someone had asked him about it once, was that they wanted the best at Cedar, and they’d opened up a spot for her when she’d requested a transfer. I’d still been at Northwestern at that point, but the story of her irregular entrance into the program still popped up every once in a while, so I was familiar with it. Sometimes people dredged it up when she and Cooper did something particularly brilliant in the OR.

Whatever the naysayers muttered about didn’t matter, though. Lainey had entered the program and promptly blown everyone away. She knew hearts in-and-out. But I’d always been curious about the actual story of how she got here.

As she stiffened, her gaze shooting down to the empty cups around her, I immediately knew the question was unwelcome.

“Another round?” Santiago plucked up the tray, cutting off whatever I’d just opened my mouth to say. An apology, perhaps. Lainey gave him a small smile. Strained.

“I couldn’t. It was all amazing. The dreamsicle? A literal dream.”

“A literal dream. It’s going on the menu board. I told you!” Tiago snapped his fingers in my face. I smacked his hand away. “What did you think of the coconut pastelitos? Jordan has been agonizing over them. He thinks there’s too much salt, even though he’s wrong.” He glared at his partner, who ambled over to listen in on Lainey’s response.

“The coconut things? Ohmigod, don’t change a thing. I want to eat this until I die. And then I want to be embalmed in whatever glaze you have going on here. And then stuff me in my casket with as many of these as you can fit.” She thawed as she talked, conversation melting away the awkward freeze from when I’d mentioned Texas.

Or maybe she was just that good at faking it.

Despite her insistence otherwise, Tiago handed her a decaf matcha something or other with some sort of ginger whip on top, and handed me another cup as well. When my friends drifted away to see to other customers, we fiddled with our drinks in awkward silence. For maybe the first time in my life, I felt compelled to fill it.

“Embalming, huh?” I surprised a laugh out of her, which was gratifying.

“Hey, those things were good! I’d be rich and well-fed in the afterlife.”

“Hmm. More of a cremation guy, myself.”

A week ago, if you’d told me I’d sit across from Lainey Carmichael, trying to distract her by talking about our post-mortem preferences, I would have called the psych ward. Now? Her smile lit up the whole fucking room.

“Tell me more about that.”

I smiled back.