Page 252 of The Doctors Will See You Now

“Shepard. Scott Shepard. You can call me Scott.”

“Listen, Dr. Shepard…”

I laughed at her obvious disinterest.

“Can you just treat my injury?”

“Of course. If you just move your hands.”

“It’s fucking bleeding! I’m holding pressure. Everyone says to hold pressure.”

“That’s true. Until you get to the hospital. Where the doctor—” I pointed to myself “—that’s me—needs to actually look at the cut to assess and treat it.”

“But what if what it needs is pressure?”

“I’ll apply some.”

“Promise?” she asked, big, mischievous eyes turning doey right before my own. Wow. That’s talent. Usually, my conversational opponents didn’t have as much expression control as I did. I was impressed.

“Promise.”

“Ow,” she muttered as she pulled her hand with the blood-soaked cloth away. “Fucking ball sac.”

I shook my head, amusement making my cheeks feel heavy. “And here I thought I was looking at a forehead.”

“Shut up,” she mumbled. Again, I found myself smiling at her.

Grabbing some cleaning solution and a swab, I cleaned up the area until the actual laceration was visible. Four, maybe five, stitches, tops.

“Oh, this isn’t bad at all.”

“Says the person not bleeding.” She held up the rag in her hand as evidence, the corner of her mouth curling up in protest. “Look at this.”

I shrugged. “Head wounds bleed a lot.”

“Because they’re a big deal,” she hedged. Thanks to the head injury, she was careful with any expressive use of her eyebrows, but I could tell the restraint took effort. I’d never seen it done, but uninhibited, I was convinced her eyebrows would be able to contort themselves into an illustration of the middle finger.

“Only sometimes,” I argued easily.

The patient’s medical file that Deb had so gently shoved into my chest felt like it would slow the conversation down, so I did the Cliff Notes version of surveying any important, life threatening information and tossed it to the side and grabbed a syringe and suture kit. With a quick and gloved hand, I pricked the area with a fast-acting dose of numbing agent and gave it a few seconds to take effect.

“I’m really starting to dislike you.”

“Only starting?” I asked with a mocking smirk. “I haven’t liked you yet.”

“I was being polite.”

I laughed, poking at the area a couple of times to test her level of feeling. She didn’t even flinch, so I grabbed my needle and thread and got to work. “Really? This is you polite?”

“Is this you professional?”

I shook my head with a frown. “Professional is such a dirty word. Stuffy and boring. Who the hell wants to be professional?”

“Most physicians.”

I pretended to yawn. “Bor-ing.”

Her eyes lit suddenly, the way they always did when people realized who I was. For the first time, maybe ever, something panged in my chest that wasn’t excitement.