“Will do. Go home and get some rest. I’ll see you in twelve hours.” Gabe grinned at her as he took over her computer station.
Sometimes leaving the hospital was more difficult than the shift itself. Certain patients she just wished she could tuck in her bag and spirit away from the hospital, for one reason or another. This was one of those mornings. Rosie pointed her car toward home. The faster she got some sleep, the faster she could get back to check on Jayden.
When she returned that night, Gabe met her for a bedside report. His dark hair was disheveled like he’d been running his hands through it.
“How was the day?” She asked as they rounded on Jayden. Bags of fluids hung from an IV pole next to his bed. That hadn’t been there when she left that morning. One sported a label that said “ampicillin.”
“About an hour after you left, all hell broke loose. While I was making rounds, he seized. Dr. Carter immediately ordered cultures, and they discovered he’d gone septic.”
Rosie swallowed. Sepsis could be dangerous for adults. In neonates, it was lethal.
Back at the computer cart, Gabe went over how often the antibiotics and fluids needed changed. And he dropped an additional bit of information. “Doc Carter called Dr. Yount at home, woke her out of a dead sleep, only to ream her a new one. I don’t think she’ll give us the brush-off anymore.”
Rosie only nodded and went about her day. In the back of her mind, though …It’s my fault for not speaking up.If she had stuck to her guns, Jayden might have gotten the care she knew he needed. But because she hadn’t listened to her gut, a patient had suffered.
She swore she’d never make that mistake again.
It was definitely a Murphy’s Law Day. Anything that could go wrong, had.
Matt had gone to pack his lunch and realized he left his brand-new lunch bag at the restaurant the day before. That meant bringing his old, juvenile Kylo Ren lunch box, or spending money on food that he hadn’t budgeted. The lid on his travel mug flipped as he was heading out the door, spilling hot coffee all over him, as well as the carpet. Olivia was going to be pissed. He’d pressed a towel into the carpet and changed his clothes, leaving them in the bathroom so that the drips couldn’t do any more damage.
Traffic had been bumper-to-bumper, thanks to leaving later than normal, so it was well past his starting time when he rolled into the Orange Blossom,Star Warslunch box in hand. Bruce was on the phone with suppliers, so he had Matt working on the schedule for the upcoming week. Matt had never really been good at logic puzzles, and he’d had to redo it three times before Bruce would approve it. He didn’t say anything, but Matt felt like he was disappointing his mentor.
All he needed now was for Chef Alphonse to go off on him for something. The man definitely earned his reputation. He’d heard him yell at the waitstaff when he was shadowing the maître d’ last night.
Finally, he got to take his meal break, and he decided it was just barely warm enough to sit outside at the staff picnic table. He needed a change of scenery, and some sunlight.
Two of the waitstaff were sitting with Damir at the table already, so Matt slid in on the other end. He was so drained he didn’t think to hide the embarrassingly nerdy lunch box from view.
“Hey man, nice lunch box!”
Matt’s cheeks heated, and he knew his pale complexion was giving away his embarrassment. “Eh, I left my usual one in the fridge here last night.”
The shortest one of the trio pushed his sunglasses back up on his dark hair and laughed. “I’d carry that one all the time. Just sayin’. I’m Keith, by the way.” When Matt looked up to shake his hand, he realized the server was wearing a t-shirt under his open uniform shirt that said, “Han shot first.”
He grinned. “I like your shirt.”
Keith looked down then back up at Matt and shot finger guns at him. “We’re gonna get along fine.” He gestured to the tall, skinny blond guy on his left. “This is Evan, and I hear you already met Damir.”
Matt nodded as he shook hands with Evan. “Yeah, I’m Matt, I’m Bruce’s intern.” He unpacked his sandwich and dug in as they wrapped him up in their conversation. Keith and Evan were actors, it turned out, waiting tables at night while they auditioned for roles.
Then their talk turned to hobbies. “Hey Matt, do you playBattlefront?”
Matt swallowed his mouthful of chips and nodded. “It’s been a while, I got busy with school and stuff. But yeah, I play.”
Evan smacked Keith on the shoulder. “We’ve been looking for a fourth man to play in a tournament coming up next month at that bar, Fabled. Winning team gets a big cash prize.”
“That place with the livestreams instead of sports games?” Olivia had mentioned it to him once or twice. “Wait. How do you run ateamtournament with a one-player game?”
“Hero Starfighter Mode!” The two servers said in stereo.
Keith continued explaining. “They’re hooking all the televisions up to PS4s in a LAN. It’s going to be huge. They’re even being sponsored by Smirnoff. Entry is forty bucks a team, but the prize is a thousand. The deadline is tonight, if you want in.”
“Sure! When is it?”
They huddled over their phones, exchanging numbers, and checking calendars. Matt promised to meet them online that night to practice. It was only going to cost him ten bucks to enter on the team. That was totally worth it.
It was nice to meet some possible friends of his own.
