They stopped their lamp wrestling to fix me with eerily similar expectant stares. Neil had mentioned they’d been roommates for nearly three years; right now it was easy to see it.
“It’s, uh.” My laugh came out thin. “We’ve known each other for about five minutes, so I’m not… Like, this might be a little much. And you can’t tell anyone. Even though—we didn’t do anything wrong. We didn’tknow.” Was I babbling? I was babbling. And still couldn’t help adding just one more sentence. “But you don’t mess with your supervisory chain, so it’d be bad optics at the hospital.”
“Mildly confusing,” Neil commented as if to confirm my suspicions. His grin was all mischief. “And highly intriguing, with the potential to be too juicy for my patients. Wouldn’t want to give anyone a heart attack, so my lips are sealed.”
“Who’d I even tell?” Sam shrugged. “I work, like, eighty hours a week, and you two are the only medical people I know.”
“Medical people?” Neil snorted. “So eloquent. It’s like you’re a lawyer or something.”
“Only when it’s billable hours.” She tossed me a quick smile. “But still, anything that’s said in this apartment falls under attorney-client privilege. So shoot.”
Right. Where to even start?
“Uh,” I said.
“Wow,” Neil drawled. “I’m already hooked.”
“Oh, fuck off.” It cracked a laugh out of me, though. “No, see, here’s the thing. A few days ago, I met a guy at a bar. We hooked up.”
“As you do,” Sam said, easy as you please, no visible reaction to the “guy” part. “Been there, done that.”
“Heard that,” Neil said with a wink at her. She stuck her tongue out at him, and rather than making me feel like an outsider, their teasing familiarity relaxed something inside me.
“Yeah, well,” I said. “Plot twist: Turns out he’s a senior doctor at Devon.”
“Senior as in old, or senior as in he’s your superior?” Neil asked, while Sam made an intrigued kind of noise.
“Awkward,” she said, seeming thoroughly delighted.
“Off the charts,” I told her, then glanced at Neil. “And it’s option two. He’s a senior fellow. At Devon, they’re the ones who supervise the day-to-day and file our end-of-rotation evaluations. It’s…not ideal.”
“So no follow-up?” she asked.
“Definitely no follow-up,” I confirmed, even though the words wriggled oddly in my chest. Stupid. It had been one hot night—really no big deal. I barely even knew Jesse.
“That’s too bad,” Neil said.
I lifted a shoulder and hoped it conveyed more indifference than I felt. “Just is what it is.”
Sam sent me a shrewd look. “Is he hot?”
I flashed to capable hands and a sharp, clever smile, green eyes that had gone dark with heat. “Uh,yeah.”
“Then yes,” Sam said. “That really is too bad.”
We were silent for a second while Neil tightened the final screw and leaned back, waving for Sam to let go of the base. The lamp held steady, arching high above a sagging armchair in the corner.
“Go team!” Neil cheered, and I mimed a standing ovation without actually getting up from my perch on the couch. I felt strangely lighter already, even just for having shared the rough outline of the story.
Neil left for his night shift at ten, and Sam retreated to read “probably five pages of my book before I fall asleep and drool all over it.” I brushed my teeth and caught up with a few messages from back home, reassuring my mom that I was still alive and my best friend, Eli, that no, New York wasn’t just investment bankers and naked cowboys playing the guitar in Times Square. And no—it wasn’t home either. Maybe one day.
A group chat of med-school buddies had shared a meme of a skeleton in scrubs, captionedUs by September. Ugh,relatable.I’d yet to even unpack my suitcase. I nudged it open with my foot and thought about the note tucked into its side pocket. I should throw it away, right?
Instead, I unfolded it and read it over once more.
Sorry for falling asleep. I didn’t want to wake you, so here’s all the cash I’ve got on me.
Oddly sweet, God. It registered despite the lingering sting of embarrassment.
