So, it’s just me that everyone hates. Got it.
Nomi’s eyes flick to me then away just as fast as she hurries toward her car. It’s probably twenty years old at this point, easy. How does she pass inspection? Is it safe for her to drive? The image of a badly burned woman pulled from the wreckage of her car coding beneath my hands last year rattles my brain like a thunderclap, momentarily robbing me of my breath. I forcibly shove the awful memory away when I realize my window of opportunity is about to pass me by.
“Wyeth—wait,” I call to her back, which stiffens as she stops with her key in the door. She doesn’t have automatic locks? That’sdefinitelynot safe intoday’s dark parking garages. My brain’s already shuffling through former patients, looking for comparators, but her clipped voice cuts it off.
“What, Julian?” She may be annoyed, but I can’t help relishing the way her lips still wrap around my name. The slight lilt of her southern accent, all that’s left after fifteen years in New Jersey, curls around the vowels like vines on a gate. It used to drive me wild.
“I need to talk to you.”
Veronica lifts one full eyebrow in my direction.
“About your—health.”
Nomi’s chin drops as she regards me with open disbelief. “No, you don’t.”
“Yes, Ido,” I snap reflexively, that old knee-jerk desire to argue with her rearing up. I try again. “Please?”
Her sigh is audible from seven feet away, but she re-locks her car and joins me on the curb. Now both of Veronica’s eyebrows are arched high, and she huffs out a laugh. “Okay, you two. Have fun with that.”
I clear my throat, then turn on my heel, hoping Nomi will follow but simultaneously terrified she won’t until I hear the soft thuds of her boots behind me. I don’t face her until we’re standing in the office I share with Dr. Srinivasan and I’ve shut the door behind us. I considered a patient room at first, but I can’t handle seeing Nomi Wyeth sprawled on a hospital bed ever again. Plus, this setting feels right for an apology, though now that we’rebothin here, the room feels too small, which is ridiculous. She’s the size of a fairy. I flee to the other side of the desk and sit, cursing when the chair still positioned to Dr. Srinivasan’s short height puts my knees nearly level with the desk. Nomi watches as I grope for the adjustment lever, then plummet to where I’m a foot off the floor.
Is there anything more awkward than adjusting an office chair in front of an audience?
Finally, I get it to a comfortable height, which involves a weird squatting maneuver over the chair that I’ll ruminate on formonths. I wipe mydamp forehead as her pouty mouth quirks upward. She’s still dressed in black, but instead of a ripped-up band T-shirt like high school, this one’s form-fitting and simple, with short, capped sleeves that highlight the smooth lines of her arms, contrasting against the pale skin there. The same pale skin as her inner thighs, which I now inconveniently know. Also, this time she’s wearing pants, so that’s disappointing.
“Well? You wanted to discuss my health?”
My eyes dart back to her face, and I’ve stupidly forgotten why I summoned her back here.To apologize, Eric’s voice says in my head,and ask her out.
“Right. Your health.” I swivel toward the computer and bring up her chart to stall for a second. I’m notreallygoing to ask her out because Eric told me to. Or because I got an ill-timed boner. Or even because the curves of her cheekbones and little slope of her nose, and God, the bow of her lips, the same soft, summer red of watermelon, all combine with her large, brown eyes to make the prettiest face I’ve ever seen. Even now, with her peeved, impatient expression, I’m overcome with the desire to simply stare at her. But I can’t ask her out after I sewed up her labia three days ago—how creepy is that? Besides, based on thatridiculousColonel Sanders shirt she was wearing, she’s still a stoner.
So, maintain health pretense, apologize, no asking out. Case closed.
“How’s the laceration healing? Have you been keeping it, um. Dry?” My eyes widen in alarm as I suddenly recall the shore trip she mentioned. “You didn’t dip that thing in the Atlantic Ocean, did you? No pools?”
Thoughts of infected labia majora flash before my eyes, my heartbeat picking up in anxious concern.
“Maybe I should take a look—”
“No!” Nomi blurts out, hands raised. “I did not‘dip that thing’in any bodies of pestilent water, and there will be no morelooksbecause Dr. Appa is my doctor, not you.”
The words shouldn’t sting. Ido notpermit them to sting.
“Hisnameis Dr. Srinivasan, Wyeth.” I cock my head to the side. “You realize you’re calling him Doctor Daddy, right?”
“Don’t make it weird, Julian.” Nomi heaves a sigh. “Now, is this extremely valuable use of my time over?”
“No.” I quickly hammer an inquiry that pulls up her medical history to hide my flustered face behind the computer screen. I still have to apologize and not ask her out. My eyes flit aimlessly over what appears to be a decade-old MRI report of her abdomen and latch onto a set of words that I absolutely shouldnot say out loud. And yet…
“Moderate stool burden?” I frown at the screen in surprise, then at her abdomen, as if it’s got secrets. “You have amoderate stool burden?”
“Jesus, what are you looking at?!” Nomi turns scarlet, then lunges over the desk for the mouse and closes out all the windows. “Stay out of my medical records, you nosy bastard!”
She collapses back in her seat with an angry huff. “Now was there something you actually wanted to say, or did you bring me back here to violate HIPAA and embarrass me?”
“Actually, to violate HIPAA—”
The murderous look in her eyes stops me cold. I clear my throat. “Er, yes. I wanted to apologize for how I behaved before.” Then, when she doesn’t react, I add, “When I sutured your vulva?”
