CHAPTER THREE
June
“Oh my God,I can’t take this heat and humidity any longer,” Nadia complained as she and Cerise headed toward her car. For once they were on the same shift rotation so they could carpool to work. Usually if she was on morning shift, Cerise was on afternoon. Or if she was on nights, Cerise was on mornings. For the next two weeks they were both on the afternoon shift.
“This is nothing, just wait until July and August, then you’ll really know it. Although I thought I heard a weather forecast, as I was in the break room, that we could be in for some wicked thunderstorms later on. There’s a flash flood warning too.”
Nadia looked up. Grey clouds rolled along the sky in a hurry. She couldn’t scent rain on the air, but it was oppressive and already she’d felt a trickle of sweat down her back and they’d only been out of the air conditioned medical center for something like two minutes. “Well I suppose rain will be a welcome change. It’ll cool things down for sure.”
Cerise laughed loudly beside her. “Girl, if anything the humidity is going to triple after the rainstorm. We’re talkingsummer storms here, there’s no cooling anything down when it rains in Texas. We won’t see cool weather again until October, if we’re lucky.”
Nadia sighed and for the first time since she’d moved to Kerrville she was pining for a Boston snowstorm and freezing temperatures. “At least the house is air conditioned. I don’t plan on moving from under a cooling vent after I’ve had my shower. You can bring me dinner, can’t you?”
Cerise laughed and shook her head. “Dream on, Nadia, we’re going to Hunt tonight. It’s trivia night and you promised, when we found out we were working the same shifts, you’d come with me.”
Shit.She’d forgotten about that promise. With the way their schedules had panned out over the five months they’d been living together, Nadia hadn’t thought it would ever happen and she’d be dragged to one of those nights. If there was one thing she hated most in life, it was trivia contests.
Her parents had brought a trivia game for her and her siblings to share one Christmas. What her parents hadn’t known was that they’d unleashed a battleground in the Fletcher family. As the youngest, her older siblings always seemed to gang up on her and no matter what color she landed on, the question never seemed to be related to the category it was supposed to be. Whenever she’d asked to see the card, they would hold it up out of her reach, or put it back in the box before she even had a chance to look at it. Their actions confirmed what she’d always thought—they were cheating. Sometimes she managed to get the right answer anyway.
So no, trivia wasn’t her favorite pastime but she’d made a promise and shealwayskept her promises.
“Fine, I’ll go, but don’t expect me to answer anything. I’m just there for the Coke Zero and air conditioning.”
They reached her car and she unlocked the doors. Once they were both in, Cerise spoke. “Go on, live a little, have a G&T tonight. Or maybe a mojito.”
Nadia sighed, this was another reason why she didn’t want to socialize much. She’d never been a huge drinker, and didn’t appreciate the people she was out with trying to force her to drink. After that one time in college where she’d drunk so much she spent the next three days throwing up, she’d sworn then she would never touch the stuff again. “You know why I don’t drink, Cerise. I’m happy to go out, but don’t force me to do something I don’t want to. The least you could do is respect that.”
“Oh, geez, Nadia, I’m sorry. You’re right, I shouldn’t have said what I said. I’m in awe that you can seem to have a good time without the need to have a couple of drinks to relax. How do you do it?”
Nadia concentrated on pulling out onto the street before answering her friend. “I don’t know. I just do.”
“I’m envious you can. I wonder if we’ll see any of the guys we saw from that community event we went to a couple months ago.”
God, she hoped not. Even now, two months after the event she couldn’t believe she’d kissed Mitch. Not only was he a total stranger but he was in the middle of a PTSD attack. She could get her medical license revoked because of that action. While technically he wasn’t her patient, the methods she’d used to pull him out of his attack were less than ethical.
Wouldn’t her family have a field day if it did get out and she was hauled up in front of the Texas Medical Board. They still didn’t believe she was really cut out to be a doctor, let alone working in the ER. Her mom and dad said the pressure alone would be too much for her.
Why they didn’t think she was capable was beyond her. She was sure they hadn’t believed her when she’d told them she’dmissed out on one of the positions at Boston Memorial and had decided to take the job in Kerrville. If only they knew how big of an area the medical center catered to and how much more hands on experience she was getting. Some of the cases she’d handled since she’d started, she wouldn’t have gotten a look-see at a major hospital. All of those cases would’ve been seen by the senior doctors. In terms of her career, her move to Kerrville had bolstered it more than if she’d stayed in Boston.
“Maybe.” She finally responded to Cerise’s musing. “Obviously, I’ve seen Eric a few times but we haven’t really had time to talk.”
“Yeah, it’s been so busy recently what with summer and school finishing. So many people on the road doing stupid things because they’ve graduated. Not to mention trying to do some of the stupid tricks they see on social media because it looks so cool.”
Nadia indicated to turn into their street. “Tell me about it. Today I treated someone who thought it would be cool to tie a rope between two trees and then back flip off it. The kid was lucky he only ended up with two broken legs and not a broken neck.”
“Oh I heard about that. Summer’s going to suck for him.” Cerise said as she released her seatbelt.
Nadia hitched her purse high on her shoulder and waited for Cerise to unlock their front door. “Summer’s going to suck for his parents who will now have to do everything for him. Why can’t kids play board games or ride their bikes, like we did?”
“Because they wouldn’t be the next internet sensation doing boring stuff like that.”
“Better to be boring than dead.” A cool waft of air greeted them as they walked into the house. “Now this is what I’m talking about. You’re really going to have to pry me off this couchto go to this stupid trivia night.” Nadia groaned in delight as she collapsed on it.
“Why do you hate trivia so much?”
“I just do.”
Cerise chuckled. “That’s no answer which means that’s no reason to miss out. I’ll let you lay there for a half an hour while I go shower, then it will be your turn to get ready. We’ll eat in Hunt. There’s a great little restaurant there you’re going to love.”
