Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
But he was rather… stinky.
As in, took a shit, didn’t bother to wipe, hadn’t taken a shower in months stinky.
And, since I knew smells always got to her, I felt like this was a perfect case for her.
Ten minutes later, my labs were in, and I was walking to Fletcher’s room, but not before passing our frequent flyer’s room first.
“And do you feel this pain when you’re standing, or sitting?” Val asked him, being sure to stay as far away from the dude as possible.
I grinned as I passed, heading to Mr. Fletcher’s room.
“Mr. Fletcher,” I said as I walked into the room. “Your labs look great.”
Fletcher muttered ‘told you’ to his wife, who was wearing a sour expression on her face.
“Well, almost everything,” I said as I took a seat. “Your levels are a bit off. Usually, I only see this in patients who have been outside sweating a lot. But since it’s so cold…”
That’s when Mr. Fletcher made a groaning, laughing sound in his throat, and Mrs. Fletcher went red as a tomato.
“Uh, um,” Mrs. Fletcher said.
But, of course, Mr. Fletcher let me have it with both barrels.
“I got some new fancy pills to make my dick hard,” he said. “We’ve been using the hell out of them. I’ve been sweating like a pig for three days straight.”
And that was that.
Awesome.
I headed out of their room with a promise to send a nurse in with some fluids, and passed the portable X-ray machine going into FF’s room.
I let it be and waited outside the nurses’ station for our next guest to arrive.
It didn’t happen before the X-ray machine was heading out, and Val was heading for me.
“Mr. Ocea has a broken hip,” she said. “Can I put in the orders for his pain meds, or is that something you need to do?”
My jaw must’ve dropped, because she narrowed her eyes. “What?”
“Oh, we just thought you’d get to go in there and smell him. We didn’t think there’d actually be anything wrong,” Rose said as she nibbled on a donut. “He’s the ER’s most favored guest.”
“Well, there’s actually something wrong with him this time,” she said as she turned the screen around for me to stare at the broken hip.
Sure enough, it was well and truly broken.
“What would you give him first?” I asked.
She rattled off what she would give him, then what she would do next, and I waved her on.
Clearly she hadn’t forgotten this particular part of her training. “In that case, get started. You have full access to whatever you need.”
And on it went, for the next few hours of our shift.
We had a total of six patients the entire time, so it was enough to catch up on everything that was going on in Val’s life.
Not that she told me.
She’d told everything—albeit hesitantly—to Rose who didn’t stop talking once since she sat down.
By the time Val had given her entire life story, I was thinking that I was ready to pull my hair out—because who wouldn’t want to hear that the person they loved once upon a time had suffered greatly over the last few years—and I needed a fuckin’ beer.
What pissed me off the most was that my number hadn’t changed.
My number was also one of the easiest numbers that the world had ever been given. So even if, and that was a big if, she lost her phone and didn’t have my number anymore, she had my goddamn number memorized.
I gritted my teeth and tried hard to ignore her. It became easier to do just that when Tammy took a seat at my side after her lunch break and started chatting about my dog.
I told her a funny story about what Gee had done this morning when he’d walked outside. How he’d walked to just the very edge of the grass, then said ‘nope’ before turning around and heading right back inside where it was warm.
But all the while, as I told the story, I was very much aware that I had the attention of the woman I was trying, and failing, to ignore.
“Well how does it feel to be the new girl?” Lori, another OG—original gangster—nurse asked.
“Great…” Val drawled.
“Don’t worry. You’re only the new girl by two months. Tammy and Dr. Kent moved here not too long ago, too. So y’all will learn the ropes together.”
I felt her gaze turn toward me.
“Is that so?” Val muttered.
Luckily, Tammy chose that moment to butt in.
“What do you want to do for dinner tonight?” Tammy repeated.
This was something we repeatedly talked about, over and over again, every single day.
She’d ask to go to dinner. I’d tell her I couldn’t. She’d ask again a couple of hours later. On it went.
Sometimes I changed my mind. Other times I didn’t.
Each time that we ate out with each other, though, it ended up going much longer than I’d anticipated. So lately, I hadn’t been saying yes.