Page 385 of The Doctors Will See You Now

“Will and Scott?”

“The other two doctors who are also being filmed.”

“So, is it supposed to be like the real-life Grey’s Anatomy or something?”

“Good God, I fucking hope not,” he answered. “The way our hospital executives and the producers from the show pitched it to us, the series is just supposed to be, like, a day in the life of a physician kind of thing.”

“And Will and Scott are doctors, too?”

He nodded. “Will is Chief of Obstetrics, and Scott runs the ER at St. Luke’s.”

“Gotcha. So, between the seventy-hour work weeks and filming your first television debut, when do you find the time to enjoy yourself?”

“Sixty hours, and I just started filming today, during work hours,” he corrected.

I used my silence as a question and held him at the top of the loop until he broke.

“Fine,” he acquiesced. “Sixty- to seventy-hour work weeks, and enjoy myself? What does that even mean?” he questioned with a soft smirk.

“You know, like, grabbing some drinks with friends. Dancing. Movies. That sort of thing.”

“Honestly?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Well, the last time I grabbed a drink with friends was about three years ago at a medical conference. I haven’t been to the movie theater since Avatar came out in 3D. And the last time I danced was at my cousin Jimmy’s wedding about a year ago, and I was heavily under the influence of alcohol.”

“Oh boy.” I winked. “I’m going to have to loosen you up, aren’t I?”

He smirked but didn’t offer up any kind of answer. Instead, he reached his hand across the table and gently swiped something off of the corner of my mouth. The small hint of yellow mustard sat on his thumb as he pulled his hand back to his side of the table.

But then, Nick Raines surprised the hell out of me.

Fascinated, I watched as he slid his thumb into his mouth and sucked the mustard off of his skin.

Hells bells, that was pretty fucking sexy…

As soon as I walked through the automatic front doors of the hospital, the blinding light of the camera, held high on the shoulder of my new personal cameraman, Jorge, pierced my eye. I had three guys who were around most of the time, but Jorge… Jorge stalked me. From the moment they’d set up that morning, it had been clear that if cameramen were friends, he was to be my bestie.

He didn’t speak, he didn’t question, he didn’t even acknowledge me in any way other than to trail patiently after me as I swatted at the light briefly and started the journey to my office. He’d been deathly silent all day, and a part of me wondered if he was going to be like this for the six or so weeks of filming we had coming down the pipeline.

Ironically, even as the bearer of the question, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted the answer to be. Maybe the quiet would be nice. Maybe I’d slowly lose my mind, medical license, and life, one silent day at a time.

It was a toss-up.

After a nice lunch with Charlotte, the tang of the mustard I’d stupidly wiped from the corner of her mouth and sucked off my thumb still tingling my taste buds, I’d almost forgotten the completely claustrophobic feeling of losing my privacy—of exposing myself both to criticism and approval at the discretion of several million strangers’ judgment.

I hoped it would get better the more we filmed, the more Jorge became like background noise along with the rest of the busy hospital, but I wasn’t sure it would. I’d been uncertain about The Doctor Is In, a reality show following me and two other heads of department at St. Luke’s around our daily lives at the hospital, from the beginning. I didn’t like to invite people into my personal space, and I didn’t do it often.

With the exception of Winnie and Lexi, I’d scarcely let anyone know anything about me.

But I’d been pressured by both the board and my peers, and I was largely at the mercy of the hospital these days. It didn’t matter anymore that I was one of the most talented neurosurgeons in the country or that I had a nearly blemish-free backlist of patients singing my praises. I wanted to be in New York for my daughter, and I wanted the freedom I’d worked into my schedule here at St. Luke’s.

They had me over a barrel, and they knew it.

Still, every day I got to know more about my daughter validated any sacrifice I might have to make to stay at St. Luke’s. When I thought about Lexi sitting down at the table in my apartment, after pulling one of my medical books from my office, mind you, and opening it to a page about the frontal lobe to ask me specific questions with game show flare, reality show glory seemed like a relatively small price to pay.

“Dr. Raines!” my nurse Carol called, just as I stepped inside the door to my office and turned on the light.