Cocking my hands on my hips, I take another step closer and notice the ghosting of gray hair starting around his temples. He can’t be much older than forty, but if this is how he handles any minor inconvenience, it’s no shock that he has premature grays.
He raises a brow at my stance before rolling his eyes and turning to maneuver past me. Once he brushes by, but still within earshot, I finally murmur, “Apology accepted.”
He whips around and takes two large strides toward me until we are face to face. His quick movements have my body wanting to lurch back, but I steady my feet, jutting my chin in his direction. He puffs his chest and tilts his face to stare me down. “Watch your mouth, kid.”
I roll my eyes so hard at his comment, it hurts. I turn to move away from him, muttering my annoyance about him being a pretentious prick, when he reaches for my arm, a broad palm firmly gripping my elbow. “I heard that.”
Pulling my arm out of his grip, I take a step back. “I sure hope you did, it’s not like I whispered.” My gaze scours his uniform for a nametag, a badge, anything that might indicate how big of trouble I’ll be in, but all I see are thick muscles trapped under a thin layer of scrubs, so I cross my fingers and hope he’s not someone I’ll see around this area often. “I gotta go, you’re making me late.”
I flick my head, wishing my long hair wasn’t trapped under a scrub cap and sashay away from him toward my dad’s office, not bothering to turn to see if Dr. Asshole is still staring at me.
Chapter Three
Annaliese
Iraisemyhandtoknock on my dad’s partially open door and pause to press my ear to the crack, ensuring he isn’t on the phone or dictating before I deliver two sharp raps. I push the door open the rest of the way as he raises his head from the files laid out across his desk; a smile stretches across his face when he sees it’s me.
As he stands from his desk, he pushes his chair back and reaches his arms out for a hug. I reluctantly close the distance between us to move into his embrace, the hug feeling incredibly awkward given the strain of our relationship. Whether I am halfway across the world or just a few blocks away, the distance between us has always been tense.
When my mom found out about his affair with the nurse, who apparently was just one in a long line of women eager to sleep with the much older, married doctor, she divorced him and moved us to New York to be closer to my grandparents. I finished school up there, but only visited my dad on holidays and the occasional week in the summer. He’d call or text when he had time, and transfer cash into my bank account when he really felt guilty, but when I graduated college and was accepted into med school, he found a renewed interest in our relationship.
The calls increased and turned to video chats. He toured several med schools with me and urged me to consider his alma mater, only grimacing slightly when I went with my top choice instead.
He’s also tried to push me into every specialty besides the one I really wanted, which was surgery. He encouraged me to go into family practice, join a nice clinic somewhere, and work Monday through Friday without the stress of on-call or weekend hours. He wanted me to have holidays off to spend with my future family. But most of all, I think he wanted me to have a life that was the opposite of his.
I wrap my arms around his shoulders, noticing how thin he feels compared to a year ago. My dad is aging, I know that. We haven’t had the luxury of working in the same building, or even living in the same state for the last thirteen years, and I’m realizing now how much of his life I’ve missed. My stomach twists, just a little, from the guilt gnawing away at me.
He pulls back, grasping me by the biceps and holding me at arms length to study me. “My little Princess, all grown up and ready to work with the big dogs.”
I roll my eyes at the use of the nickname. “Well that’s half true, Dad. I’ve been working with the big dogs for two years already, remember? And please don’t call me Princess when we are at work.” Or at all, for that matter.
His face falls a little at what’s left unsaid between us. That no matter how he begs and pleads, I’m really only here so my residency doesn’t lapse. We both know I’d rather be back working with Compassion Cruises, miles away from the stuffy walls of this hospital.
What the last eighteen months overseas has taught me, is that the people you work with can make or break the job. And the team that volunteers to work in developing countries, subjecting themselves to danger and disease, while scavenging for supplies and making due with what we had, was the best group of people I’ve ever met. I can’t think of one good reason I’d give that up to work within the gloomy walls of this hospital, being forced to deal with the politics and insurance companies, or affairs and small-town gossip of the OR staff.
I know volunteering can’t be my entire life, but when I found a way to make it my residency, I couldn’t walk away willingly.
“So what’s the plan for us today?” I move around to sit at one of the chairs in front of his desk, crossing my legs to quell the nervous jitters. The run-in with that asshole on the way here still has me on edge. I’m normally not big into confrontation. I’m still in disbelief that I stood up to that behemoth of a man, but the words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. My belly flutters a little at his memory and how truly handsome he was.
Too bad his rugged good looks are wasted on his dog shit personality.
My eyes take in the expanse of the wall behind my father’s desk. Frame after frame of his accomplishments, from his undergraduate degree to his doctorate and his certificate from the Fellowship in the American College of Surgeons, tell the story of his success. Each certificate and accolade is housed in a perfectly dusted matching frame. Not one personal photo sits in his office. Nothing of me at my recent graduation, or the pictures I sent him when I was in Madagascar. Not even one of him and his “serious” girlfriend, who is nearly half his age.
“That’s what I wanted to talk with you about,” he says as he comes around to sit on the lip of his desk. He claps his hands and sets them on his lap. “I don’t think it’d look right to have my daughter training directly under me. You know how it’ll go—you’ll succeed, as I’m sure you will, and people will say it’s because I went easy on you. Gave you easy cases. Nepotism. You know the drill.”
I nod. “Okay, so then what are you saying?”
A knock on the door interrupts him, and he stands from his desk as it opens. His face lights up with a smile, one brighter than when he saw me, as he gestures to whomever entered with an open arm. “I’m having you work under my trusted friend and colleague, Dr. Colter Andrews.”
I stand from my chair, ready to turn and offer a hand to my dad’s colleague when my mouth falls open in surprise. Dad has talked about Dr. Andrews during nearly every interaction and awkward phone call we’ve had over the last ten years. Colt is so smart. He’s golfing with Colter during some conference this weekend. Colt will take over the surgical unit for him some day. Colt performed some life-saving procedure in record time, blah blah blah. I assumed Dr. Andrews was his age, with grayed hair, cheesy gold jewelry, and tanned wrinkles from vacations in the Bahamas.
What I hadn’t expected, is to come face to face with the asshole I crashed into earlier today.
Chapter Four
Colter
You’vegottobekidding me.
