1
Nicole
Mission Valley Medical Center wasn’t the biggest hospital in San Antonio, but it had heart. Smack dab in the middle of downtown’s pulse, the hospital caught the overflow from everywhere that mattered.
Two years on general rotation, and I’d become a trusted face in the halls. Everyone loved me.
“I can’t stand you, Nicole Gordon. Take your cheap bribes and get out of my face.” Behind the nurses’ station, Otto hadn’t even glanced at the pumpkin spice latte I’d slid across the counter.
“You love me.”
“You’re a pain in the ass from October to June.” He scooped up his chart allocation and started his escape. “I honestly don’t know why Parker puts up with it.”
“Because she loves me too. And besides, I’m not asking for a kidney,” I said, falling into step beside him. I’d brought the latte along. “Just that you cover the end of my shift.”
He snorted a short, unamused laugh.
“At this point, I’d gladly give you a kidney. That’s a one-time thing. This,” he gestured between us, “is a weekly problem.”
“You have a double coming up, right? Saturday?”
This made him stop walking, eyes narrow as he studied me. Victory stuck out its nose and tested the air, but I knew better than to descend into any kind of preliminary celebration. I had to hear him say the words first.
“I don’t have a life,” I said, agitated by the loaded pause. “Pulling a weekend double gives me something to do.”
“Except… Your team has a game on Saturday, don’t they?”
Shit.
I stood down.
“Which means you’ll just hawk that shift off on the next unsuspecting victim.” Otto slipped the latte from my hands and took a sip. “Maybe getting a life would save you from this slippery slope. Thanks for the coffee.”
He booked it down the hall, making a beeline for the nurses’ lounge where he’d finish his admin and clock out of here in under two hours. Probably just to go home and watch reruns of Frasier while eating macaroni and cheese that came out of a box.
The injustice of it.
“Lena, oh, my God, Lena. Just the person I wanted to see.”
“The answer’s no, Nicole.” She breezed right past, leaving me in the swirling miasma of her cherryblossom body mist and abject rejection.
And she wondered why nobody liked her.
I cut down the hall, rubber soles whispering over the tiles as I hooked a left past the on-call rooms. Hope returned in the form of Marcie, rubbing her eyes as she came out of the last one.
If she were just waking up, that meant she was heading into another shift. And since she’d already be here…
“Hey, Marcie.”
She stifled a yawn, but was already shaking her head no. “You know I love you, child, and I would do anything for you.”
“Exactly.” I latched onto the positives. It was nearing four o’clock. Time, as it were, was of the essence. “Think about the love you have for me. Think about how that love makes it easy to—”
“Have you seen what Parker assigned me tonight?” She gave me a deadpan look that made my selfish motivations falter. “I swear, ever since that ruptured appendix, she’s been on a rampage. Like they removed that, and the last shred of humanity in her.”
“Marce, you’re my last hope.”
She patted my shoulder. “I’m sure your team will play just fine without you in the stands.”
