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Of course he couldn’t acknowledge how wrong he was. “So I’ll be taking the spot on the task force.”
“Okay.” His tone implied that was more of a question than a statement. “Did... you want me to tell Dr. Okafor?”
“I can tell her myself.”
“All... right. Great. Thanks.” Davis stood, leaning over his desk. I edged back a step, giving him pause. “Are yousureyou want to do this?”
“I am one hundred percent, completely capable of doing the work of the task force. You can ask anyone.” Just yesterday, Drs. Donaldson, Ambrose and Okafor had said so.
Then again, the latter two were women. Maybe he was as skeptical of their qualifications as he was of mine. Maybe he was trying to pull the same garbage Mr. Nielsen had yesterday, mansplaining and talking down to three female doctors (and Dr. Donaldson, a world-renowned expert).
“Yes,” Davis said slowly. In disbelief? “Glad to have you on board. Does tomorrow afternoon work for a meeting?”
“No, I’m covering antimicrobial steward calls.” Maybe notallafternoon, but enough that it would make scheduling something difficult. “It’s probably going to be best if we rely mainly on email and documents for the work of the task force.”
Davis’s eyebrows twitched, a crease forming between them briefly. “I really work better face-to-face.”
“And I work better when we have a documented history of our discussion and decisions.” And any further sexism.
Davis met my gaze again, and he looked about as disoriented as I felt. “Okay,” he said at last, “we’ll do it your way.”
“Well—wait, you agreed?”
He shrugged, drawing my attention to how well his shoulders filled out that blue-striped button-down of his. “Sure. I do want to work with you.”
That was apparently not what he’d told Dr. Donaldson, and I definitely trusted my mentor more than this dude who was too handsome for his own good. And rich. I meant rich. “You do?”
“As painlessly as possible.” He offered a little smile. “I’m happy to make things easier for you.”
There it was. I didn’t need dumbing down—but I’d prove that to him soon enough. “Email me.”
He opened the laptop on his desk. “I assume you’re in the system. Cassidy.Croft?”
“Yeah.”
In the silence, his office felt very... small. For the two of us. Together. “Then I’ll do that,” he said at last. “Great, thanks.”
“Yeah, you too.” I finally turned away, pausing on my way out to inform Dr. Okafor I was happy to accept her generous offer.
Dr. Donaldson was right: this was great for my future research career.
This felt all kinds of wrong.
I still wasn’t entirely sure what I’d done to make Cassidy Croft hate me—unless she was a Tynie, and even then, that wasn’t my fault. But I’d meant what I’d told her: I really did want to work with her. Why was she so surprised?
Dr. Donaldson had said nobody was perfect. We’d see about that. I’d do my job so well Dr. Croft would have no choice but to respect me. Maybe even like me.
However, every time I tried to start an email to her that afternoon, I remembered the way she’d looked at me—had always looked at me, from the first moment we’d met boarding the plane. Like my very existence morally, mortally offended her. And the email never got written. That day. And the next. And half the following week.
Maybe the worst part was that she was also the closest thing I had to a connection in this entire city. Our little alliteration game that first day had actually been amusing, and I’d found myself attempting to elicit yet another audible laugh after each exchange.
It didn’t hurt that she was beautiful, in a very unpretentious, sincere way. Cassidy Croft was nothing if not authentic.
A week later, I was still vowing every day to get the email out of the way first thing, just send the draft that was 80% of the way there, but—I needed to impress her. It was no secret she didn’t want to work with me. I wasn’t trying to prove her wrong—I needed to change her mind about me. So instead of writing the email, I’d spent the week drafting as much of the basic guidelines as I could manage on my own.
That morning, though, Dr. Okafor had different plans for me: observing and evaluating the ICU’s procedures. Considering that ICUs could be a hotbed for superbugs, I hurried to change into the requisite scrubs and head over.
This was one reason why I was supposed to be working with an MD. Dr. Ambrose would show me around, but she had work to do that didn’t include babysitting me. I had years of training and experience in healthcare-associated infections, but I was coming at this from the public health side. I wasn’t an expert in superbugs, nor did I know everything about hospital SOPs.
