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I should have told Dr. Reynolds what happened so he could address this with Brookes. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here.
Except I do know what I’m doing. I’m going to tear a strip off him for what he did. I’m going to make sure it never happens again.
“What the hell was that back there?” I ask, my tone low as I watch him shift his weight from one side to the other. “What the hell were you doing using an outdated technique to intubate a patient?”
“I was trying to make sure the man didn’t die from a lack of oxygen.” His voice is low and robotic, like his emotions are entirely removed from the situation.
As a doctor, I understand that we have to keep our emotions at a distance, but he should be feeling something about this. If nothing else, he should be angry that I had to take over his patient.
Instead, he seems numb to the entire experience. At this point in his medical career, he shouldn’t have to be shoved out of the way during an intubation. He should know how to do it with his eyes closed.
“Brookes, you could have ruptured his esophagus! Don’t you give a shit about that? Fuck, I know you don’t give a shit about much, but that was a man who could have had to go through extensive and unnecessary surgery because of you!”
“What do you want from me right now, Jessie?” he asks, his shoulders slumping forward. “Do you really think you’ve said anything to me in the last few minutes that I haven’t already said to myself?”
“I don’t know that you’ve even registered what you could have done!”
“It’s my first day here, Jessie! I fucked up. What more do you want me to say?”
“Your first day in a new hospital isn’t an excuse! You have a job to do, and the patient in that bed is counting on you to do it right! If you can’t do that, then you don’t belong here. Maybe you should just have your father buy you a new career.”
“Excuse me?” He glares at me like he’s trying to melt me into the floor then and there. “You think my father bought me my job?”
“You can’t tell me that with a rich daddy, you’ve ever had to pay your own way for anything.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
I swallow hard, knowing that I shouldn’t have brought his dad into this, but I couldn’t help myself. He just has a way of making me angrier than I’ve ever been before. I want to scream and shout at him.
It might be the only way to keep myself from jumping his bones.
“No. You’re right. I don’t.”
“That’s the problem with you!” He pulls his hands out of his pockets and throws them in the air. “I have spent the entire day trying to get on your good side. Apart from that one incident, I’ve done everything right! You find one thing that I did wrong and you attack me for it like it’s your job!”
“No.” I shake my head, giving him a bitter laugh. “If I’d been doing my job, I would have reported your improper procedure to Dr. Reynolds. He would be the one in here reaming you out, not me. Hell, you’re lucky it’s me.”
I pace back and forth, trying to release some of the anger building up in me. Though I know he made a mistake, it could have been worse. He could have done serious damage to our patient. That man could have had lifelong side effects due to what he did.
I don’t know why the hell he isn’t seeing that.
Because he’s a self-absorbed brat who’s only ever cared about himself.
“Oh, so I should be thanking you for this?” Brookes asks, stepping closer to me.
I face him, my chest nearly brushing against his. My heart races and heat pools in my core, the familiar feeling of being this close to Brookes flooding back. Though I want to take a step back, I can’t. If I do, he’ll know that he still has some sort of hold over me.
The last thing I want him knowing is that the old attraction is still alive and well.
“You should be listening instead of just standing there like a damn robot who isn’t bothered in the slightest about what you’ve done.” I gesture at him, careful not to touch him in case the last of my self-restraint snaps.
“You think that what happened in there doesn’t bother me?” He scoffs and brushes past me, yanking open the door. “You think I want you of all people to be standing here telling me all the things I did wrong when I’ve already said them to myself a million times? No. I don’t.”
“Well, you do a damn good job of looking like this doesn’t bother you.”
Brookes leans closer to me, his face hovering inches above mine. My breath hitches as I look up at him and for a moment, we’re not arguing. For a second, we’re back in his hotel room and he’s about to kiss me again.
The spell is broken as he takes a step back. “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”
