“Bullshit, Dr. M,” he smirked. Christ, was he getting fresh!
“What about your girlfriend?” Way to shut it down, Mendez, you idiot. But it deserved asking.
“Well… since I’m seriously considering asking her to be my wife, we’ve talked about everything. She knows I have these feelings. I’ve told her that I don’t think I can suppress them for my entire life, and I might want to see where they went at some point, if I met someone I could trust. She was cool with that as long as I was honest with her.”
“Chance Ruhlig, either you’re completely full of shit right now, or kids these days have some crazy different notions of relationships compared to what I’m used to…”
He was quiet for a second, and came back with, “Either way, all you can do is take my word for it. So my question back to you is,” he looked down, bit his lip slightly, looked back up into my eyes, “you’re the person I feel I can trust. Will you trust me on this one?”
It was here my years of additional wisdom kicked in, and I had an answer for him that I felt was right. “When are you off service from this current rotation?”
“I’m on call this weekend, then Wednesday is my last day. I’ll be across town after that.”
“Do you work the weekend after?”
“Nope.”
“Fine. Think about things until then. And if in the meantime you want to talk about anything else, I’ll absolutely be here for you. I’m not about to ignore you after you shared what you have with me. But otherwise let’s wait until that weekend, and we can have some more of this particular conversation. Does that seem fair?”
“That seems fair, Dr. Mendez.” Was that sing-songy sarcasm in the use of my title? Fresh. That’s right kid, there’s no “Jon” here for you today.
“Okay. Then I think we should call it a night. We both know where we have to be early tomorrow.” He got up, politely took his beer bottle back to the kitchen, and I followed him to the door.
“Hey,” I said. He turned around. “This is… a lot. Try not to think too hard about things, okay? It’s hard enough to be an intern. The last thing I want to be is something that contributes to your stress.”
He gave me a hug that could have picked me up and forced every ounce of air from my lungs, but was warm and gentle instead. I returned the hug and felt his lats march across his back in a military parade of muscle. No kiss this time.
“Thanks, Dr. M.”
– – – – – – –
Drag yourself out of bed and go to work early after that kind of night, knowing there’s 100% chance of Chance that day! My heart was at 120 bpm as soon as I sat up in bed, and my mind came online into a wall of chattering thoughts about what had happened, what might happen, what would be super hot if… no.
I made it to the hospital on time, and the Universe made sure I almost literally bumped into Chance as I got off the elevator while he tried to get on. Nice, just plunge me in head-first, rip off the band-aid, get it over with. “Sorry, sorry!” he said as he passed me, and I apologized too. Don’t turn around, you fool! But I did, and as the elevator closed there was that smile winking at me. Jesus.
The rest of the day was too busy to afford the chance thought of Chance, and the week pretty much stayed that way. The pace at the hospital was unpredictable but I was glad when it was really busy, because it made the day fly by, and I felt accomplished afterward. The weekend came and went also. I thought about sending Chance an encouraging text, because call weekends could be particularly brutal, but my internal conflict between being a nice, mentoring presence and a leering lecherous creep always resulted in me erring on the side of caution. It’s a shame; he could probably have used a bit of encouragement, and this is why these kinds of relations are typically frowned upon.
Each day of the next week seemed to be busier than the previous one. “Switch day” was one of the days in the middle of the week, when each team’s residents would change over to a new set as the previous set went on to their next rotations. This meant I had to get used to a whole new crew on rounds, and also that Chance was no longer around. It was Friday night before I knew it.
I spent the evening by myself, reading in a totally quiet apartment with an obscenely expensive bottle of wine I bought just for me. I honestly hadn’t been single for most of the time since college, but when I was, I took myself on some of the better dates I’d had. And when I fell asleep on them, there was no one to be unhappy. I got up at about 2 AM to drink some water and brush the wine from my teeth, and put myself to bed. Yes, I checked my phone to see if someone had texted me. Several people had, but none of them were hospital employees. Go to bed, Mendez.
The next morning I went for a run. I hate running, but figured it was good for me, and it felt like a nice way to clear my mind. I had some work to get to, and threw myself into that afterward. I refused to switch my phone from silent, my default setting, but instead checked every so often, and just after 2 PM a text came from Chance: Hi Dr. M. I was wondering if I could stop by this afternoon
I calculated an appropriate interval to wait, down to the millisecond, and texted back some twenty minutes later: Hi Chance, sure, I’ll be around.
Literally thirty seconds later, my phone was ringing with the number from the front door directory. I answered.
“Hello?”
“Hi, it’s Chance!”
I nearly dropped the phone. “Oh!…okay… okay see you in a minute.” I pressed the 9 key to actuate the buzzer and hung up, then tore around the apartment to pick up a bit and throw on different clothes – a comfy t-shirt and my University sweat pants.
There was a knock at the door, and I opened it to see Chance, wearing scrubs and holding a bouquet of sunflowers. He thrust them out at me. “Here you go!”
I hardly knew what to say, or how to take getting flowers from this boy. If I had been given a second to think, I probably would have thought it was the most adorable thing I’d seen in years. I managed, “Thanks?” invited him in and set myself the tasks of cutting the stem ends, and placing them in a vase of water. “Why are you in scrubs? I thought you didn’t work this weekend.”
“I kinda…like em.”
“Oh man, don’t be that intern,” I laughed.
“I know, I’ll get over it eventually.”
I opened the fridge. “Beer?”
He laughed. “Before five?”
“After noon,” I said, dead serious. He shrugged and selected one.
We walked over to the couch, sat down, and looked at each other. He had a little blond scruff and clearly hadn’t shaved that day, maybe even in several days; he was probably not a very hairy guy, I thought. He had on the just-small-enough-to-be-revealing scrubs, another skin-tight long-sleeve shirt under the top (white, this time), and the Adidas high tops with the tongues sticking out. He’d likely spent a little less time than usual on his hair, which was really beautifully out of control, wavy and blond.
“Uhm, why the…flowers?”
He laughed nervously. “Should I not have?”
“They’re lovely! I was just wondering, any reason?”