I grabbed my jacket from my locker and headed toward the exit, winding through the ER because it was faster. I was halfway to the door when I saw Harper.
Barreling toward me, her face in her phone, clearly heading home for the night.
She was…beautiful. Even exhausted, even annoyed—I could tell from twenty feet away—she was beautiful.
I wasn’t sure if she saw me and was pretending not to or if she hadn’t seen me, but I planted myself in her way and waited for the collision.
When she ran into me, she jumped back in surprise. There was shock…then I watched her force her expression back to nonchalance.
“Harper…hey.”
“Dr. Vaughn.” Her tone was cold. I was in trouble and deserved to be.
“Uh, I’m glad I ran into you. Or you ran into me. You got a minute to catch up?”
“It’s been a long day, Dr. Vaughn. I’m on my way out. We can talk in the morning?—”
“Harper. It’ll only take a minute. Please.”
I watched her consider it, weigh whether I was worth the effort. Thepleaseprobably helped—I heard how my voice went soft on that word.
“Fine. What?”
I looked around. The ER was too crowded. Too many eyes, too many ears. And a nosy group chat.
“Not here. Let’s go this way.”
I led her down the corridor past radiology, past the lab, into a section of the hospital that was quieter this time of night. I stopped in front of a supply closet I knew would be unlocked and pulled her in, locking the door behind us.
The space was small with narrow shelves lining the walls and a small table pushed against one wall. There was barely room for two people to stand without touching.
“Harper, listen, I’m?—”
“You didn’t text me.” Her words hit with such force, it felt like she’d punched me in the face. “We had all that meaningful conversation about how youlovetalking to me, then you shoved your tongue down my throat, then you ran off…and I don’t even rate a hello the next morning? It’s just…crickets? All weekend?”
“I know. That’s why I wanted to talk. I’m so, so?—”
“It’s been days, Cole. What was that about? It would have been better if we’d just not gone there. I don’t have any openings on the cut-buddy calendar.”
“Okay, I didn’tdisappear, Harper. You said you understood a surgeon’s life. I got pulled into a case that turned into a nightmare and it’s been hell ever since. You work here—you couldn’t check to see how busy the ER was over the weekend? I’ve been fighting for my damn life down here. I could barely remember my own name, much less form a coherent sentence.”
I watched her try hard to maintain her pout, but it was quickly disappearing. I was wrong for not at least texting her…but I had warned her about what my life was like.
As expected, her shoulders dropped a fraction. “You could have given me a heads-up at least.”
“I could have. I should have. I realized how long it had been and I felt terrible. I decided I’d talk to you in person today, apologize properly. Just…the day got away from me, and…”
I shrugged my shoulders, hoping I looked as pathetic as I felt. “I’m sorry.”
Harper studied my face in the dim overhead light, her eyes drifting from the bags under my eyes to the stubble shadowing my jaw, to the scrubs I’d been wearing for God knows how long.
“Well, you do look terrible,” she said.
“Thanks. That’s what every man wants to hear from a woman he’s into.”
“So…” She crossed her arms over her chest, which pushed her breasts up in a way that was distracting under the circumstances. “Apologize, then.”
I moved in, propping an arm on a shelf above her head. This close, I could see the deep brown of her eyes and watched the way her pupils dilated slightly.
