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“It’s going. How’s your first day as non-chief?”
Wes grins the grin of a happy man. He’s pulling back his hours, and starting next week is going to be on sabbatical as he and his artist wife Aria travel around Europe for three months as part of some art tour thing she’s doing.
“I can’t say I miss the paperwork. Or the stress.”
“That I can understand.” I glance around, making sure we’re alone. “Listen, I want to thank you again?—”
He holds up his hand, stopping me. “There truly is no need. I think you’re going to do incredible things here, Bennett, and for what it’s worth, I think Mayo was wrong to let you go. Especially the way they did it.”
I sigh. I owe Wes and his son, Jack, everything. I did my fellowship in LA with Jack, and he happened to be in Minnesota one week and called me to grab a beer and catch up. I broke down and explained everything to him, and when he heard what Liz did to me and about my mom’s cancer, he called his dad, who he knew was interested in stepping down, and everything fell into place.
“That said, Cricket Peterson is looking for you, and I’m glad she’s now looking for you instead of me.”
Ah, yes. Cricket Peterson. Annoying suck-up with a weird name. I watched her in the OR this morning. She’s one of the other fifth-year trauma hopefuls vying for a fellowship here, along with Katy.
“I’m heading in to watch Katy Barrows do an ex-lap on a car accident patient, so Dr. Peterson will have to wait.”
Wes glances around, ensuring we’re still alone. “Cricket is very talented, but she is a win-at-all-costs sort of surgeon, whereas Katy does it with heart and passion. Katy is one of the best surgeons I’ve seen come through these doors in a very long time, and I’m not just saying that because I’m friends with her uncles and aunts.”
I shake my head. “One of these days someone will have to explain the whole uncles, aunts, and cousins thing to me. She said she calls you a bastard as a term of endearment.”
Wes laughs, leaning against the wall and folding his arms. “Katy is a pistol, and her mouth is loaded at all times. Sometimes she fires it without thinking through the resulting trauma. Still, you can’t help but love her. She’s a ball of sunshine. I hope she wasn’t inappropriate with you.”
No more than I was with her. “No. She was fine. In fact, I’d like to be there at the start of her surgery. I’ll catch up with you.” I smack his shoulder and head for the surgical part of the floor.
The moment I catch sight of Katy at the scrub sink, that’s when it happens. The smile my ex wiped off my face curls back up of its own goddamn volition. Katy is wearing her mask and surgical cap, bopping her head back and forth, singing softly to herself as she scrubs.
You can’t help but love her. She’s a ball of sunshine.
And right now, I’m in the aftermath of a category-five tornado that could use a little sunshine in the worst of ways.
For a moment, I stand here, watching her, wondering what it is about her that makes her stick to me like glue. She’s enchanting, distracting, and terrifying because she’s both of those things. I’m her boss and she’s my resident and that automatically makes her off-limits. Though neither my brain nor my body seems to care about that.
I slept in my mother’s guest room last night and spent half the night helping her when she was sick, but no matter how hard I tried, Katy managed to flicker in and out of my thoughts on vicious repeat.
I told myself it was to be expected after what I’ve been through. With where I find myself now—miserable and alone, feeling wrecked and betrayed. Katy is a happier past, a breath of fresh air I can’t help but want to inhale over and over again.
Something about her got under my skin almost immediately all those years ago and hasn’t left. Something that drew me to her, that had me giving her time I didn’t even give my primary residents. But now, she’s nothing more than an inconvenient attraction.
I like the way she looks at me and talks to me. Not like I’m her boss or she’s trying to suck up the way Cricket Peterson does. But like she has no filter and doesn’t care. Like she’s too good for me and she knows it, but she tries to rein it in when she remembers I’m her boss.
Fuck. I need to get a grip. And laid.
This isn’t a bar, and Katy isn’t just any woman I could lose myself in for a night. I haven’t been single in over five years, and now I run into her. The girl I thought about more than I had any right to. But that was a long time ago, and our timing isn’t any better now. More than that, I’m not looking for it to be.
I shake it off—I shake my ex-fucking-wife off—and get my ass back into what I’m here to do.
Surgery. Teach. Restart my life.
I head toward the sink and ask, “How’s your patient’s CT?” I don my mask and scrub cap and move to the basin beside her. Stepping on the water pedal, I slide up the sleeves of my shirt and start scrubbing in.
Katy gives a quick glance at my forearms and then returns to her sink. “He has a grade three, possibly grade four, laceration to the spleen and some bruising to the bowel without obvious signs of bleeding there.”
“Your plan?” I watch her out of the corner of my eye as she scrubs her hands and forearms with precision, only to force myself to concentrate on what I’m doing.
Katy is all business as she answers. “Removal of the spleen and explore the bowel to ensure it’s intact without any leaks. Then I’ll explore the rest of the abdomen to make sure I don’t miss anything.”
I nod in approval. “Good. Show me how it’s done, Dr. Barrows.”
