Page 10 of True Blue

INDIE

JUNE

“My Teddy is quite fond of you, my girl.”

Clearing my throat, I make a point to pretend that statement doesn’t make my heart race.

“Got any 3’s?”

“Go fish,” Ellie chuckles, knowing I’m trying to change the subject. I reach toward the deck to pull another card, and grimace. My spread looks abysmal.

“He just keeps pestering me for information about you,” Ellie wiggles her thinning eyebrows. Chemo’s snatching a little more hair from her since this is her third session. It’s not snatching her positivity, though. I don’t think there’s a sickness on earth strong enough to take that. “I think he’s got a crush on you.”

Thump-thump-thump.

I grimace and rub a hand over my chest. Should I walk across the street to cardiology for a check-up?

Ellie sees my hand, and I quickly drop it, not wanting to concern her. That emotion doesn’t seem like the one she’s feeling. In fact, she looks much like she did when Teddy and I met—uncharacteristically smug.

“And what have you told him about me?”

“I told him he’s a big boy and can find out his damn self,” she winks. “Got any 7’s?”

“Go fish,” I try to hide my smile at her words, but my traitorous mouth curves anyway. “You know I can’t date my patient’s family. It’s unethical.”

“I won’t be your patient for long—god willing,” Ellie says, before amending. “No offense.”

“Ellie, my ultimate goal is to never see my patients again because they’re cancer-free.”

Ellie gasps dramatically, “And I thought we were friends!”

I laugh, the way only Ellie can make me.

The first time I did, a couple of my coworkers looked like I had suddenly sprouted two heads. Cold is one of the nicer adjectives I’ve heard used to describe me by former coworkers and classmates. Bitch was one of the meaner ones.

An ex-girlfriend in med school called me an ice queen when I ended things before residency sent us to opposite sides of the country. The distance was going to be too much, and we didn’t have much in common besides sex and medicine. Not exactly a great foundation for a lasting love story.

Friends are hard to make and harder to keep in this profession. Now that I’m in my residency and staying because I love oncology, it’s a bit easier.

There’s Phoebe, a twenty-year veteran nurse who keeps Red Bull stocked in the fridge for me. I return the favor with fresh-baked goods from the bakery below my apartment.

I yell at her whenever I catch her on a smoke break to not come crying to me when she gets lung cancer, and she tells me that she’ll remove the stick from my ass one day.

She’s one of the best friends I’ve ever had.

And now, Ellie Ambrose.

“Sometimes the lines get blurred between patient and friend,” I tilt my head from side to side, sending her a grin.

“And how blurry am I?” she asks, intrigued now.

“Very, Ellie.”

“Good. Don’t go to the eye doctor looking for a cure,” Ellie nods definitively. “You’re my friend, too.”

“Well, if it isn’t the prettiest ladies in this hospital,” I hear from behind me.

My spine snaps straight, my throat goes dry, and my heart slams against my ribcage like it wants to escape. The usual—and insanely abnormal—reaction I get around this man.