I retrieved my phone from my bedroom and texted Flynn.
Can I get your bro’s number? If he still needs a place, I really need a roommate.
CHAPTER 5
AIDEN
“You enter through the garage.”Mr. Earnhart punched in a code, and the door rumbled up on its track. “We only ask you don’t come home after midnight. The noise can wake us.”
“Oh.”
“Is that a problem?”
“I don’t know. I work at the hospital. It’s possible there could be an emergency.”
“A doctor!” he exclaimed, lighting up as he ducked under the garage door and walked across the oil-stained concrete floor. “We’d be lucky if you moved in, wouldn’t we? My wife has such bad migraines. Could you prescribe her refills? I could use some Percocet for my bad back too. That would sure be handy.”
“Sorry, no. I’m not allowed to do that until after residency.”
“Oh.” His excitement dimmed. I guess he’d been hoping I’d be a pill dispensary. “So you’re a student, then? Not a doctor.”
“Um…something like that.”
I didn’t really want to educate Mr. Earnhart about the intricacies of the medical degree process. I was a doctor. But I couldn’t just go to work as a doctor, not until I went through residency. And I’d just delayed that by taking a research year. Which put me behind everyone else…
Maybe it had been a mistake. I could have tried for a less desirable residency. Something respectable, if not the very best. But Iwantedto be the best. I wanted to show Flynn that his sacrifice had value. That he hadn’t gone to prison for seven years so I could settle for mediocrity. I needed to begreat.
Important.
Worthy.
I’d make a good impression on Dr. Rose. I’d get that recommendation letter. And next year, I’d be in a prestigious residency that would live up to everything it had cost him.
“This is where you enter the apartment.” Mr. Earnhart gestured to a ladder that ascended to a hole in the ceiling.
“That’s the only way in?”
“Yep! Fun, right? You can relive those days you had a treehouse.” He chuckled. “Go on. Try it.”
Well, good thing the place didn’t have a kitchen. Getting more than a bag or two of groceries up the ladder wouldn’t be easy. Moving in my belongings would be a huge pain. Good thing I had no furniture.
I climbed a few steps up, popped my head through the opening, and saw a dingy room with a single twin bed. No windows. It would be like living in a closet. The smell wasn’t great, either.
“I don’t see a bathroom?”
“Oh, you share the bathroom in the main house,” he said cheerily. “Don’t worry, we’re all real friendly. You’re welcome to join us for breakfast, too.”
“And I have to go out the garage and in the front door to do that?”
“Yep. Afraid there’s no entry into the house from here. But it’s a very short walk, as you can see.”
My phone rang in my pocket. Oh, thank god. An excuse to get out of here.
I didn’t care who was on the line. It could be Flynn, a spammer, or my absentee mother calling from the cruise she was on with her new rich husband. I was taking the call.
“Sorry, I’ve got to answer this for work,” I told him, backing down the ladder.
“Sure, sure. Just come back when you have more time to look.”
