Nash Collins,Definitely Avery’s Boyfriend
For a moment, I forget how overwhelmed I am. Nash has a way of doing that to me, one of his traits I find almost endearing.
I move our conversation to text, knowing these messages should not be on the firm’s email server.
Knock it off before you accidentally send an email with that signature to someone in the firm. I doubt anyone else here would find it as funny as you do.
I take a deep breath, trying to calm my racing thoughts. The list of assignments is long, the stakes are high, and I’m already calculating the late nights I’ll have to put in to get through it all.
Maybe this is good. Maybe this case is exactly what I need to keep my mind off...everything else.
I turn my attention to the case James gave me, each page an anchor to steady myself against. But even as I dive in, letting the details pull me in deeper and deeper, I can’t fully escape the feeling that I’m in over my head.
My office is a war zone of sticky notes, legal pads, and different colored highlighters by the time I’ve made it through the first half of the Wilkinson file.
The facts are, unfortunately, not in our favor.
The file reads like a classic medical malpractice case: husband goes in for a routine gallbladder removal, suffers massive post-op hemorrhage, and succumbs in the hospital, leaving behind a wife and a sixteen-year-old son.
The wife, Rebecca, claims her husband’s surgical team failed to properly monitor his post-op recovery. The hospital has a policy of checking vitals every hour for the first four hoursfollowing a procedure. After that, vitals are checked every four hours until the patient is released to return home.
Tom Wilkinson died nearly five hours after his surgery. Mrs. Wilkinson believes the hospital’s policy should have required hourly vitals checks for more than just the first four hours.
And I get it. I do.
It’s the thought that, had the hospital staff still been checking him every hour, maybe they could’ve done something to save her husband’s life.
Maybe they could have.
But that argument isn’t rooted in law.
What we have in this case is a hospital policy that is probably consistent with the standard of care, hospital records that indicate clear compliance with that policy, and absolutely zero evidence to the contrary.
The work stretches out before me, a mountain I’m not sure I can climb. My pulse ticks off the minutes, the hours, as I try to sort through everything. When I look up, the office is mostly empty. I must have lost track of time while I worked.
I stand to stretch, looking past the glass walls of my office. Vanessa is gone. Nash is still at his desk, looking back at me with a grin that makes my heart race.
He taps his watch, then nods towards the elevators. I nod, feeling a flutter of excitement in my chest as I grab my purse and meet him outside my office.
“Long day?” Nash asks, falling into step beside me.
“You have no idea,” I reply, feeling the exhaustion settle in as we walk to the elevators. The elevator doors slide open, and I follow him inside, the proximity sending a thrill through me. He presses the button for the lobby, then turns to me, his gaze intense.
He leans in, his voice low. “Since I’m your dirty little secret, I’m guessing I shouldn’t kiss you in this elevator right now?”
I give him a look, knowing I should be firm but unable to resist his charm.
“And here I was, thinking you had no self control,” I say, playful but serious.
“I don’t,” he says, his voice sending a shiver through me.
He presses me against the wall, kissing me like he’s thought about nothing else all day. I melt into him, feeling all the tension from the day dissolve. The elevator descends, a smooth and steady drop as his lips move against mine, and I lose myself in the moment, in the heat of him.
The ding of the elevator startles me back to reality, and I pull away, breathless. “Nash,” I say, half a protest, half a sigh.
His grin is wide, triumphant. “Couldn’t help myself,” he says, his thumb brushing my lips, leaving them tingling.
The doors glide open, and we walk to the parking lot, stepping into the cool evening, the air a relief against my flushed skin. Nash walks me to my car, the casual sway of his arm brushing mine every few steps.
