After Hours (InterMix)(76)
“He’s good,” I finished casually. “I can see why he’s the head of the department.”
“He’s not perfect. No doctor is.”
“I know that.”
With a nasal huff, Kelly’s expression went back to its usual neutral state. “But he’s good. You’re right. He’s been real good with Don.”
I softened at his concession. “So have you.”
Kelly shrugged, taking a deep drink.
“Dr. Morris told me I should think about psychiatry.”
“Probably wise,” Kelly agreed, deadpan. “You can use all the help you can get.”
I shot him a snotty look. “Ah ha ha ha. He said he’d write me a letter of recommendation. Like, if I ever applied to premed, I think he meant.”
Kelly’s gaze wandered to the window as he sipped his pop. “Did he, then.”
There was something mean-spirited in his tone. At worst he was implying it was a ridiculous notion, my being a doctor. At best . . . He couldn’t actually be jealous, could he? Kelly Robak, so above everyone’s bullshit, jealous of a middle-aged doctor who’d deigned to compliment a new staffer? Would wonders never cease? Plus if that were the case, what on earth did it mean for any future sex Kelly and I had? He was a force already. Jealousy might turn him full-on, foaming rabid.
“So, yeah. Though it’s not like I’ve got a spare hundred grand lying around to go, even if I wanted to.”
His gray eyes stayed pinned to the outside, lit up like icicles by the belated afternoon sun. “Do you want to?”
“I dunno. It’s a pretty expensive gamble to take.” But damn if I wasn’t proud to have been told I should consider stepping up to the high-stakes table. Before now, everyone in my life had been dazzled that I’d earned any kind of useful qualification, that I’d landed a salaried job with benefits. Not because I was dumb or anything, just because that sort of achievement didn’t happen for people in my family. Amber’s graduation from beauty school had been a major event. As far as that crowd was concerned, my scrubs practically deemed me a brain surgeon.
The senior weekend nurse entered the break room then, and though we didn’t look suspicious in the least, I sat up rod-straight.
“Afternoon Erin, Kelly. How’s Saturday treating the two of you?” she asked, perusing the vending machine.
“Fine,” Kelly said, “except somebody must’ve spiked the water cooler with extra crazy juice.”
She rolled her eyes with commiseration, not bothering to correct his casual use of crazy, as she might have if she’d had the energy. “Tell me about it. You both off tomorrow?”
We nodded.
“Any good plans?”
I glanced at Kelly, and he glanced at me.
“Nothing I know of,” Kelly said, staring me in the eyes.
A dark little part of me was pleased to say, “I’m spending the day with my sister and nephew. We’re going to a farm with a legendary hay-bale maze.” And no Marco. Though I wouldn’t mind a bit if he came along and wound up lost in the maze, never to be found again.
“Oh, how old is your nephew?”
“Almost three.”
We went off on a tangent about what the most adorable ages were for boys versus girls, and Kelly finished his pop and excused himself to get back to the ward. I watched him go, proud in a petty way that I was busy all day Sunday, and now he knew it. That what we’d done was fun, but I wouldn’t be spending my free time mooning in my room, wishing he’d call to validate my existence with another invitation to screw all over his house.
The only trouble with this strategy, I realized, was that it sounded depressingly like some tactic you’d read in The Rules.
* * *
My day off passed too quickly. The farm was fun—with the exception of Jack having a meltdown when a llama spat on his new jacket—and we had an impromptu picnic dinner in Amber’s front yard.
I thought about Kelly as little as I could manage, knowing if my mind started wandering, the infatuation would return in a blink, and my resolve for us to go back to simply being coworkers would be gone just as fast.
Come Monday morning hand-off, it felt almost as if we’d never slept together. The sensation should have pleased me. After all, that was exactly what I wanted, in my rational brain. Why on earth should it be disappointment filling me, right where I’d expected the relief to be?
I stole glances at him, trying to remember how that cool, calm face had looked looming above mine. How that level voice had sounded. How those battered arms had held me through the night. I could recall those things, but with only dreamlike fidelity. That made me sadder than I’d ever have guessed.