“Probably not.” I smiled. “Rule number one: no alcohol. Not until you’re back on your regular diet, which will be in a few weeks.”
“How many rules are there? Should I be writing these down?”
I glowered at him. “I mean it, Boxer. Do not put any undue stress on your body. Do you hear me?”
“Yeah, Doc, I hear you.” It was his turn to scowl.
“Rule number two: no strenuous activity for a few weeks. You can walk around, climb the stairs, but no lifting anything over twenty pounds. And no sex or masturbation.”
“Doc, come on. You’re taking away my two favorite hobbies,” Boxer complained. “What the hell am I supposed to do for the next few weeks?”
“Hydrate and rest. Perhaps read a book or two,” I suggested. “I hear it expands the mind.”
“Does a dirty magazine count?” he threw back.
“Let me guess, you read them for the articles, right?”
He smiled.
“You could learn to knit,” I suggested. “I hear it’s all the rage again.”
“Kill me. Kill me now.”
I ignored his snark. “I want to stress something else. The next time you’re in that kind of pain with a fever over 102 °F, I suggest seeing a physician, not the bottom of a bourbon bottle.”
“How’d you know it was bourbon?”
“I smelled it when you vomited all over my shoes,” I said dryly.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry about that.”
“You aren’t the first man to throw up on me, and sadly, I doubt you’ll be the last. You should get some rest.” I headed for the door.
“Doc?”
“Yeah?” I looked at him over my shoulder.
His grin was lopsided, sincere. “Thanks for saving my life.”
I paused for a moment and then met him smile for smile. “It was my pleasure.”
As a general surgeon, most of my surgeries were scheduled and I’d performed two procedures that morning already. I worked the ER on rotation. After checking on a few of my patients, I caught a couple hours of sleep in an on-call room. By noon, I was eating lunch in the lounge and making follow-up notes in a patient’s chart about her gallbladder removal.
“Hey, Linden,” Peyton greeted.
“Hey,” I replied. “You done for the day?”
“Yup. Heading out now. What about you?”
“I have a few more notes to write up, and then I’m done.”
“Emily wanted me to tell you that you owe her a drink. What’s that about, anyway?”
“Last night when Boxer came into the ER, we had a bet about his diagnosis. She said if I was correct, I had to go to happy hour with the girls and buy her a drink.”
“She’s doing anything and everything to try and get you to socialize,” Peyton said.
“I made the mistake once of going out with you guys when I first moved here. I’ve never been so hungover in my entire life.”