Chapter 19

All I see is red. Fucking red everywhere. "That's Cayden," I snap at Katy, and just what the fuck is he doing here? And how did he find her?

She stares at me as if I just lost my mind. "I know. I just met him." She tilts her head as realization creeps across her features. "Wait. How do you know him?"

I grab her with my good hand—since the one I hit him with burns like a bastard, though that hit was totally worth the pain—around her waist and growl, "He's my ex-best friend."

"The one who was fucking your ex?"

I nod.

Her face drops. "Oh."

"Yeah. Oh."

Only that's not why I hit the motherfucker. He was talking to Katy with a familiarity I didn't appreciate. More than that, he was touching her, and for that alone, I had to hit him. He shows up here out of the blue and now he's touching Katy?! My Katy? No. Absolutely not. Not her. Not ever.

"Help me move him," Katy demands, bending over and grabbing Cayden by the arm. He groans, his body shifting and his eyes slowly blinking open. "Now, Bennett. You just punched a man out on your floor, and if anyone sees this, deserving or not, you could get fired."

I make an aggravated noise in the back of my throat because I'd just allow Cayden to lie here bleeding like a pussy, but I grab his other arm and help her drag him toward the empty patient room across the way.

"Put him on the bed. I need to examine him."

"Forget that?—"

"Now," she demands, giving me a look that says don't argue.

I lop the dead weight of his body on the bed, but when she moves to help him, I yank her hand away from him because as much as I don't want his hands anywhere near her, I don't want her hands anywhere on him.

"You"—she points toward the recliner in the corner of the room—"sit there and do not speak or move. You need ice for your hand."

"Katy—"

"I said do not speak or move. Who punches someone, Bennett? You're a freaking surgeon and an adult. If you broke your hand or can't operate, how will you explain that? I'll be back."

I grunt and sit in the chair as Katy leaves the room, shutting the door behind her. Cayden groans again, and I roll my eyes. "You deserved that. You deserve worse than that, actually. I should have broken your fucking nose." No one else touches my girl, and certainly not you, you piece of shit.

"Again you mean."

I roll my eyes a second time and lean back, flexing and clenching my fist to test it. It's not great but not terrible, and I doubt anything is broken. "I didn't break your nose that time."

"Yes, you did. When you tackled me during touch football."

"You're a dick. What are you doing here?"

"Nice to see you too, buddy."

I scoff and toss my ankle up on my knee. "Buddy? What are we? Six? I'm not your fucking buddy."

"You knocked me down in front of my new girlfriend."

In a flash, I shoot to my feet and start to charge when the door opens, and Katy comes in carrying two pink hospital pitchers filled with ice along with two towels. "Sit down, Bennett." She puts the pitchers on the tray by the foot of the bed and goes about making me an ice pack. "Put this on your hand and do not argue with me." She starts to grumble to herself. "Honestly. A freaking surgeon punching someone. Who does that?"

I take the ice pack from her hand and put it on my fist.

"I'm going to examine that after I check your buddy here for a concussion."

"What is it with everyone using the term buddy today? He's not my fucking buddy."

"Why are you so grumpy?"

"Yeah, Bennett. Why are you so grumpy?" Cayden is smirking. I know that taunting tone of his. He saw the rise he just got out of me about Katy, which given his track record, means he's going to try to fuck her. And since he's Cayden Craw, he'll likely succeed. He already had her smiling. His hand was on her forearm.

"Did he touch any other part of you?" I ask Katy, not even caring if I'm grumpy or even a bit psycho. As far as I'm concerned, he's lucky I didn't kill him.

"Huh?" She turns back to me.

"Did. He. Touch. You? Tell me." So I can hit him again. Harder this time.

"I touched her lower back on the elevator when I told her ex-boyfriend I was her new guy. You know, the one trying to get her pregnant."

Katy gasps, but if I thought I was seeing red before, now it's a shower of blood over my vision.

"You son of a bitch."

I fly straight for him, ready to tear him apart piece by motherfucking piece, only to have Katy intercept me. Her small body slams into mine, and her hands shove my shoulders, trying to force me back to the chair.

"Move," I order.

"No."

"So help me God, Katy. I will spank you so hard for letting him pretend to be your fake boyfriend if you don't let me kill him now."

"Promises, promises. I still have yet to get a good spanking from you." She twists my nipple through my scrub top until I wince. "Enough!" she snaps. "You're very sexy when you're all alpha male like this, but no more beating people up."

My lips twitch. Fuck, this girl just has me. "Sexy alpha male, huh?"

"Sit down, Bennett, and ice your goddamn hand."

"I thought you weren't dating," Cayden throws out, still lying supine like the pussy he is. "Isn't that what you told me when I asked you out?"

"I'm not." She pulls a penlight from her pocket and starts examining him. "Pupils are equal, round, and reactive to light."

"Oh, so then there's nothing going on with you and Bennett. All that spanking talk is just workplace banter. Good stuff. My window is still open then."

"You stupid motherfu?—"

"I said enough. Jesus. It's like preschool in here." She sits Cayden up. "You're awake but stupid enough to start shit and risk getting hit again. I can't tell if that's from a head injury or you just like to run your mouth. Can you follow my finger with just your eyes?"

"Can't I just stare into yours instead?"

"Sure. You can intentionally fail your neuro exam. I have no problems sending you down to the emergency department and having all the new interns perform full neuro exams and possibly a few rectal ones on you."

Cayden chokes on a laugh and twists to meet my eyes, giving me a smug look that tells me he likes Katy. Yeah, take a number, asshole. I flip him off with my good hand.

"I'm a neurosurgeon," Cayden explains pompously to Katy, acting like a peacock. "I can do my own neuro exam."

"Goodie gumdrops for you, but I'm hardly impressed by that. Now shut up and do as you're told." Katy holds up her pointer finger in front of Cayden, and he follows her every command. "I don't think you have a concussion."

"No," he agrees. "It was a lousy sucker punch. His mother hits harder than that."

"I'll let her know you're in town and see if she can do better," Katy deadpans. "The cut on your face doesn't need stitches, which is too bad since I can't let the interns play with it." She tosses an ice pack at his face and then comes for me. "Your turn."

"It's fine," I maintain, my hard eyes on Cayden's Cheshire grin. He stares at her ass as she bends to examine me, and I'm legit going to kill him. It'll be fun. I bet if I ask nicely enough, Vander will help me get rid of his body. He seems like the sort to know how to do that.

She raises an unamused eyebrow at me. "Oh, is it there, Boxer Joe? So you not only look like Superman but have his X-ray vision too?"

"Huh?" I turn back to her.

"Your hand is swollen and red. Already. You need an X-ray."

"Not gonna happen, sweetheart. No way that will stay quiet."

"If you won't get an X-ray, then let me examine it to make sure it's not fractured, and then you better keep this ice on it."

"Fine," I grumble, leaning back in the recliner and allowing Katy to put her hands on mine and her body between my spread legs. Now it's my turn for a smug grin.

"No fracture that I can tell," she says when she's done. "At least not an obvious one."

Katy's phone starts going off with text pages, and I stand, threading my good hand through her hair and kissing her like my ex-best friend who wants my girl is watching. I kiss Katy until she's breathless and her lips are glossed from mine.

"I'll see you tonight." Another kiss. "And I'll be sure to give you that spanking." Which she knows I won't since she has her period, but that was more for Cayden than for her anyway. I shove her out the door and fall back into the recliner, putting the ice back on my fist because yeah, it is swollen and it's definitely red, and it hurts like a motherfucker. Speaking of. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"She says you're not dating her. It has to hurt that she doesn't care enough about you to acknowledge you."

Cayden leans against the head of the bed, his feet dangling over the side, his ankles crossed. I'm pleased to say he's going to have a nice shiner by tomorrow. "Your face looks like shit."

Because he's vain, he puts the ice on his cheek.

"Funny thing… you found out I was nailing your wife behind your back for two years and all you did was leave town. You didn't even seek me out. You just left with your dick between your legs. I show up here and flirt with your new non-girlfriend in the hall, and you punch me out cold for it."

I relax back in my chair and throw my ankle back up on my knee as I stare at him, unfazed.

"I know who she is," he says, his face rife with confidence, and he follows that up with, "She's the third-year medical student girl."

My eyes widen. "How do you know that?"

"I remember her name. You whined about that girl for over a year to me on the phone and in person when I saw you. Is Katy why you moved here? Did you know she was working here?"

I don't know why I bother answering him, but I do. Maybe because I'm shocked he remembered her name or because I hadn't realized I whined about her to him for that long. "No. It was a coincidence."

"And now you're trying to get her pregnant. That's pretty perfect for you, Bennett. To be so in love and trying for the baby you've always wanted."

My jaw clenches. "I'm not in love with her, asshole, and shut up about the baby. You, of all people, have no right."

"You are in love, my friend. It's all over your face. It's in the way you look at her. In the way you kissed her just now and came after me for putting my hand on her back, and punched me out for so much as talking to her."

I lean forward, pressing my elbows into my parted thighs while holding the ice to my hand and willing myself not to hit him again. "Why. Are. You. Here?"

"Because you never gave me the chance to explain."

I laugh acerbically and shake my head. "Liz explained everything to me. There was nothing left for you to add, and I wasn't going to let you rub salt in it just because you could."

I move to stand, but he stops me when he rushes out, "I didn't know she got her tubes tied."

That pulls me up short and I turn to look at him. "She said you told her to do it."

"No." He gives a small head shake. "She lied. I never would have told her to do that. I know what having kids means to you."

"And yet you fucked her behind my back." Liz cheating hurt like hell, and her getting her tubes tied and not telling me was a crushing blow. But Cayden was my best friend for nearly two decades. The one person—other than my mother and Liz—in my life who I felt I knew and could trust with anything.

It gutted me when I found out it was him. And when the accusations started, he kept his mouth shut. He didn't come to my defense even though he knew I'd never do any of the things they were saying about me. That was crushing.

I was alone with no one on my side, no one I could trust, losing the life I loved, the one I had built, and all the people in it. And now he's here fucking with Katy, the one good thing I have going, and I can't stand it.

He looks miserable as he admits, "I was in love with Liz. Every minute of the time you were with her, I loved her. And every minute of our friendship, I've been jealous of you. Perfect Bennett Lawson. Top of our graduating class. Teacher's pet. Amazing at any sport you tried. Flawless with women who swoon all over you. I loved you. You were my best friend, but hell, I hated you sometimes too."

I sigh, resting my forearms on my thighs and staring down at the floor. The ice is melting and the towel she wrapped it in is wet, but I hardly notice it.

"When we met Liz and she went for you like everyone else did, it killed me. I stood by and I watched the woman I loved with my best friend for years. So when she kissed me, I didn't stop it, even though I knew I should have. I tried to end it a few times because the guilt was eating me alive, and there were months that nothing happened between us. But then I'd cave, and it would start over again."

"And the baby?" I find myself asking, my voice rough like sandpaper.

"When you told me you and Liz were finally going to try for a baby, I told her we had to end it for good. She refused. She told me she'd tell you what we had been doing and I…" He licks his lips and stares off toward the window. "I didn't want to lose you."

I pause, thinking about that, my eyebrows slanting because I'm not sure how that all adds up, but then he continues, and I lose my train of thought.

"I was in love with her, but you were my best friend and I fucking loved you too. I told her I couldn't risk her getting pregnant and us not knowing who the father was, and she told me that wasn't going to be a problem. I only slept with her for another couple of months before I ended it because I saw how miserable you were that you weren't getting pregnant."

I look at him. "She had the tubal ligation over a year before that."

He shrugs. "Like I said, I didn't know that."

Interesting. He's telling the truth. This means Liz did that on her own and not at his request as she said. She's a real piece of work. Not that it matters now. I haven't thought about Liz—not beyond her incessant calling—in weeks. Funny. I hadn't realized that until now.

"And when the accusations came?"

"Liz told me not to get involved or I'd lose both of you. You were already gone to me, and I was trying for something more with her."

"Why bother telling me any of this now?" And then it hits me. "Liz left you. That's why she's started calling me."

"Actually, I left her."

Strangely, I don't care either way. I don't even care if they get back together.

I stand. "Thanks for telling me."

He stops me right before I reach the door. "I'm sorry, Bennett. That's why I came here. I wanted to tell you that I'm so sorry for hurting you and lying to you. You were my best friend, my brother, and I betrayed that in the worst of ways. I know you might never forgive me, but I hope one day you can. And as for Katy, deny it all you want, but you were in love with her seven years ago, and you're in love with her now. I know you, Bennett. You can lie to yourself, but you can't lie to me."

His words wrap around my chest and squeeze it like a vise, making it impossible to breathe. I open the door and leave, needing to get back to work. Needing to not think about everything he just said and the possibility that he's right about Katy.

Katy

"This is not going to help,"Keegan tells me as she sips her cappuccino and stares down at her chipping nail polish. "If anything, it's going to make it worse."

I lean against the window frame and stare into the nursery filled with all these cute, tiny new babies and sigh. "It's fine. I like being here. I like seeing them." Weirdly, every time I've come down here, it's kept me grounded and focused on my goals. Even if it does sting. "Besides, I wanted to bring you your favorite cappuccino and see you since it's been days. It's not my fault this is where you live."

"But you're off now. You should go home and rest. Get some sleep."

"Stop trying to get rid of me or I won't bring you coffee again."

She takes a sip. "I love you and your coffee. But I'm also going to nag you like your stepmother when you don't take care of yourself. Speaking of, are you having dinner with Callan and Layla tonight? They're finally back, right?"

"Yes. They just got back from Europe the other day. Actually, I think Uncle Cal is working today. I'll leave in a minute. I want to watch the babies and catch up. I feel like I haven't seen you in forever."

"Because you haven't. We've all been busy, but you're extra busy right now."

I can feel her eyebrows bouncing suggestively at me, but I pretend not to notice.

It's been a weird two months. Weird because I'm still living at Bennett's and only my family knows about it. Weird because he and I are freaking roommates who have sex constantly for procreation, though eighty percent of it is not for procreation at all, and the sex is wild and hot and occasionally a bit kinky.

We've been trying like rabbits in spring and so far, nada.

I'm set to get my period in three days, and the test we took last night before I came into work was negative. I'm sluggish to go home because if I go home, I'll be tempted, and I don't want to see another negative one. Not to mention, I promised Bennett I'd never pee on a stick without him, and he's at work now. I told him we'd do it tonight when we get home from dinner with Callan and Layla.

Things I did not tell my best friend Keegan? Bennett is meeting Callan and Layla tonight. It's not me bringing a guy to meet my guardians. It's not. It's me bringing the guy trying to knock me up to meet them. That's all.

But until then, I should go home, sleep, and not take a test. Night shifts are rough enough, and I've been battling a case of food poisoning I got from some bad fish the other night. But if I'm not pregnant this time, I'm going to move out for a bit and maybe only sleep there when we're actively trying and I'm ovulating.

Living with Bennett—roommates or not—is tempting my heart too much. Plus, it's risky. We've nearly been caught too many times. He had me pinned in an old, unused lab the other day, and a few days before that, he fucked me against the glass of the gallery over an empty OR. And then, just a couple of days ago, he dragged me into an empty patient room and finger-fucked me to orgasm twice.

Plus he watches me constantly. I feel his eyes on me all the time, and eventually someone is going to notice.

Keegan offers me some of her drink and my stomach roils. I shake my head, puffing out my cheeks as if I'm about to boot. "No thanks."

"Maybe you should eat something. Even just some crackers."

I shake my head. "I can't. I seriously can't. Tonight I'll eat something at dinner. Some plain pasta, maybe."

"You're going to dehydrate."

I pull up my sleeve and show her the IV I have capped off in my arm. When I first got sick, Bennett slept in my bed with me and took care of me all night. And when I started throwing up water, he panicked and put in an IV, making sure I got glucose and fluids.

"I don't see fluids in there now."

"I'll do another round when I go home," I promise her because I likely should. My blood sugars have been a mess since I got sick. "I had a few sips of a sports drink not too long ago."

"Fine. I'll stop mothering you. How's it going with your secret lover?"

I roll my eyes and watch as a baby starts to squirm and then cry. One of the nurses comes over and picks him up, cuddling him to her chest. I want one. "How do you not want one of these?"

"Katy," she demands. "You haven't said anything about it to any of us. What's the deal?"

I hitch up one shoulder. "There is no deal other than the deal we already have."

"Are you still sleeping together?"

Thankfully my phone vibrates with a page, so I don't have to answer her. I don't want to hear the lecture. The one where she reminds me how crazy what I'm doing with Bennett is. I like having sex with him. He's good at it and being with him that way is perfectly and undeniably convenient. It's like trying to get pregnant with a bonus I never originally anticipated.

And the moment I'm pregnant, it'll stop. Once that happens, everything will fall in line between us the way we've designed it to. We both know that. We both hope this is only borrowed time. So why not take advantage of it while we can?

It's like Bennett said, he's fucking me with his dick and not his heart, and every time he's inside me, I remind myself of that.

"I gotta go," I tell her, reading the stat page to the OR. "Some kind of construction site accident."

"But you're off," she maintains. "They shouldn't be paging you."

I shrug. "They must need me, and I only got off ten minutes ago." I pull away from the wall and head toward the stairs. "I'll catch up with you later."

"You will, because tomorrow night we're taking you out for dinner and you're having a slumber party at our place," she calls after me. "No exceptions."

"Sounds awesome. I might seriously need it. Love you, Keegs!"

"Love you too, bitch."

Someone nearby hisses at her, and I catch Keegan apologizing for her curse just as I open the door to the stairwell—no more freaking elevators for me—and fly up three flights, panting as I reach the trauma surgical floor. I have a headache and my stomach feels like a sponge someone keeps squeezing, but all that starts to fade as I enter the OR.

Holy hell.

"Great. You're still here. I'm sorry to call you back, but we need all the hands we can get at the moment. Go get gowned and gloved up, but don't worry about scrubbing in."

I blink at Bennett and then over toward the patient who has a rusty metal rod straight through his stomach and some kind of tool stuck in his side. Bolting out of the room, I quickly throw on my scrub cap and booties, wash my hands, and then race back in. A nurse helps me gown up, and I snap on a pair of gloves even though I'm not sterile.

The patient is sitting up and intubated, and I come in beside Cricket, who is not pleased I'm here to help hold the patient upright. "What happened?" I ask. Two nurses are working on draping the patient and making the area as sterile as they can while me and another nurse hold the patient and gurney steady so he doesn't move or shift even the slightest amount.

"Construction site accident. He wasn't harnessed in, and he fell. His blood alcohol level is more than twice the legal limit, which only complicates this further."

"Damn," I mutter.

"Seriously," Cricket snarks. "What kind of moron is drunk at seven in the morning on a construction site?"

"Someone with a problem from the sound of it," I retort. "What's your plan?"

"Dr. Lawson and I are doing the surgery. You're just here to help like one of the nurses."

My eyebrows hit my hairline, and I glance over at the nurses in here who are—rightfully so—pissed at the snotty implication that nurses aren't just as important as doctors, which is absolute bullshit.

Bennett gives Cricket a hard look for that comment too, but then turns back to me. "Dr. Peterson and I are going to go scrub in, but I want you to stay with the patient and keep him as steady as possible."

Cricket gives me a bright and shiny smug grin, and I so want to tell Cricket to fuck herself with the rusty pole, but I keep my mouth shut and my jaw clenched.

"What a bitch," I mutter under my breath the moment they're gone.

"A serious bitch," Martha, the nurse helping to hold up the patient, says.

The anesthesiologist snickers. "You need to be careful, Katy. She bashes you every chance she gets and is quick to steal surgeries."

"She's like an ambulance chaser," I drawl. "A surgical bottom feeder. But for real, have you ever seen anything like this? What is that tool in his side?"

"On X-ray, it looks like some kind of pliers."

I wince. "Ouch."

The OR doors swing open, and Bennett and Cricket return along with some interns and second-and-third-year residents who are eager to watch since cases like this don't come along every day and will require a lot of moving parts to make it successful.

"Thank you, Dr. Barrows. I can have one of the interns come and spell you."

Dr. Fields comes in and takes over holding the patient up for me. "Can I scrub in?"

Bennett gives me a long look as if he's debating that but then nods. "Yeah. Go ahead, but be quick."

I catch Cricket complaining about that, but she can eat my ass if she thinks I'm not scrubbing in. I set my phone to vibrate and drop it on the table along with the others before I fly out of the OR to scrub in at light speed. In a flash, I'm back in, getting regowned and gloved up, and then coming in and going exactly where Bennett points me to.

"Katy, I want you on the other side there beside Cricket. We're going to start with the tool first since the pole is tamponading any bleeders in the chest, and it appears that the pliers are pressing right into his liver, which is bleeding profusely. Let's move fast, pack off, and cauterize what we can so we can move onto the pole and then open him up."

An incision is made, and then the three of us get to work, packing off the liver that is not in good shape. I'm shaking from the adrenaline, which is a bit odd since I never shake in situations like this, but then again, this isn't an everyday trauma.

"It's sclerosed," Cricket laments. "I don't see how we're going to be able to stop the bleeding like this."

It's true. The liver has a lot of damage from what appears to be years of alcohol abuse, and unfortunately, sclerosed livers bleed and don't clot well. It's an absolute mess. More blood is hung to transfuse and keep the patient's vitals stable—which they shockingly are—and we do what we can before the team starts in with the saw to cut the pole. We stand back while they do this, oxygen turned off as sparks fly, which is why the anesthesiologist now has to manually bag the patient to keep him breathing.

I've never seen anything like this in my four-going-on-five years as a resident. It's seriously the coolest and craziest thing ever, and I can't wait to pick Bennett's brain about it later. He throws me a side-eye, giving me a sly wink, and I feel my face heating, my skin growing clammy, and my heart beating faster.

Once the pole is cut, we jump back in, sliding it out slowly while working from behind to stop any bleeding. I'm sweating, my muscles are aching, my heart is racing a mile a minute, and… my vision sways.

The hell?

I brush that off and keep going, following Bennett's directive.

"Someone's phone is vibrating like crazy over here," the circulating nurse announces just as we finally manage to remove the pole and lay the patient down so we can open him up and fix his liver and other internal injuries.

"Is it a call or a page?"

"Neither," she says. "It looks like an app notification."

"Whatever it is can wait," Bennett growls, annoyed by the interruption.

"I thought we weren't allowed to have app notifications going," Cricket gripes, and she's right. We're not. We're not supposed to get notifications from things like social media, weather, or any other non-essential apps. They're distracting in the OR. Clearly.

Except suddenly, I think I know what that buzzing is. I think it's my continuous glucose monitor giving me a warning. Because I'm sweating and my heart is pounding in my chest. I've got a headache, my muscles are shaky, and my stomach is still feeling like that sponge.

Shit. My blood sugar is low. Just how low I don't know—low enough to trigger the alert—but I don't want to check it in a room full of other doctors, Bennett, and most of all, Cricket.

Only as things continue, it becomes harder and harder to ignore. I can feel that it's low. Seriously low. And when my vision starts to tilt from side to side, I take a wobbly step back.

"Dr. Barrows?" Bennett questions, only his voice sounds distant. Tinny. And my vision isn't just swaying now, it's almost cartoonishly wrong. I need to get out of here. I need some orange juice or one of the glucose tabs I keep in my bag, but I put that back in my locker when I got the page.

"I…" Oh God. "I'm sorry, Dr. Lawson. I'll be right back."

I have no idea if he can understand me or if that comes out clear at all. It doesn't matter. I start to head for the door, willing myself to make it. Only I'm not sure I can.

"Katy?!" his voice calls urgently just as the room crackles and my vision is fuzzy. "Someone help her!" he cries out, but it's too late, and I feel myself start to fall just as everything goes black.