“Nurse?” I prompted, half-turning from the computer screen. “Was there something else?”
She startled slightly, as if she’d drifted and only now snapped back. “No—sorry,” she said, then smiled. It was a different smile than I was used to. Softer. Almost shy. “Have a good day, Dr. Vaughn.”
I stared at the empty doorway, trying to figure out what had just happened. Karina had never smiled at me like that before. This was new.
Or it wasn’t, and I had been completely oblivious to it until Jasmine pointed out the group chat.
I finished checking my other post-operative patients. All of them were stable and boring, which was exactly how you wanted post-operative patients to be. I signed off on discharge orders for two of them, wrote a note about weaning sedation on the third, and got out of the ICU as quickly as I could without looking like I was running away.
In the hallway, I passed two more nurses I recognized from the night shift. They both looked at me, then they looked at each other. Then one of them giggled.
Giggled. What the fuck?
I ducked into the stairwell and yanked out my phone.
Me:
Tell me something, Jas. Did I grow a second head overnight or is everyone acting weird?
The response came back almost immediately.
Jasmine:
No, baby. You’re finally noticing something that’s been happening a long time.
I shoved the phone back in my pocket and took the stairs down to the second floor. Only one person could make this day better.
She was coming straight at me, long strides eating up the hallway like she had places to be. Her camel-colored suit was tailored to her frame, with heels that added at least three inches to her height. Her hair was pulled back, a few strands escaping to frame her face. She had a tablet tucked in her elbow, phone pressed tight to her ear.
From the outside, Harper was the full package: professional, polished, untouchable. Queen of the conference room.
But I’d already met the Harper who laughed at my jokes over drinks.
“I hear you, and I get that, Samuel,” she was saying into the phone, her tone clipped. “But an assessment is required and that means I need access to the complete file, not the sanitized version you’re comfortable sharing.”
After a pause, she rolled her eyes and huffed. “I’m not justanybody, Sam. I’m administration. I need the complete?—”
Her eyes found mine and her expression instantly morphed. The mask slipped and I saw the same thing I was feeling—the urge to rush over and give her a hug and crack some inside jokes.
“You need some time to send my request up the chain. I’ll call you back,” she said, then hung up before they could say a word and came to a stop a few feet away from me. “Dr. Vaughn.”
“Ms. Sutton.”
I eyed the phone in her hand. It was a different model than she’d used the night before. “Looks like you got a replacement phone already. With a case.”
Her lips twitched in her attempt not to smile. “It’s a loaner. My new phone and case are on the way, though. How are you?”
“I’m, uh…” I glanced around. Two nurses at a nearby station were definitely watching us. I recognized one of them from this morning. She wasn’t even pretending not to stare. “I’m fine. How is your morning so far?”
“Bureaucratic,” Harper said, shifting the tablet to her other hand. “I shouldn’t have to beg for files but here I am, begging for files.”
“At least you didn’t spend the morning with interns who forget that trauma patients can bleed to death while you’re presenting old labs that tell you nothing about the patient’s current status.”
“Oh.” She winced. “I want nothing to do with that.”
“Yeah, I don’t blame you. I don’t want anything to do with it either.”
I wanted to keep talking. Actually, I wanted to ask her if she’d been thinking about last night, if she’d replayed the conversation in her head the way I had or if I’d blown it out of proportion.
