Molly shook her head. “No. I’ve only heard muttering from the people that saw Evan snap at the security guard who was giving you a hard time yesterday. But it’s just speculation. I don’t know what you’re worried for though! As gorgeous as Evan is—if I had anything going on with him, I’d probably get a t-shirt made, declaring it to the whole world!”
I laughed outright again. “You are crazy, Molly. The policy. I don’t want my job at risk.”
“And you are crazy lucky! Now stop, Human Resources could care less about that handbook, hell if they opened it once in a while themselves, maybe they could use it. Stop worrying!”
I sighed. She was right, no one would probably even notice our little affair. I needed to relax, and enjoy what I had.
“Have you seen Evan today, by the way?”
Molly wrinkled her brow. “Come to think of it—I haven’t.”
I pouted. He hadn’t said anything about taking the day off.
“He must have taken the day off. Maybe you wore him out too much.”
“Molly,” I said, slapping her arm and causing her to give another hearty laugh. She pulled away from the table. “Well, it’s time to report for duty.”
“Yeah,” I said, standing also. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Sure thing,” Molly said, throwing away her pop-tart wrapper and heading out the door. I left shortly afterwards, deciding to head back to the on-call room to make a cup of tea as I waited for my help to be needed.
When I entered, a few nurses were inside—two making coffee and one watching the news on the television overhead. They all smiled and nodded at me as I came in.
“Slow day today, huh?” I said. It was unusual for there to ever be more than two people in the on-call room at any given moment.
“Yeah,” one of them responded. “Let’s hope it stays that way!”
“I hear you,” I said with a chuckle.
“Good job yesterday, by the way,” she said. “I heard you helped paramedics save a woman’s life, and you weren’t even officially on-duty.”
I waved my hand dismissively. “It was nothing. Just doing my job. The way I see it, when someone needs help, I’m always on-duty.”
“You should totally think about teaching nursing students. Or at least mentoring them,” one of the other nurses said.
I retrieved a tea bag and a mug. “Who knows.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Maybe one day.” I finished making my tea and then took a seat, using the down time to check my email, text messages, and voice messages to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. While I wanted to pretend I was looking for work-related messages, I was really checking to see if I had anything from Evan. My heart sank a little upon seeing that he hadn’t called or messaged me at all.
Exasperated, I ran my hand through my hair, recalling the silky feel of his hair and how in contrasted to the rough stubble on his cheeks. I raised my cup to take a sip of my tea, wanting to hide any indication of how hot I felt at the thought of him.
“You used to work with Dr. Nualli, right?” one of the nurses suddenly asked.
I lowered my cup. “Yeah.” I leaned forward. “Have you heard from her lately?”
She shook her head. “No, I was going to ask if you had. Rumor has it that she may be transferring to another hospital, somewhere offering her more money.”
“Ahh,” I said, leaning back in my seat and feeling vaguely disappointed. Regardless of what was going on between me and Evan, Dr. Nualli remained my favorite doctor to work with. I had learned so much from her. On the other hand, I knew she deserved to be properly compensated for her skills, so if the rumor was true, good for her.
“I never got a chance to work with her, but I heard she was a really good doctor. A lot of staff seem bummed out about the possibility of her leaving.”
I nodded. “Yes. She was the best. I’ll be forever grateful for the time I got to work with her. She really taught me a lot about caring for patients, and for being an advocate for the people we treat. Doctors like her are few and far between.”
Another one of the nurses sighed. “Looks like all the good doctors eventually move on. Like Sholly.”
I almost dropped my teacup at the sound of his name. My eyes widened. “Pardon?”
“Dr. Sholly. I heard he’s leaving too, right? Did he find another hospital that’s offering him higher pay?”
“No, that’s not what I heard,” the nurse who’d been watching TV chimed in. “He was in the military before. I heard from Miles that Sholly was thinking about re-enlisting. I guess he misses it. Maybe he’ll be a military doctor or something.”