Page 128 of The Golden Hour

And breathes in hope.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

MASON

When he walks into the cold conference room, his stomach instantly drops when he sees the hospital’s administrators and Dr. Weaver sitting on the far side of the table.

The smile Kelly wears is bright and beaming.

The smiles on the admin’s faces look reptilian.

The smile on Dr. Weaver’s face is almost smug.

The only noise is the hum of the air conditioning and the muffled yelling from the nurses striking outside, but Mason is convinced they can all hear his heart pounding in his chest.

HR informed him before he left his shift yesterday that they were going to have a meeting bright and early. Kelly delivered the news in a tone as if she were a genie about to grant three wishes. Like he should be excited when he came in this morning.

He wasn’t excited.

This place didn’t evoke excitement for him anymore.

This was a hallowed place where people came for care, and that was how he should have treated it all along. For the last two weeks, since he went to that first gathering with his dad, Mason has been lying in the guest bed at night and tracing his steps back to when he started his residency.

It isn’t clear where the shift happened, and that’s the scariest part of it all for him. It was little by little, patient by patient. This place fed his ego, and he modeled himself after former Chief Residents and Dr. Weaver, until the hospital's own priorities shaped him too. At the end of the day, they cared only about patient satisfaction scores and patient volume.

And now he’s completed his residency.

“Have a seat, Mason,” Kelly says, gesturing to the seat across from them.

The lone seat.

As soon as he’s in his chair, Kelly slides a thick document toward him, and he feels the breath catch in his throat.

“St. Mary’s is fully prepared to offer you a full package,” Kelly smiles. She slides a pen across the table, looking prepared for him to snatch it, scribble his name, and leap out of his seat in excitement.

Slowly, not caring how long he makes these people wait in silence, he reads every single line of the contract and realizes he’s being offered everything he ever wanted.

An attending physician position with an early leadership track to take over for Dr. Weaver one day as department chief.

From quick math and what other attendings have shared, his offered salary would be about fifty thousand dollars above the standard. With that kind of money, he could buy or even build Honey her dream home with a large backyard deck, a full garden, and a greenhouse. Enough space for Daisy to run around one day. Enough money to hire people to help with the house so Honey could go back to work like she wants to.

Any medical school debt he has would be wiped away as a courtesy of St. Mary's. The number looming over his and Honey's heads flashes in his mind—the hundreds of thousands of dollars just gone.

They’re giving him full benefits plus an additional two months of PTO, instead of the standard two weeks.

And as Mason keeps reading, his stomach twists more and more when he sees this for what it truly is.

They’ll give him a signing bonus of $100,000, right in his pocket.

The schedule of his choice.

Complete malpractice protection.

The last one makes his hands curl into fists in his lap, thinking of Mortimer, who snail-mailed an apology letter to the Hayes house. The return address was from Florida, letting them know that he wasn’t even in the state anymore.

Honey saw it and didn’t even bother opening it. She just handed Mason a letter to get rid of. Mason was tempted to read it, and then realized that nothing the man could say would ever be enough.

And that's what really fucking sucks.