“Please welcome Dr. Beckett Lawson.”
My pen snaps. So does my damn neck.
Standing at the front of the room next to a pile of decapitated plastic torsos is the man who lives above me. He’s wearing a gray T-shirt that shows exactly how much he uses that treadmill at 2:00 a.m. His eyes scan the room until they land on me. I expect him to freeze or gape, but the fucker just smirks.
“Doctor?” Brenda prompts, beaming.
Beckett clears his throat, his voice deep and carrying perfectly through the basement. “Hello, everyone. I’m Beckett. Let’s get started.”
He spends twenty minutes talking about heart rhythms, but I don’t hear a word of it. I’m too busy glaring at the way his biceps move when he points at a diagram.
“Okay,” Beckett says, snapping me back to reality. “Practical time. Grab a partner and a Resusci-Annie. We’re going to practice clearing an airway.”
The room scatters. I try to make a break for an elderly woman in the back row, but Beckett is faster. He’s suddenly looming over my chair.
“Madison,” he says, his voice a low vibration.
“Dr. Lawson,” I reply. “What a surprise. I didn’t know you did charity work for the medically illiterate.”
“I didn’t know you were planning to perform open-heart surgery in your living room.” He gestures to my notebook. “You have three pages of notes. This is a basic CPR class.”
“I like to be prepared.”
“Come on.” He nods toward the plastic dummy on the floor. “Let’s see what you’ve got. Show me how you’d check for a pulse.”
I kneel on the floor, feeling ridiculous. The dummyis staring at me with empty, judgmental eyes. I press my fingers into its neck. “Nothing,” I say.
“That’s because you’re pressing on its windpipe. You’re effectively murdering the plastic woman.”
He drops to his knees beside me. I can smell his soap—something clean and dangerously delicious. Reaching out, he moves my hand two inches to the left. His fingers linger on the back of my hand for a second too long, sending a spark straight up my arm.
“There,” he says. “Now, the airway. Tilt the chin.”
I tilt. The dummy’s mouth hangs open.
“Now,” he instructs. “The rescue breaths. We have plastic guards.”
I look at the dummy’s mouth, then at Beckett. “I’m not kissing the plastic, Beckett.”
“It’s a life-saving skill. What if I collapse in the hallway? Are you just going to watch me turn blue?”
“Probably. It would be significantly quieter for my apartment.”
He laughs, a warm, rich sound. “Give her the breath, Madison.”
I lean down, press my mouth against the guard, and blow. The dummy’s chest rises. I feel a pathetic sense of accomplishment.
“Good,” he says. “Now, compressions. Hand over hand. Right in the center. You need to go deep. Two inches. Keep the rhythm.”
I lock my elbows and start to push.
“Stayin’ Alive,” Beckett says.
“What?”
“The song. You have to push to the beat ofStayin’ Alive.” He starts to hum.
This is absurd. Emmy and Celeste are going to think I’m hallucinating, because I’m sweating and pushing ona plastic torso while the man I’m desperately trying not to be attracted to hums disco music into my ear.
