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“Yes, I have a humdinger of a headache, andyes, I was hoping to down some Tylenol to keep you from being an overbearing, boring adult who would, if I had to make aneducatedguess, make me sit there and do nothing at all fun for the rest of the night.”
Bullseye. “Very observant of you, Miss Brook.”
She mirrored my shrug.
“How’s your throat?” I asked, reluctantly pulling away from her. “Can you get down a pill?”
She swallowed speculatively. “Yeah, I’m good.”
The fact that she had to test it only intensified my guilt over taking her roughly on the edge of my mattress.Idiot. I should have let her heal for another three days at least before even attempting something like that. I blew out a breath. “Okay, here’s the deal. You do two boring things, and then you can decide what we do the rest of the night.”
I didn’t tell her that one of the adult things involved medicine that would most definitely knock her the hell out. She got a wicked gleam in her eyes, which was exactly what I was worried about. “Anything?”
I folded my arms. “Sure. Anything.”If you can stay awake after the nighttime acetaminophen I’m going to insist you take.
She gave me a toothy grin. “What if I want to watch romcoms and eat powdered donuts all night?”
What an absolute tease. I bent down, hitching my shoulder against her stomach, and then folded her over my back as I carried her to the bed. “Obstinate, blue-eyed monster, I saidanything,and I meantanything, so if I have to go to a gas station and buy you powdered donuts, then that’s what I’ll do.” I dumped her on the bed and pointed. “Now stay.”
She grinned like a kid with a hundred blind bags to unwrap. “Okay, but what are the adult things?”
“Things you can’t argue with.” I strode out of the room and to the kitchen where our soup had gone cold, but that was easily remedied. While I heated up the chicken noodle soup and placed buttery rolls on plates, Laurel’s phone buzzed on the counter.
I glanced at it, hoping against the odds that Dipshit Jason wasn’t going to ruin our night, but knowing in all reality that she probably had some texts to catch up with. Balancing a hot bowl of soup on a plate laden with rolls, I swiped her phone off the counter and brought her dinner. I tossed the phone on the bed next to her.
“Okay,” I said, “adult thing number one is dinner. Which was supposed to be lunch, and I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s okay,” she said honestly. “I figured you got caught up in saving someone’s life.” My mouth tightened as I handed her the plate and bowl. She didn’t miss that. Her gaze went soft. “Oh no.”
I sat on the bed opposite her and turned her bowl so the spoon handle faced her right hand. “Yeah, it wasn’t the best day ‘at the office,’ you could say.”
Her forehead creased with worry. “Tell me. What happened?”
“You eat,” I said, pointing to the chicken soup, “and I’ll talk. How about that?”
“Deal,” she replied with a wan smile. She ladled a thick, handmade noodle to her mouth and made a sound of appreciation as she took a bite.
“It’s not much of a story,” I said with a shrug. “That patient I went to consult on ended up needing surgery, but her odds were never great.” I paused, thinking back to her mangled skull, the skin peeling away from layers of muscle tissue, and shards of bone sticking out from her face. “Wear your seatbelt,” I added.
Laurel’s features pinched with compassion, and she reached across the bed to lay a cold hand on mine. “Lachlan, I’m so sorry. That can’t be easy for you.”
“It does get easier over time,” I replied, covering her hand with my warm one and giving it a squeeze. “But it does suck.”
She took another sip of broth before asking, “Would you change it? Being a physician?”
“Nope,” I said honestly, starting to trace idle circles over her silky skin with my thumb. “The good I can do outweighs the potential failures I’ll face. As long as the scale tips in that favor, I’m not going anywhere.”
“I don’t think I could do it,” she said quietly, looking down at our hands. “It would break my heart. How did you decide to be a… I don’t even know what you’re called. An ER doctor?”
Literally everything she does is painfully cute,I thought as I watched her squint to the side in confusion. “I’m actually a neurosurgeon,” I admitted.
Her azure eyes locked on mine with surprise. “Say what?”
“Yeah, my fellowship was at U of U with an emphasis on research. But I missed my family. My brother, his wife, and their kids live here, and I felt lonely in the city. So, I took a job here.”
“Wait,” Laurel said, narrowing her eyes my way and pulling her hand away to point at me. “You’re some hotshot neurosurgeon from one of the best hospitals in the West… and you deliberately gave that up to work in a small hospital emergency room just because your brother lives here?”
“I mean, when you say it that way, it sounds kind of dumb.”
