Page 43 of If Cain Were Able

“You’re just going to let me wander around your space?” he asks, his look of bewilderment making me smile.

“You planning on snooping through my drawers?”

“What? No, of course not,” he answers quickly.

I shrug and take a few steps toward him.

“Wouldn’t really matter if you did. All you’d find are my porn preferences, which would make you aware that I’m gay, but I’m going to assume you already know that.” Planting a kiss on his lips, Patrick melts against me. “We need to get back,” I tell him a second later.

What a shitshow.

By the end of the meeting, Patrick was just as pissed at hospital administration as the physicians were. He was able to salvage some of my OR time, but took it from my own colleagues. If all services got equal OR time, it was left up to each department to determine each physician’s allotted amount…which is total bullshit.

All I want to do is get home to Patrick—which is an insane thought to have in the first place—but it’s like the universe gets an absolute boner for bringing us together and then keeping us apart.

I’m wolfing down a chocolate bar between cases when my hospital pager goes off again. Pulling my cell phone from the pocket of my lab coat, I dial the number.

“Dr. Rosemont,” I say when a man answers on the other end of the line.

“Cain, it’s Declan Porter.”

Dr. Porter is a trauma surgeon in our ER. I have mad respect for the man because he’s the only surgeon who comes close to matching my level of cases and intelligence.

“What can I do for you?” I ask, knowing this isn’t a social call.

“I have a patient on the table and I need your help. I can keep her stable for about another fifteen minutes, but then I’m going to lose her if she doesn’t get an aortic graft, and I need another set of hands.”

I bark out in laughter.

“Declan, that’s a two-hour surgery, minimum. I’ve got my own patient wheeling back to the OR right now.”

“I know, but hear me out. She’s thirty-six, has two young kids, and a husband. She’s managing a family and going through nursing school.”

I groan in frustration.

I hate this part of the job.

Feeling like God after pulling someone back from the brink of death with a successful case is one thing…but literally choosing who lives and who will most likely die is a lot of fucking pressure.

“Fine. I’m on my way.”

“Thanks, Cain. I owe you one.”

This makes me laugh.

“You’re a trauma surgeon, Dec. No offense, but I hope I never need you.”

I make a call to stop medication on my next patient and delay my cases by four hours each, now stressed over when I’m going to fit them back in once the new ‘equitable distribution’ schedule goes into effect.

Chapter 26

Patrick

Cain doesn’t get home until seven o’clock on Saturday night. Once again, he’s pale, he hasn’t eaten, and he hasn’t slept in thirty-eight hours.

“Christ, Cain. You keep this up, and you’ll be the one on the table before long,” I tell him, pulling his work bag off his shoulder and guiding him to the couch. I’ve already heated his dinner for him, and I go back to the kitchen to grab it while he gets settled.

“You don’t have to baby me, you know,” he says, but there’s no real fire behind his words. “I come home to an empty house after days like this all the time.”