Page 147 of The Doctors Will See You Now

Okay. Well, obviously, there were exceptions to every rule, but no one is perfect.

And despite my better judgment, I kept reading the trashy article until the end. Harlow Paige managed to cap this one with a fucking bang.

What do you think, ladies? Should we spread our legs and put out the Bat Signal in the name of Dr. Erotic? Is he really the next sex superhero of New York City?

The jury is still out for me, but all I can say is that he might treat banged-up bodies, but from the looks of it, he bangs more bodies than them all.

Kisses,

Harlow Paige

I actually had to admire gall like that.

Tossing my iPad into my locker a little less gently than intended—after all, it wasn’t the iPad’s fault—I shut the door and tucked my scrub top into the waistband of my scrub pants.

With another night shift on the horizon, I didn’t have time to sit and cry into my Cheerios about a stupid column from a less than reputable news outlet. Gossip wasn’t where readers went for facts anyway.

I decided not to give any credence to the voice in my head that suggested maybe the reason this smarted so much was because of how close to the truth it actually was.

I double-checked the clip on my ID badge and headed for the door of the locker room with purpose. I wasn’t going to think about Harlow Paige and her column anymore, and I wasn’t going to be on the lookout for Frances. She should have had her stitches out a couple of days ago, but I guessed she’d gone to a different doctor.

Most patients follow up with their primary care physician, my medically trained mind reminded me.

Whatever. Her loss, right? It wasn’t like we were going to be soul mates. At best, I would have given her a few orgasms, sans head injury, and we would have moved on.

The strains of our warm-up song started to play as I wandered down the hall, so I picked up my pace with a smirk. Sherry had obviously been paying attention when I told her all about our song of the week.

Maybe I’d have to give some attention to stoking that fire a little. She seemed pretty eager to have some X-rated fun—and smart enough to recognize that fun was all it was.

I’d made some poor choices in the past with Mandy and Sarah. They were two ER nurses I’d gotten to know on a biblical level, and unfortunately, had hurt a little bit in the process.

I’d been so eager I hadn’t paid close attention to the looks on their faces, the cues in their actions, and the obvious attachment each dalliance built. They were looking for a relationship, and no matter who was doing the looking, I was always the wrong direction. I spent over a hundred hours a week at the hospital working, and I had too much fun doing what I did when I wasn’t. I didn’t have a yearning for kids, and I had no desire to live outside of the city with a picket fence, white or otherwise. Settling down wasn’t for me.

Believe me, heartbreak was never my intention. Emotions and feelings were something I strived to keep out of the equation when it came to women and sex. Obviously, with Mandy and Sarah, I felt pretty fucking badly about the way things had ended.

Rounding the final corner onto the Emergency Department floor, I watched as my mom climbed to her feet in the chair behind the nurses’ station and cranked the dial on the volume for our song of the week—Pour Some Sugar on Me. There was irony in the extremely horrendous timing of song choice and the way it lined up with my mother’s unexpected visit.

Christ. Nicole Shepard was a lunatic. Gray-salted dark brown hair and rubber clogs on her feet, she was getting older with every day that passed—not that she was giving in to it willingly. The chair she was standing on jerked, and my heart flipped over in my chest.

Thankfully, Beverly, a pretty new nurse from Albuquerque with tanned skin and glowing turquoise eyes jumped forward to stabilize the wheels.

My mom’s hips rolled as she lip-synched the words, and the jam-packed ER floor took immediate notice. It was only mildly embarrassing—after this many years as her son, I was pretty fucking used to it. Not to mention, it completely reaffirmed our genetic connection. My mild-mannered, serial monogamous father was another story entirely. If it weren’t for our similar looks, I’d have thought my mom stepped out on him.

I strode quickly toward her, her eyes following me as I did. “Pour your sugar on me, Scott. I can’t get enough!” she shouted. I cringed and laughed at the same time.

“Gross, Mom. No thanks.”

She smiled, unfazed. “Sugar meeee. Ye-ah.”

I reached forward and turned down the volume on the computer, and the groan of our disappointed audience was audible.

“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled to the room at large before extending a hand up to my mom. “Can you get down now, please? We’re packed, and I don’t really have time to sew up your future head laceration.”

She took my hand as instructed, carefully climbing down and straight into my arms for a hug. “And that’s how you’d treat your own mother,” she clucked teasingly in my ear.

I pulled back and dropped a kiss on her cheek. “I guess, if I really had to, I’d find time to sew you up,” I conceded with faux indifference.

“Aww.” She patted my cheek. “Now that’s the Dr. Erotic I know and love.”