“Did George bring you coffee yesterday morning on your day shift?” she asks, batting her eyelashes. I already know where thisis going, with versions of this conversation played out more times than I can count over the past six months.
I keep my eyes on the screen, typing notes with the focus this job demands. “Yes, he did. As usual, when I do days and he’s on his way to clients for home service.”
She sighs dreamily. “He’s not seeing someone yet, is he?”
“Not that I know of. He’s married to the shop. Spends most of his time covered in grease, sleeves rolled up, working on engines.”
Charlie sighs again, color rising in her cheeks, clearly picturing exactly what I just described. I catch myself doing the same thing and type something wrong. I delete it without looking up.
“You should set us up,” she says. Same request and hopeful expression. Same number of times I’ve deflected it.
Nate strolls in from one of the cubicles and catches the tail end of it. He snorts.
“Charlie, just ask the man out yourself.”
“What if he says no?” She’s twirling a strand of dark hair around her finger. “It’d be so awkward.”
“You’d survive and move on like a functional adult,” I say, closing the chart and pulling up the next patient. “George can handle being asked on a date.”
They’re both looking at me. I realize I said it with more edge than I meant.
“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” Charlie says, narrowing her eyes.
“I’m fine, my friend.” I grab the chart and stand. “Bay nine needs sutures. I’ll go get Dr. Fernandez.”
I slip away, heading toward the station cupboards to grab some supplies, forcing my mind elsewhere. George is my friend. If he wants to date someone, that’s his business. I should have no say.
The next two hours move in constant motion. I assist Dr. Fernandez with a chest tube insertion on a man who spent a weekend doing intense rock climbing and tried to manage his own collapsed lung. I restart a second IV on the chest pain patient when his first one infiltrates. I walk Josh through wound prep and irrigation with the patience of someone who remembers being that green and terrified.
At 6:47 PM, the radio crackles.
“SDMC, this is Medic 47. Eight minutes out with two adult patients from an MVA. First patient is a seventy-eight-year-old female, altered mental status, possible head injury. Second is a forty-five-year-old female, stable vitals, possible wrist fracture. Requesting bed assignment.”
Nate is already coordinating. “Bring the elderly female to trauma one. Wrist fracture to Bay 10.”
Dr. Fernandez appears, already donning a trauma gown. “I’ll take Trauma 1. Bradford, standby for overflow.”
I nod and stay ready at the nurses’ station. The next few minutes move through the familiar choreography of incoming trauma. I’m starting to relax when my phone buzzes in my pocket. Once, twice, three times in rapid succession. I pull it out long enough to see three missed calls from an unknown number. I’m about to call right back when the radio crackles again.
“SDMC, this is Medic 63. Five minutes out with a thirty-one-year-old male, work-related injury, deep lacerations to the right thigh and possible right hand fracture. Patient is conscious, hypotensive, actively bleeding.”
“Copy that,” Nate says. “Trauma 2 is open. Lance, you’re up.”
My phone buzzes again, pressing into my leg. I ignore it and move to prep. The IV poles extended, monitor leads laid out, trauma cart in position. I check the equipment, verify everything is in reach, then glove up.
I position myself at the entrance to Trauma 2. Through the glass I can see the flash of red and blue lights as the ambulances pull into the bay.
The first gurney bursts through at exactly 6:55, paramedics wheeling the elderly woman toward Trauma 1, calling out vitals and suspected injuries. Dr. Fernandez and her team swarm the patient immediately, hands and voices working in the synchronized shorthand of people who’ve done this a thousand times.
The second gurney is heading straight for me.
A large male form, one thigh wrapped in blood-soaked gauze, wheels through the doors. I’m already running through trauma ABCs, moving with the clinical calm that years of practice builds into muscle memory, when I try to argue with what I’m seeing.
The paramedic is already calling out the report. “George Torres-Macklin, thirty-one-year-old male—”
Everything in me seizes for a second.
“—Deep lacerations to right thigh, right hand with possible fracture, work-related injury—”
