“What in the world is it with this woman?” I whispered to myself.
She shut something down in me that I didn’t have a name for yet. My brain, which had an answer for everything, kept coming up empty. I mindlessly did my rounds, dipping in silently on the women to make sure I knew where they all were before I headed to my office.
I needed to decompress with something I understood.
“Ah, an old friend,” I said as I plucked the DSM-IV off my bookshelf.
What?
A bit of light reading never hurt anybody.
I flipped the page, my finger sliding along the lines of the words as I sped-read my way through the new material. It had been a while since I’d been able to pick this book up. Usually, it only took me a week or so to devour material in this thick of a manuscript. But with everything that had kicked off with the crew and all of the patients who came under my command, my focus tugged elsewhere.
My eyes flickered toward the clock.
Only ten minutes passed.
I sighed as I shifted in my chair. I crossed my leg over my knee and reached for my whiskey before I realized I didn’t pour one for myself. Fucking hell. I looked up at the clock again.
“Drink, then read,” I said as I snapped the manual closed.
I went on the hunt for a drink and found myself staring at the clock on the stove. I shook my head and downed it, then poured another one.
I found my eyes gravitating to the microwave clock.
“Oh, get a grip,” I muttered as I swiped my drink off the countertop.
“You cooking tonight?” Brutus asked.
I whipped around from the fridge with my whiskey in my hand. “Hey, Brutus.”
The massive man narrowed his eyes and repeated himself. “You cooking, Doc?”
I shook my head and closed the fridge. “No. Not unless you need someone to, then I can.”
He stared at me for a moment before nodding to my drink. “You got another one of those?”
I motioned with my drink up to one of the cabinets. “In the back. Replace it if you drink the last glass.”
Brutus grunted with a nod of his head before he lumbered toward the cabinet. I took a glug of my drink.
“Any chance you know what you’re cooking tonight?” I asked.
He reached for the whiskey at the back of the cabinet of cups. “Not sure yet. Any requests?”
I quirked an eyebrow. “You take requests?”
He just shrugged as he pulled a coffee mug out of the cabinet. I watched him look at it. He turned it over in his hand. He dipped his nose in it to sniff it. He even blew into it.
And then, he uncapped the whiskey and filled the mug up. “Does ‘Miss Elizabeth’ need a new diet?”
I blinked. “Why did you put her name in quotes?”
“Because she’s the only person you refer to like that.”
“What’s wrong with being respectful?”
“You respect Cap, but you don’t call him ‘Mister Cap’.”
