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“Want to finish that movie we started yesterday?” Sophia asks. “The sad one?”
“Uh…”
A fist bangs on the door. “Why are you being weird?” It’s Daphne now, impatient and suspicious.
“I’m not! I’m just naked.”
“Oh, sorry. Finish putting on your pajamas and I’ll make some popcorn. I want to hear all about your night. I heard Grant and Dustin were at the fundraiser. I bet Grant looked fine as hell in his tuxedo, don’t even deny it.”
I can’t look at Grant to gauge his reaction to this. I’m so flustered and embarrassed, trying to work out how I’ll possibly be able to sneak him out of here. My roommates can’t know he’s here because then this entire thing becomes real in a way I’ve been so careful to avoid.
If we were on friendlier terms, we’d be laughing about this. It’s hilarious if you think about it.
“We messed up.”
He shakes his head in disagreement. “No we didn’t.”
What?
Yes we did!
There’s only one option. “You’ll have to sneak out.”
How though? The fire escape? Is he going to belay down the side of the building like a Mission Impossible wannabe?
Grant doesn’t say anything. I peer over, worried, and my heart sinks as I see the disappointment clouding his expression. Whatever I should have said to smooth things over between us, it wasn’t that.
“I’m not sneaking out—”
“Grant. What other choice do we have?”
“Jesus, Tate. I’m not your fucking secret.” Each word arrows into my chest before he curves around me and opens the door to my bedroom.
“That was—” Daphne’s voice abruptly stops when she sees Grant walking out of my room. “—fast.”
He goes straight for the apartment door, flings it open, and leaves.
Sophia and Daphne are standing in the living room with mouths gaping.
“Was that Grant?” Sophia wonders aloud like she can’t quite believe it herself.
Daphne shakes her head then turns slowly to look at me with eyes the size of saucers. “What the hell was Grant doing in your room?”
“Nothing.”
That’s all they’ll get from me on the subject.
“Tate.” Daphne turns to me with a Get real expression on her face.
“For once, just drop it!” I snap, losing all my patience with the situation.
I handled that poorly, I realize that now, but it’s not like Grant and I had some preplanned strategy for how the night would go. I was thinking on my feet, and now I see I’m not very good at that. Noted. Next time I’ll read off a script.
“Wait—what about Michael?” Sophia asks with a scrunched brow, looking to Daphne as if she hopes her sister will have answers to some of these questions.
All my energy is gone, zapped out of me. I walk to my bedroom door, grip the handle, and slowly push it closed until it clicks into place. Once they’re on one side and I’m safely on the other, I drop my forehead against the door and squeeze my eyes closed.
I can’t do it. I can’t face them or anyone else right now. I mean for Christ’s sake, my panties are still on the floor, my gown is barely covering me, and my heart is being carted down the elevator at this very moment, in the clutches of a man I just wounded with my careless words.
The universe is testing me.
That’s the only way to explain the next forty-eight hours of my life.
I spend the day after the gala wallowing and periodically checking Instagram for messages from Grant, only to be disappointed time and time again, finding nothing waiting for me.
I have a horrible day the next day too. When my alarm goes off in the morning, I’m dead tired but mostly manage to get it together until I’m headed out the door. I go to grab my to-go thermos of coffee and realize too late that I forgot to screw the top on securely. Picture this: one idiot standing with her mouth gaping like a guppy as piping hot coffee drips down the front of her pristine scrubs.
After a quick change, I sprint to the hospital, where conditions only worsen dramatically. The whole atmosphere of the ICU is off.
Bianca shakes her head in warning when I arrive at the nurses’ station. “Unless you’re walking in with happy news, keep your head down. The surgeons are out for blood today.”
“Why?”
She shrugs. “How should I know? Full moon? You know how it gets around here. One of them has a bad case and they all start to tumble like dominoes. One of the cardiologists just had the nerve to ask me if I would take a note to Dr. Liota in the OR. Like are you insane? Deliver your own bad news and leave me out of it!”
I’m on tenterhooks all day, nervous and edgy, double-checking my work a thousand times over. Even still, I don’t escape the wrath of one of the surgeons. It’s just after lunch when I get laid into by Dr. Zhao because of a small abscess found on a patient’s suture site that I didn’t cause. I just have to stand there while he goes on and on about proper wound care and accountability, keeping my face as emotionless as possible, but as soon as he’s done, I go straight into the bathroom and cry.
