"Are you mad?" she asks with a little anger tinging her voice. She tries to wiggle out from under me but I just lock my legs to the sides of her hips.
"A former boyfriend comes to your house with a teddy bear with a heart? Um...yeah, little mad. Sure as shit suspicious."
"For your information, my bears are all in storage boxes," she says primly. "And what does it matter what his intent was? I took it as just a friendly gift."
"You are naive," I tell her adamantly. "You seriously can't see this as a ploy? That he wants something more from you?"
"I don't get why you'd think that." And to her credit, she looks genuinely perplexed.
"Hello," I say sarcastically as I point to the offensive object. "Cute teddy bear with a ribbon and a heart."
While my insides rage, Josie's face softens and her smile becomes knowing. She reaches out and takes my hands in hers, squeezing them. "Want me to throw it away?"
Fuck yes!
"No," I grumble, because that's the right thing to say.
"Because I will," she says sweetly. "If it bothers you that much."
"No," I grumble again.
"Reed." The way she calls my attention to her so softly, I can't help but listen. "I don't want Aiden. I'm here with you. Doesn't matter what his intention was, what matters is how I accepted it. And I chose to think of it as a gift from a friend."
I sigh and stretch my body out on top of hers. With my arms pressed into the mattress at her side, I look down on her and admit, "This is different for me."
"Don't let it be," she says softly. Her eyes are warm and deeply accepting of my insecurity.
"You have a lot of history with this guy. I don't think he wants to be just friends with you. But I also trust you, Josie, and I know you're not going to play with me."
"No, I'd never do that," she agrees gently. "But what I had with Aiden is just that. History. I'm in the present with you."
I smile sheepishly, but I don't need to discuss this further. Her words are enough, and I have more important things I'd rather be doing right now.
So I put my mouth on hers and forget all about that stupid, fucking teddy bear and the guy who gave it to her.
Chapter 18
Josie
I hover over the computer, flipping through the patient's online chart. He presented with a complicated history of congestive heart failure and an aortic valve replacement, yet I don't think the shortness of breath is from that. The blue tinge to his lips leads me to believe this is his chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is flaring up, so I write an order for a pulmonary function test.
A burst of laughter sounds from behind me and I turn in my chair to see Aiden and Kevin laughing about something on Kevin's phone. No clue what's so funny, although I kind of want to know. Reminds me of the days when we were all in residency together and we got by with a whole lot of laughter to combat the stress.
It's been interesting having Aiden working at the hospital with us. He was always the most levelheaded and steady of our group, and he's even more so now. He doesn't seem to be stressed about anything, even during some seriously intense medical situations that come through the emergency department. I suppose when you're working on people with others shooting at you and shelling your building, your hand gets a little steadier in normal circumstances. Frankly, it really makes me admire him, and I realize something good came out of him leaving me.
It made him into an immensely superb doctor, and I'd like to think the countless lives he's saved was a fair exchange for a broken heart. Of course, I suppose it's easier for me to feel that way now that I've moved on and have Reed in my life.
"Josie...come see this," Aiden calls out to me from across the hub.
The hub is the circular area set in the middle of the emergency department with curtained rooms around the perimeter. There are several workstations, desks and computers for the nurses and doctors to work on between patients.
I log off my screen, check my watch, and note I can spare thirty seconds. I walk over to where Aiden and Kevin are staring at Kevin's phone. When I reach them, Kevin holds the phone out so I can see the screen. It's a YouTube compilation of people passing out during various medical procedures.
I watch as person after person faints.
A medical student during an autopsy.
A father as his son's broken bone is set.
A nurse during a surgery who is totally ignored as the surgery carries on.
They're funny and they make me laugh, Kevin and Aiden joining right in again. I've had moments myself when I've been overwhelmed by something, but my legs have always held true. One of the nurses steps up and peers over my shoulder at the screen.
"Bet you saw some gruesome shit over in Yemen, right?" Kevin asks Aiden with a nudge to his arm.
I glance up in time to see the laugh and smile slide right of Aiden's face, and my stomach knots. His voice is low and gruff. "Some really bad stuff."
Kevin doesn't ask for details as he watches a surgeon remove a large tumor from a patient's abdomen, only to sag to the ground with it still clutched in his hands. I'm going to guess that wasn't from him being grossed out--because he's a surgeon and used to it--but maybe from an illness.
Still...a little funny.
"Hey, Josie," Aiden says, and I look back to him. "Got a minute to talk about something?"
"Sure," I say as I glance at my watch, even though I really don't. "But just a minute."
Aiden turns from the hub and walks over to the on-call office. I follow him in and he closes the door behind us. Neither one of us sits down because we don't have time for that in the emergency room.
I tuck my hands casually into my lab coat. "What's up?"
Aiden crosses his arms, not in a defensive posture but in more
of a serious, professional way. "I was talking to Dr. Hubbard the other day and he's invited me to do a research project under his supervision to publish."
My eyes widen and I can't hide my delight. "That's amazing. What is it about?"
We both worked under Dr. Hubbard during our residency and he teaches at Duke's school of medicine. He's highly esteemed in the field of emergency medicine and widely published.
"Comparing emergency field medicine techniques to those in an urban setting," Aiden tells me. "I'd use my case experiences the past few years and compare them to like cases here. I'd have to get several doctors to help me out to get a good sampling of cases, and wanted to know if you'd help."
"Of course," I exclaim. "I'd totally be glad to give you what I can."
"That's awesome," he says with a chuckle. "And I'll take whatever you can give me, but I was hoping you'd sort of cowrite the paper with me. Help me cull through the data, draw conclusions, and then help write it. You'd get equal credit."
My eyes go round with surprise because it's a really big deal to get published. "Why me?" I gasp.
Aiden's eyes chide me silently for a moment before he says, "Why not you, Josie? You're a brilliant doctor and I trust you to do a good job."
"But, Kevin--"
"--is a great friend and a great doctor too, but I know you better and you're my first choice."
"What kind of time frame do you want to accomplish this in?" I ask him.
"Three months, maybe four," he says. "I've already got my field data, so I figure a few weeks to pull urban data and we can get to work on comparing it. Maybe six to eight weeks to do that, reach conclusions, and another two to four weeks to write the paper to submit to Hubbard."
"Time commitment per week?" I press. This is a major project and I need to know what he expects.
"Ten, fifteen hours a week?" He says it as a question, lobbing it my way to see if those numbers offend me.
My mind quickly calculates. I usually have at least three days off a week due to the longer shifts I work, and that will easily take up two of those days. My first consideration is Reed and how that will cut into the time I spend with him, because we have been spending practically all of my free time together since he's still on his summer vacation before the season starts.