Because if they do, they’ll have to get through me.
Chapter 10
The Invitation
Jax
Iam well-rested.
This is a sensation so foreign to me that I actually spent the first ten minutes of my shift checking my own vitals to make sure I hadn't died. I didn't. I just slept. For six straight hours. In an on-call room with a rattling vent, while the Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery sat on the bed bedside me and read about heart valves.
I haven't talked to Maxwell about it.
It’s been two days since the "Perimeter Incident," and we’re doing this weird dance. It’s a waltz of avoidance. He hands me coffee; I don't make a joke about it. I catch him staring at me across the tape line; he pretends he’s looking at the wall.
The air in the Fishbowl is thick enough to chew.
"You are vibrating again," Maxwell says.
I look up from my desk. I’m spinning a pen around my thumb.
"I’m not vibrating," I say. "I’m radiating kinetic potential. It’s different."
"It is annoying," he corrects, not looking up from his phone.
He’s been staring at that phone for twenty minutes. He hasn't swiped. He hasn't typed. He’s just glaring at the screen like it insulted his ancestors.
"Bad news?" I ask, leaning back in my chair.Squeak."Stock market crash? Succulent prices plummeting?"
Maxwell sighs. It’s a heavy, tragic sound that seems to deflate his entire posture. He drops the phone onto his pristine desk.
"My mother," he says. The two words carry the weight of a terminal diagnosis.
"Ah," I say. "The Ice Queen. What does she want? Another blood sacrifice?"
"She wants a guest list," Maxwell says, rubbing his temples. "For the Annual York Family Christmas Eve-Eve Dinner."
"Christmas Eve-Eve?"
"December 23rd," he explains. "Because the 24th is for the Charity Gala, and the 25th is for... well, usually for brooding in silence, but technically for family brunch."
"Sounds festive," I say, opening a bag of pretzels. "So go. Eat some roast beast. Drink the expensive wine. endure."
"I cannot simplyendurethis year," Maxwell says. He stands up and walks to the window, looking out at the Trauma Bay. "She has issued an ultimatum. Apparently, my lack of a 'suitable partner' has become a topic of conversation among the Board. She has threatened to seat me next to Timothy Vance."
"Who is Timothy Vance?"
" The son of the CEO of Vance Pharmaceuticals," Maxwell says with a shudder. "He has a degree in Art History, a laugh that sounds like a dolphin choking, and he touches your arm when he speaks."
"Gross," I say sympathetically.
"She is trying to merge our families like a corporate acquisition," Maxwell says miserably. "If I go alone, I am trapped. If I bring someone, I have a buffer."
He turns around. He looks at me.
His eyes scan my face, then drop to my scrubs (wrinkled), then to my boots (muddy). He frowns.
"What?" I ask, tossing a pretzel into my mouth.
