The surgery wasn’t for a few weeks yet—by then, I’d have my head on straight again. Writing up that one evaluation for Finn would be awkward but not impossible.
“Good,” Novak said, already turning back to her desk.Class dismissed.
I nodded, more to myself, and mumbled a thank-you as I prepared to leave.
“Oh,” she said as if something had only just occurred to her. “And Dr. Maddox?”
I paused halfway to the door.
She gave me a rare smile that softened her features. “This department needs people who think beyond the OR. Keep up the good work, and if we do open an attending spot in winter, you’ll be at the top of our candidate list.”
Oh.
Just… Fuck. I’d been working my ass off for over a year, and it paid offtoday? When my hands had been on Finn just hours ago—on his skin and in his hair? When I could still taste him on my tongue?
“Thank you.” My throat felt raw even as I reached for a suitably happy, appreciative tone and face. “Means a lot.”
She nodded, message delivered. I left and closed the door behind me, the hallway colder than it had felt before. I stopped beside one of the windows overlooking a drab cityscape and breathed out.
This was the right thing. And it had gone better than I could have hoped—never mind that I felt twisted inside out. Guilt, yes, but somehow it was less about taking Finn home and more about how I couldn’t regret it, even now. How I knew that if he offered again, I’d make the same decision.
It wasn’t like me.
I moved further along the hallway before I pulled out my phone. Finn’s name had slid down some among my messages—not very far, though, proof that my social circle had shrunk rather too much while I hadn’t been looking. His last meaningful text was from early August, just before he’d won the competition and things turned intogot to ask you somethingand stolen rooftops. He’d thanked me for trusting his judgment about who to tell, and that it went both ways.
I’d never mentioned I’d been rooting for him to win. Didn’t matter.
Dr. Carter will take over as your supervising fellow for the rest of your rotation
The words read formal when I felt everything but I sent them anyway, then made myself move.
By the time I stepped off the subway train, Finn still hadn’t responded.
THIRTEEN
FINN
“You”—Tessa pointed her latte macchiato spoon at me—“look like a website that someone desperately needs to refresh.”
“Yeah, baby.” Khai grinned at her. “Talk nerdy to me.” He sat beside me on a lilac bench, his legs stretched out, mirrored sunglasses reflecting traffic and sky.
I cradled my coffee in both hands—rich and strong, just what I needed and nearly as good as advertised based on Tessa’s research into affordable places with great coffee. The tiny Italian bakery she’d picked came with flaking teal paint and too many plants stuffed onto narrow windowsills, cinnamon and warm bread scents drifting out to us every time someone left with a paper bag in hand.
“Just tired.” I barely stifled a yawn, squinting against afternoon sunlight that was bright but gentle. “Kinda feels like I’m running on fumes right now.”
“Aren’t we all?” Khai’s tone was philosophical, and yeah, true. But getting a mere three hours of sleep last night, tossing and turning, teetering betweenI should have stayedandno, no, I made the right call—well, it hadn’t helped.
“But some of us saved a baby yesterday,” Tessa said. She leaned forward, her smile eager and a shade longing. “What did it feel like?”
“It…” I paused and let myself sink back into it for just a moment—the shadowed unrealness of it all, how time had ceased to exist. Jesse. “It felt like the rest of the world wasn’t even there. Like everything else just…stopped. All the thoughts in my head. Just—it was like there was nothing other than keeping that baby alive and breathing.”
For a second, we sat in silence, cut only by traffic and other people’s conversations. “That’s why we do it,” Khai said then, hushed. “Isn’t it?”
“Speak for yourself,” Tessa said. “I’m just in it for the money and the bragging rights.” But her eyes, soft and wistful, betrayed her.
We moved on from there—Tessa wheedling Khai about a dance class she wanted to drag him to, with him arguing that “we have no free time as it is and we’d miss half the lessons because Devon won’t reschedule our shifts so I can learn how to waltz.”
I leaned back to listen, smiling a little even as something in me pinged hollow. Maybe this was how they felt hearing me describe yesterday’s PICU save—not jealous, not exactly, but coated in a layer ofI want that, too. Too bad I’d tripped headfirst into the bed of a guy who embodiedit’s complicated. Again. Too bad I couldn’t even fucking talk about it when something in me seemed ready to burst.
