Hayley took the rare opportunity to be the one steamrolling the emergency chief and ran with it. “I understand it’s your job to keep the ER moving smoothly in a crisis, that you have to make snap decisions.” This time when she smiled, it was gentle and genuine and absolutely guaranteed to rile Dr. Morales up later with howniceit was. “It’s a difficult job, I know. But sometimes it really pays to take a moment and just double-check patient numbers before you start countermanding assignment requests from the ICU charge nurse. It is my job to know how much my unit can handle, after all.” She tilted her head and her smile widened.
Their gazes locked for a moment, and Hayley braced herself for a long staring contest. But to her astonishment, after just a moment, Dr. Morales got up and, without another word, stalked off through the ER in the direction of her office.
Paige let out a low whistle, and Hayley jumped, startled. She’d all but forgotten she was there. “Impressive. Damn, Hayley. I knew you could be passive aggressive, but that wasart.”
“Thank you, thank you.” With a wink, Hayley dropped into a little curtsey. “I felt the occasion called for my best work.”
“Well, bravo, my friend.” Paige chuckled, then her face sobered. “Hey, listen. Do you need any help getting patients back down to your unit?”
“Thanks, but no, I don’t think so. I’ve got a good crew over in Intensive Care, they’re doing the legwork. I’m probably going to get Ana Luisa to send over a bunch of her box lunches for them, if she’s got time.” The street taco truck that all but lived outside of Oakridge Hospital was a big favorite with the ICU team, who would appreciate not just a free lunch, but one from the best taco truck in Los Angeles.
“Ooh, solid plan. Makes me wish I’d gone into Intensive Care,” Paige joked. “Can I come snag a taco off you later?”
“Oh, hush. I’ll just get an extra box for you,” Hayley said, waving a careless hand. “You were great to work with earlier, always a pleasure. Does that clever resident of yours want one?”
“Wren’s probably got one of her roommate’s gourmet lunch boxes as usual, she’s fine.” Paige rubbed her hands together in glee. “A whole Ana Luisa box lunch for free, awesome. Thanks, Hay.”
“No problem.” Hayley checked her pager. Silence. The reallocation of patients must be going well then. “I’m going to go have a chat with Ana Luisa, then.”
“See you in a bit.” Paige started to turn around in her chair, hesitated, then turned back to face Hayley. “By the way, you don’t actually like Deb, right?”
“Unadulterated loathing,” Hayley replied cheerfully.
Paige nodded, her face thoughtful. “Huh.”
Hayley waited for her to elaborate, but several very long seconds passed with no further information forthcoming. Eventually, she sighed and asked, “Huh, what, Paige?”
“Oh, it’s nothing, just…” Paige twirled a tablet stylus in her fingers. “I mean, that whole conversation, something about it felt a little like…” She wiggled her hand. “Foreplay.”
Shock hit Hayley like a freight train, and she thought her eyes might pop out of her head and roll on the ER floor if they bugged out any further. “Come the fuck again?”
“Just talking out of my ass,” Paige replied hastily, jumping to her feet and gathering up her tablet. “I’ve got rounds. See you later?”
Before Hayley could object, Paige was off and running down the corridor, her long brown ponytail streaming behind her. And all Hayley could do was stand, stupefied, at the central desk muttering, “Foreplay?” to herself like a deranged person who belonged on the Psych floor.
2
DEBORAH
It was an atmospheric night at the Indigo Lounge.
On the stage, a young prog-rock singer with a purple punk haircut and a looping machine was singing her torchy way through an innovative cover of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game.” Sapphic couples on the dimly-lit dance floor were swaying together as she sang, holding each other close and some even kissing passionately. Conversations in the surrounding dining area were hushed, respectful to the live music. It was a low-key, sultry evening, ripe with passionate possibilities.
Deb was oblivious to most of it. Oh, she was enjoying the music, certainly, though she would have preferred a guitar set from Mia Cortés, all things considered. She was, however, having to actively ignore the palpable air of lust hovering in the air of Downtown LA’s foremost lesbian hangout.
Morosely, she stared into the fading bubbles of her non-alcoholic beer as if they were an oracle who could tell her how to deal with her current swirling moodiness. Foremost on her troubled mind was her epic fuck-up with the ICU patients today. Not a fatal fuck-up, thankGod, but a fuck-up nonetheless. Shehated screwing up—she especially hated screwing up in a way that caused any trouble to others. She always had.
And Deb really,reallyhated knowing that she’d done it with even the faintest thought of sticking it to Hayley Milton. Thatspitehad motivated her to, however unintentionally, overload the general floors and cause patients to miss out on care was deeply unprofessional and profoundly, painfully mortifying.
There was not a second of her working life at Oakridge that she could remember that Hayley Milton, ICU Nursing Wunderkind Extraordinaire, had not gotten on her last nerve simply by existing. Competent, well-liked, efficient, and stubborn as a mule, Hayley seemed to do nothing based on gut feelings or intuition, sticking instead to strict protocol and procedure. From day one, they’d butted heads whenever they’d had to work together. Deb had to make decisions on the fly and keep her ER moving. Hayley’s ICU didn’t operate like that, and neither did she, and it felt to Deb like the nurse was constantly looking down on her for being less methodical. It was a recipe for disaster, two total opposites reacting in a volatile manner every time they encountered each other.
Which led neatly to Deb’s second issue, the one she really wished would go away: she had always, always found that conflict between them to be incredibly hot.
Hayley drove her nuts and there were a lot of things Deb absolutely detested about her snooty sorority girl attitude and the persistent stick up her ass. But she was also undeniably gorgeous, a real California sun-kissed blonde with perfect tits and an unbeatable backside. And Deb’s absolute sexual kryptonite was a gorgeous California blonde who gave her hell. Each argument they had left her both aroused and annoyed, a state of being that Deb personally found nearly unbearable.
After their initial spat that day over the compartment syndrome patient, she’d had to suffer through triaging the restof the semi accident patients and then the tedious and ultimately disastrous redistribution of the patients Hayley had claimed for the ICU before she could grab Rose, a trauma scrub nurse she had a friends-with-benefits thing going on with, and haul her into an on-call room for a quickie.
It had only been somewhat satisfying, and then Hayley had shown up in the ER with her blue eyes lit in a righteous fury and her controlled anger and fully taken Deb apart. The humiliation of her mistake far outweighed the usual delicious sexual tension their encounters gave her and completely erased any lingering high from her quickie with Rose.
