I hadn’t. The conversation never came up, and as I was still in the stage of feeling my coworkers out, I thought it best to keep my private life to myself. Besides, singing was something I did all for myself. I didn’t have the desire to share that with anyone else. But Dr. Reynolds knew. At least he implied that he did.
And when I glanced up at him to find his stormy eyes staring back at me for the briefest of moments, he conveyed in that span of silence that he knew.
“Shit!” I cursed as the suctioning instrument I’d been holding in my hand slipped. Thankfully, I moved swiftly enough that it didn’t fall to the floor but the mistake revealed how rattled I’d become.
“Everything all right, Nurse Grace?”
“Fine, Doctor,” I responded through gritted teeth. I could hear the superior tone in his question. He enjoyed knowing my secret and likely enjoyed even more that it obviously, threw me off.
“We’re almost finished up here. Nurse Grace, would you go out with Dr. Holland to tell Mrs. Churchill’s son we’re almost completed and everything went well.”
“Sure thing.” I practically sprinted out of that operating room, only feeling like I could take a normal breath once I was on the opposite side of the wall as Dr. Reynolds.
Dr. Holland followed me out of the washroom connected to the OR. “I can’t believe he won’t even let me hold a damn scalpel in there,” the doctor in his late twenties muttered, the frustration evident as he pushed through the double doors that opened up to the rest of the floor.
“His OR, his rules.” The words slipped out of my mouth again but hadn’t been meant as a defense. Why the hell would I feel the need to defend Dr. Reynolds of all people? I guessed Dr. Holland didn’t see it that way.
“How am I supposed to learn anything if I can’t actually participate? That’s what residency is all about,” he stated, whirling on me.
“Dr. Holland, I get you’re upset, but the best way to get in the game is not by venting like a spoiled child once you’re out of earshot of Dr. Reynolds. It’s to prove to him that you are worth him taking his time to invest in your education.”
“How am I supposed to do that if he won’t even give me a chance?”
I shrugged. “You were smart enough to get into medical school, pass your classes, and get into one of the best residency programs in the state.” I patted Dr. Holland’s shoulder. “Figure it out.”
I stepped around him and proceeded to the waiting room where I found Mrs. Churchill’s son and daughter-in-law waiting.
****
Jacob
I rounded the corner from the nurses’ station and logged into one of the computers to double check the vitals of all my patients before heading to the change room, to retrieve my belongings and call it quits for the day. I had two surgeries that day, but two other patients of mine remained in the hospital for observation purposes. One was being discharged the following morning, and the other, later that day.
“Thanks for checking on that patient for me, Grace.”
The sound of her name had my head moving upward from the computer screen. I looked around the station until my eyes landed on her smiling face. I admired the dimples that formed in her cheeks as she did so, noticing them not for the first time. Of course, it was a rarity for her to smile in my presence. Which was why the only time I caught those dimples was when she was smiling at someone else. That pissed me off. So much so, that a frown formed on my lips.
That was when her eyes darted to mine and her smile faded, taking the dimples with it. Her eyelids narrowed to slits.
Why that caused me to smirk, I don’t know. Wait, that’s a lie. I did know. The fact that I was able to cause her any emotion revealed to me that she wasn’t immune to me. That did have me feeling better since I’d long discerned that I wasn’t immune to her.
Without a word, I logged out of the computer system, stood, and started to head for my office and changing room, down the end of the hall.
As I strode, I heard footsteps behind me, and soon knew who they belonged to.
“What was that comment about me singing in the OR this morning?” Grace demanded, with her hand on her hip as she cut me off in the middle of the hallway.
My answer wasn’t immediate. I let my eyes drift down the length of her body, landing on the fingers resting against her hip bone. Her fingers weren’t covered by gloves, as they were in the OR. I could see them clearly. I took the time to take in the delicate bone structure of her long fingers. I imagined their softness. Not like a surgeon’s hands.
I looked back up to her, my body going slightly rigid as I took in her heart-shaped mouth. Lips that were full and coated in a clear gloss of some kind.
“That’s what you’re good at, isn’t it?” I finally stated with a raised eyebrow.
“I’m good at a lot of things, Dr. Reynolds.”
Before I knew it, I found myself chest to chest with this woman, my arm moving around her waist. I was certain she hadn’t even meant for her words to be a challenge in the way I took them, but I also found very little resistance on her part as I pulled her body to mine. The fact that we were both in the middle of the hallway, albeit a semi-private wing of our floor, made little difference to either one of us, it seemed.
My lips hovered above hers right when my pager’s alarm went off. I immediately dropped my hand and unclipped my pager from my hip, checking it.
