Page 25 of Clinically Awkward

“Progress,” Quinton said, raising his glass. “I’ll take it.”

I raised my glass too, and we clinked them together over the nachos and the empty pitcher and the table that smelled faintly of divorced dad.

CHAPTER SIX

Quinton

Monday morning, 8:47 AM, and I was already failing at adulthood. Alert the media: Quinton has achieved peak disaster before breakfast. The coffee tasted suspiciously like regret, and my phone had become an extension of my hand—possibly fused there after too many anxious refreshes.

I was the kind of person who sat in a staff meeting, nodding thoughtfully at graphs about patient load while secretly doing Olympic-level finger gymnastics under the table, hitting refresh on my inbox like my life depended on it. Sunday morning was spent drafting mental arguments that could win me gold if overthinking were a competitive sport.

Reason #14: It was a social enrichment.

Reason #27: The universe said yes to concert tickets, who was I to object?

It’s just a concert. Totally normal. Friends do these things. Viv said we’re friends. Therefore, concert = friendship, not a romantic doom spiral. The Killers in October—just two colleagues, enjoying loud music and zero heart complications. I am a model of platonic restraint.

My phone buzzed. My heart did that thing where it tried to escape my rib cage—possibly out of embarrassment.

TICKETMASTER: Your order has been confirmed! The Killers - October 14th - Mohegan Sun Arena.

I stared at the screen. Two tickets. Section 104. Row F. I was officially going places—possibly to purgatory if Viv decided this was a date.

Two tickets. Section 104. Row F. Should I have gone for the aisle, in case of emergency exit? Too late now.

If there was a moral compass, mine pointed toward “pitiful.” I was going to hell. At least the music would be good.

“Quinton?” The voice belonged to Julien, who possessed the uncanny ability to sound both exasperated and gentle, like a dad who wanted you to succeed but also wanted to throttle you just a little.

I looked up. Julien was staring with the expression of a man who’d just realized the wall he’d been lecturing was actually a very distracted, ticket-buying Quinton. I blinked, mentally scrambling.

“Sorry,” I said, pocketing my phone. I tried to look alert, like someone invested in fiscal quarters. “What?”

“I asked if you had any scheduling conflicts for the third week of September.” Julien, ever the schedule wrangler, was probably dreaming of spreadsheets and color-coded calendars.

“No conflicts,” I replied, trying not to sound as guilty as I felt. My inner narrator wanted to add, “except for existential ones.”

“Are you sure? Because you’ve been staring at your phone for the past ten minutes like it contains the secrets of the universe.” Julien again, his patience somewhere between saintly and strained.

“I was checking my email.” Technically true, if checking for concert confirmation counted as work-related.

“For ten minutes?” Nathan piped up from across the table. Nathan: the hospital cynic, whose sarcasm could sterilize a wound. He grinned, clearly enjoying the show.

“I get a lot of emails,” I offered weakly. My inbox was a war zone: patient charts, supply alerts, and—today—one ticket confirmation that felt like a bombshell.

“You’re an ER doctor. Your emails are mostly ‘Patient vomited in Exam 3’ and ‘We’re out of gauze again.’” Nathan snorted. He wasn’t wrong. If medicine was glamorous, he’d missed the memo.

“Those are very important emails, Julien. Gauze shortages are a serious concern.” I tried to look solemn, but I wasn’t sure ER humor translated well.

Hayden sighed. Across from me, Gabriel—the peacemaker, eternally sandwiched between chaos and calm—looked like he was about to intervene.

Julien pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can we please focus?” His voice rose with the stress of someone carrying the hospital on his back. I wondered if we should buy him a cake or just a vacation. “I’m trying to finalize the schedule before the end of the fiscal quarter, and I need everyone’s input on⁠—”

“Before we continue,” Nathan interrupted, “can we address the fact that Fitz looks like he’s about to throw up?” Nathan, always scanning the emotional weather, never missed a hurricane—even if it came in the form of Fitz.

We all turned to look at Fitz. Fitz: resident mystery, part-time disaster, full-time wearer of sunglasses indoors. If anyone could make Monday morning weirder than me, it was Fitz.

He did, in fact, look like he was about to throw up. He was sitting very still. Unnaturally still, with the kind of rigid posture that suggested he was either trying to blend into the furniture or preparing for an imminent disaster. His face was pale. His eyes were bloodshot. And he was wearing sunglasses indoors, which was never a good sign. “I’m fine,” Fitz grumbled.