PMC Hospital, 5:30 a.m. on a weekday in August
Ren had to hurry to finish her pre-rounds check on in-house patients for the first time since she’d taken over the service. She hadn’t left home in quite enough time, and now she’d have to skip her usual walk through in the emergency room. She always did that around five a.m. and often found a patient from the night shift still waiting on a consult or one who had just been signed in who might need a surgery eval—these were the patients who often ended up sitting around a little bit longer than usual because everything slowed down as shift change approached. She didn’t always get a surgery case out of it, but the patients got taken care of sooner, and the ER docs took notice. Sooner or later, they’d count on her coming around. Or better yet, call her. She couldn’t make it today. Her disappointment at falling short of her goals sat heavily in her chest. All because her schedule was off.
And it wasn’t just her schedule that was off.
She was off, or at least, she wasn’t performing up to her standards. Ordinarily, the only thing on her mind was the task in front of her. Her focus, always narrow and intense, allowed her to be efficient and successful. She never made to-do lists—she just always woke with a plan already formed. The execution was a foregone conclusion. She recognized this about herself, took it for granted.
This morning she struggled to find that effortless focus.
Her body felt foreign. She rarely paid much attention to her physical state—good or bad. If she was aware of being ill, she’d take the proper medication. She wasn’t often tired, but she did intentionally sleep enough to prevent being impaired at the hospital. Beyond that, her sense of self was rooted in her mind. Except not this morning, and she knew why. Those hours with Dani had definitely felt good, and that wasn’t even the word for it. She’d meant it when she’d said the sex had been awesome and amazing and a dozen other accolades. The aftereffects lingered in her awareness, mentally and physically. And something else had changed. She was aware of having a body, almost as if new sensory channels had been awakened. She wasn’t entirely certain she liked it. The tingling in her extremities and the swirling agitation in her stomach were disruptive and disconcerting. And even more confusing, irrationally pleasant.
One thing was certain. She definitely could do without all the nervous tension. This was no time for her to suddenly be bombarded with new sensations and odd urges. She had less than a year to bring everything she’d ever worked for to a successful conclusion. And to do that, she needed to be her old self. The one she recognized.
Making a final note on the last ICU patient, she hurried toward the cafeteria with a renewed sense of purpose. As if awakening with an answer to a question that had plagued her while she slept, she understood what she needed to do. Despite the unexpected wave of sadness, she sighed with relief. Like so many times in her life, she only needed to will herself to do what must be done. She collected her coffee and a plain bagel with butter and joined her team at their usual table.
“How was your night?” Ren asked as she sat beside the third year resident, who had been on call the night before.
“Okay. No problems.” Jezeria, the third year, looked exhausted and very glad to see everyone. Typical after a night of fielding calls from the floors and ER and often needing to make decisions with no safety net if they were wrong. Just a usual night on call.
“Good.” Ren already knew Jez hadn’t missed anything of importance—she’d made rounds herself. And that’s why she did it. So she could be sure the residents were doing all right without them knowing she was looking over their shoulders.
Once each of the residents had finished reporting on their assigned patients, Ren brought up the list of surgeries for the day. She assigned cases to the junior residents who would assist the attendings, and finished with Zoey.
“Your choice,” Ren said. “The fem-fem bypass at eight or the muscle flap to follow.”
“I’ll take the vascular case,” Zoey said. “Every anastomosis counts double on the transplant log too.”
“That’s where you’re headed, after you finish, right?” Ren said.
“Yep.”
Ren nodded. “All right. I’ll walk up with you and see how the board looks.”
Ren wasn’t due to scrub until the second case and was about to leave after checking the surgery board for any interesting cases she might have missed when Patty, the OR supervisor, came to the door of the control room.
“Ren, got a minute?” Patty said.
“Of course,” Ren answered. “What can I do for you?”
“It looks like room ten is going to be delayed. The patient needs more labs before anesthesia will clear them. Can you see if we can move the muscle flap up there?”
“Absolutely,” Ren said. “I’ll call Dr. Silverstein right now and let her know that we can start early. She doesn’t have office hours, so I think she’ll be free.”
“Great, can you let me know ASAP?”
“Definitely.”
Fortunately, Dr. Silverstein was one of the attendings who actually answered her pages promptly, and within ten minutes, Ren had organized the first year resident to get Silverstein’s patient ready to come to the OR early and let Patty know they could go ahead.
“Perfect,” Patty said. “Thanks.”
“I’ll be in the lounge,” Ren said.
When she walked in, the OR lounge was mostly empty. The morning cases had already started, and everyone—surgeons, nurses, techs, anesthetists, residents, and students—was in their assigned rooms. Everyone except Dani.
Ren hesitated for just a second before she entered and sat down. She had to be there, and avoiding Dani wasn’t possible—even if she’d wanted to. Which she didn’t, not entirely.
“Hi,” Ren said.
Dani sat in her usual place in the corner of that terribly unattractive mustard-colored sofa, her feet up on the coffee table. Today she had an open journal propped on her thigh. She smiled at Ren. “Hi.”
Ren had no idea what to say next. She hadn’t expected to see Dani again so soon and hadn’t had time to consider what that might be like. The night with Dani was new on so many levels, and she hadn’t formulated a follow-up plan. She was without reference points and not certain where to find them. She hadn’t expected their next meeting to be awkward, but it felt that way. As if Dani was almost a stranger, when she was anything but. And then there were those troublesome butterflies again. She’d seen Dani sitting in that exact position a dozen times before, but today everything about her stood out in sharp detail—as if someone had turned the lens on the microscope and brought a familiar but vaguely out-of-focus image into sharp relief. The tattoo on Danny’s shoulder peeked out a little bit at the neck of her scrub shirt. Ren couldn’t stop seeing it the way she had the night before, when Dani had pulled her shirt off. The memory of how Dani looked without any clothes on at all had the butterflies twisting themselves into gigantic knots that pulled tight across the base of her belly. Her fingers twitched at the sleek glide of skin beneath her hands.
“Waiting for a case?” Dani said.
Ren jumped. She’d drifted somewhere. Back to the night before, back to the swirling sensations, into the whirlwind of pleasure that teetered on the edge of pain until it spread like a starburst through every fiber of her being.
“Yes,” she said and couldn’t think of a follow-up. Dani was watching her, that intense look in her eyes and faintly amused expression that said she knew what Ren was thinking.
But she couldn’t, could she? Last night wasn’t new to Dani—she couldn’t be as displaced, as off-balance as Ren right now.
“I didn’t mean to disturb your reading.” Ren hurried to a vacant chair across the room from the sofa. The springs—what remained of them—made an odd grinding sound as she sank into the seat.
Dani glanced at the journal as if she’d forgotten it was there. “Oh, nothing to worry about. I’m just killing time. The fourth year is taking a junior through a hernia repair. I wanted to be close if they got into trouble.”
“I need to be doing that. Letting Zoey have more teaching responsibilities.” Ren winced. “I don’t know the residents well enough to be comfortable delegating yet.”
“My fourth year came over from Franklin. I know what he can do. You’ve got plenty of time to—”
Zoey stomped in from the hall and flopped down on the other end of the sofa from Dani. “Hurry up and wait. Every damn day.”
Relieved at the interruption and the reprieve from the intimacy that left her so unsure, Ren said, “Problem with the case?”
Zoey rolled her eyes. “Anesthesia had a problem with intubation. Now they want a chest X-ray and blood gases. It’s going to be another half an hour at least before we can even prep.”
“I’m going to be here,” Ren said, “if you have something you need to do. I can page you when they’re ready.”
“I’d better wait. They might want me for something. What are you still doing here? Something come up?”
“Oh,” Ren said, “Silverstein got moved up.” She smiled. “So I’m in the hurry-up-and-wait stage too.”
“At least getting that case out of the way will make the day easier,” Zoey said.
If Ren had been as superstitious as most surgeons, she would have been worried by that remark, but she didn’t believe in luck. Good or bad. Relieved of the necessity for conversation now that she wasn’t alone with Dani, she pulled out her phone.
She’d do what she always did while she was waiting. Something familiar. Something that let her slip into her private, recognizable self. She texted Axe.
Are you free?
For a while. How have you been? You’ve been quiet
Oh, sorry. Work has been really busy.
How was Friday night?
Ren stared at the question. What had she said? She mentally recalled the texts.
Got plans?
?
Hey. Friday night. :-)
They’d just been joking, the way they sometimes did when they gamed. They’d never really talked about personal things before. She hesitated. If she’d been herself, she would have ignored the question or answered it with another bit of banter. But she wasn’t completely herself, and Axe would know what she meant, even if she didn’t.
She texted rapidly before she could change her mind. It was disturbing.
Hey! What happened. Are you okay?
Oh no. Not explaining this right. I’m fine just terrible timing
Oh. How come?
Super busy. Can’t have distractions
Ha. Distracting. Sounds like it was good then :-)
Ren felt her face warming. Good she wasn’t having this conversation in person. She typed, Not what I expected. Wait. Not what I meant. I didn’t know what to expect.
But you’re not sorry? You’re okay with how things went with them?
Her. I’m good. It was wonderful. But… Ren paused. If she said more, would Axe still understand? Could she take the chance? She hurried on.
I don’t know what to do about that
Huh. Give it some time?
Maybe. I’m not sure—
Ren’s phone rang and she swiped out of the message app to answer. “Dunbar.”
“Ren, this is Dec Black, downstairs in the ER.”
“Yes, Dr. Black.” Ren recalled the ER call schedule for the month and scanned it. A service wasn’t on call, but she wasn’t going to mention that. “What can I help you with?”
“I know you’re not on call, but I thought you’d want to know that Leo Marcoux is down here in the ER. I know you saw him last time he came in. He’s running a fever, and he’s got belly pain.”
Ren shot to her feet. “I’ll be right down. Thank you for calling me.” She spun around to Zoey. “I need to get down to the ER. Can you get the third year to cover the muscle flap if I’m not back upstairs in time?”
“Sure, Silverstein won’t mind. She’ll probably even let Jez do some of the case.”
“Thanks.” Ren pushed out through the doors without a backward glance.
“Well, that was weird,” Dani said. “Wonder what that was about.”
Zoey shrugged. “I think Ren has the ER staff trained to call her for everything these days.”
Dani left her phone open and set it on the arm of the sofa, waiting for a return message. “She’s making quite an impression down there.”
“Are you worried about it?” Zoey asked.
Surprised, Dani shook her head. “No, why would I be?”
“Well, she probably is getting extra cases out of it. And you know, there’s the whole Franklin thing.”
Dani gritted her teeth. “Man, I think that’s a losing proposition for me. Even if I get this paper done, and I’m not sure I will, she’s like…a force of nature, you know?”
Zoey laughed. “Is she now.”
Dani took a quick look around the OR lounge. No one was there. Still, she wasn’t going to announce something personal about Ren. “Come on, Zoey. It’s not like that.”
“I don’t know,” Zoey said teasingly. “You two looked like you were really into it a few minutes ago.”
“What are you talking about?” Dani said.
“The two of you texting. I think the fire alarm could’ve gone off and neither of you’d have noticed.”
“I wasn’t texting with Ren.”
Zoey’s brows drew down. “You weren’t?”
“No.”
“Oh. Okay. It just…” Zoey shook her head. “Never mind.”
“Believe me, I’d be happy for a text from her.” Dani dropped her head back to the sofa and sighed. “She’s really uncomfortable around me now. I think I totally blew it somehow.”
Zoey patted her knee. “Hey, it’s just morning-after awkwardness, and come on, she probably doesn’t have a lot of experience. I don’t know her well enough to ask…yet…”
Dani groaned.
Zoey went on, “But I bet she hasn’t had a lot of girlfriends.”
“Make that none,” Dani said.
Zoey’s eyes widened. “Are you guessing, or do you know that?”
“I know that.”
“So last night was…like the first?”
Dani nodded silently.
“Well, for crying out loud, Dani,” Zoey said urgently. “What do you expect? One of two things is going to happen after a night like that. She’s either gonna be after you for sex every other second, or she’s going to be really confused about what to do next.”
“I’d be good with the sex every other second,” Dani muttered.
“And maybe she’ll still get there. But you’re going to have to be a little patient.”
“Oh, look who’s talking. How long did it take you to get Dec into bed?”
“Totally different, and quite a while.”
“Besides, I’m not even sure that would be a good idea. Getting involved,” Dani mumbled. “I need to keep my head in the game around here, and damn it, all I can think about is Ren Dunbar.”
“You might not be the only one whose head isn’t in the game,” Zoey said softly. “Besides, when did you ever meet a game you didn’t want to play?”