Page 38 of Full Moon Frenzy

“Well . . . well, everyone! That’s why I need you on the—”

“Then it seems like there should be no shortage in the volunteer pool. Have a good day, Marva.”

Trapp had walked away from the conversation with the goblin outside the community center that morning, Oleg practically running to keep up behind him, feeling as though he had a mouthful of ash. Who was he, if not the Hemming everyone liked? Trapp with his easy smile and ready yes, always willing to lend a hand? He wasn’t any closer to an answer.

He kept his eyes closed, listening intently for the tone to drop, the sound that might free him from the suffocation of the station.

Healthy boundaries, Trapp. You should try it sometime. He wasn’t an expert and couldn’t pretend to be, so he didn’t know if healthy boundaries were meant to feel this rotten.

Adriana

She was in Exam One with a trollish teenager when it happened.

“Ice it twenty minutes at a time for the next forty-eight hours, and keep it elevated. If you’re still unable to bear weight on it after that point, I’d like you back here for repeat imaging. Assuming it’s only a sprain, you’ll still need to rest it for a minimum of three weeks. You’ll need to make your coach aware.”

“Three weeks?! But our season just started!”

Adriana gave the teen a sympathetic smile as she pulled the door open. “RICE it. Rest, ice, compression, and elevation.” If it were indeed fractured, the troll could be looking at a much longer recovery.

“So, are we headed to the state championship next year?”

Adriana jumped at the deep voice behind her, catching her completely unaware as she gave her final instructions to the teenage troll and her mother. “Dr. Marsh.” Adriana hoped that her voice hadn’t actually cracked over his name. Maybe that was just in your head. It took her a moment to realize his words were directed at the teen on the exam table, his stance relaxed and his smile jovial, leaning on the door jamb, preventing her escape.

“Not if I’m going to be out doing physical therapy,” the young troll moaned.

“Well, you’re in excellent hands here. Hopefully there’s no occult fracture and you’re only looking at resting a mild sprain.”

Adriana listened as he conversed with the troll and her mother, knowing far too much about high school athletics, she thought. The handsome shifter wasn’t that much older than she was herself, maybe only five or six years, a galling thought. And he’s a partner in a cushy private practice. Him and that blabbermouth orc. Guarantee they’ve never eaten a microwaved hot dog in the ambulance bay at 3 a.m. with vomit on their shoes just to get some peace and quiet.

One thing was certain — Dr. Marsh fit in here effortlessly, conversing easily with the troll and her mother, the same way he did with her support staff, with Deneen and Sora, right down to the gnome who came in each night to vacuum. She, by contrast, still didn’t.

Adriana felt invisible in the corner of the room, shrinking smaller and smaller, startling again when the shifter said her name.

“As Dr. Brunelli said, let’s make sure we ice and elevate. Rest now, play later.”

When the hobbling teenager and her mother had left the exam room — smiling, she noted sourly — he turned to Adriana with the same disarming smile.

“Mind if I steal two minutes of your day?”

She felt as though she were being marched to the gallows as she followed him up the short hallway to the tiny office she shared with Sora. The shifter pulled out a chair, indicating that she should do the same, giving her another warm smile. So much for only stealing two minutes.

“How have things been?” His voice was light, but his eyes were searching, and she remembered the intensity with which he’d watched her during both of her interviews.

Adriana cleared her throat. Breathe. She couldn’t sit straighter than she already was, pushing her shoulders back in an effort to stretch her neck, clearing her throat. This, at least, she knew how to do. “It’s going well. The pathology is straightforward. So far, it’s been typical low-acuity patients. I’m ensuring that follow-up with the office upstairs is mentioned whenever warranted. The biggest adjustment for everyone has been the pace, but I think we’re managing as well as we can.” She didn’t want to admit to him that every single staff member she’d inherited from the practice upstairs moved so slowly they were in danger of going backward.

“The pace,” he echoed with a squint, a slight furrow between his brows as she moved the topic back to the clinic. “Yes, Shileen mentioned that you’ve been very focused on . . . pace. I know this environment is not what you’re used to, but the majority of folks coming in probably expect a bit more face time than they’ve been receiving, if only to feel that they know who you are.”

She shifted, hands tightening around the tablet she still carried. It was hard not to feel as though she were a green resident again, standing before her attending on her very first shift, being forced to explain and justify her every decision, if only to make sure that she could.

“As I said, every case has been low-acuity. Rhinitis doesn’t require more than an eight-minute—”

“I’ve no doubt in my mind that you’re providing more than adequate care, Dr. Brunelli,” he interrupted, tempering his reproach with another warm smile, but she had already stiffened. There was no way to receive his words as anything but a reproach. “I looked at your charts before I came over. They’re excellent. Thorough and concise. Your treatment plans are exactly what I’d expect. But we’ve had several complaints from the last week over perceived . . . brusqueness, let’s say.” Dr. Marsh held up what she was sure was meant to be a placating hand. “I know it says ‘urgent care’ above the door, and I do appreciate the urgency you’re bringing to the role, but this is still family medicine. The patients here are patients upstairs. They don’t understand the difference between the offices.”

“It’s our job to teach them,” she bit out, hackles raised, feeling a growl building within her. “I appreciate that these are the same patients you see in the offices upstairs, but we shouldn’t be training the community out of understanding what urgent implies. If crucial minutes are being taken up by chatting about tomatoes at the farmer’s market—”

“I was under the impression you came to us to get out of the emergency department?”

Her heart thumped, heat creeping up her neck. The overhead lights were suddenly too bright, the room around them pitching. He had watched her too closely during her interviews, had seen through her careful answers. They can all probably tell that you’re one bad day from shaking apart.