Page 32 of Dr. Fellow

Her perfectly plucked brows furrow like she’s trying to understand a complex calculus equation. “How do you know that they’re within normal limits if you didn’t use your stethoscope?”

I roll my lips to hide a laugh, and the sound gets stuck in my throat like a suppressed cough. “I just know.”

After working in the ER for five years, I can easily tell when someone needs a thorough physical exam and when they don’t. This specific patient is a forty-year-old woman who slammed her foot in a car door and came in with multiple fractures. Sure, she’s in a shit ton of pain and will definitely need surgery because her bones look like mush, but her respiratory status is totally normal. I don’t need to listen to each lobe of her lungs to determine that, nor do I have the time.

“Hmmm.” Claire slips her pen between her teeth thoughtfully. “You know they teach us not to do that in school, right? You’re supposed to do a full physical assessment on every single patient.”

I shoot her a glare before I continue charting. “Go be an ICU nurse then. You’ll get to bitch at me everyday about the patient’s skin, and my IV in the AC.”

If I hear one more complaint from the intensive care unit when I’m giving report for a transfer, I might lose my shit. Who cares what the patient’s skin looks like, or what kind of line they have? They’re stable and alive thanks to us—that’s all that really matters.

“Just saying,” she teases, writing something down in her notebook that probably says something along the lines of:

Don’t listen to Morgan.

Claire allows me a minute of charting in peace before she asks, “What does NPO mean?”

I take a deep breath, trying to remind myself that she’s trying to learn, not be annoying. This is precisely why I always avoid precepting nursing students. Any time they swarm the unit, I’ll mysteriously have an urgent patient need that requires me to be absent when the assignments are made. I only agreed with Claire because I love her . . . most days.

“Nothing per oral,” I answer, scrolling through the twenty orders that have suddenly appeared on my task log. “Basically they don’t want our patient to eat because they’re planning on doing surgery in the next few hours.”

“What happens if she ate?”

“Depends who’s on call.” I laugh, remembering a hilarious fight that I witnessed a few years ago between a surgical resident and an anesthesiology attending. “Typically the team weighs the risks and the benefits. With emergencies, you can’t really control food intake because the patient needs surgery as soon as possible. You just kind of have to hope they don’t aspirate on the table.”

Claire’s curiosity seems to spark even brighter, her baby-blue eyes lighting up with a mix of fascination and excitement. “I gotta ask Beau about that. You think it’s happened to him?”

“Probably not. The ortho cases we see typically aren’t emergent,” I explain, scrolling through the list of redundant orders that some asshat placed without bothering to look at what’s already been done. “Plus, bones aren’t exactly part of the ABC’s of critical care.”

My joke goes right over Claire’s head—she doesn’t even laugh. She just sits and blinks at me like I’m speaking a different language, though I guess since she’s only a few months into school, it probably sounds like I am.

“Ask your brother,” I suggest, spinning in my chair to face her. “He’s probably got some good stories.”

I’ve been feeling super guilty since our dinner at Señor Cuervos because I let my personal frustration with the trip overtake my loyalty to my best friend. Of course, I wish things were different about their relationship, but it’s also just that—their relationship. I’m not the one marrying the fucker. So I’ve made a resolution to only say nice things about Parker Winters from now on . . . out loud.

“Ew.” Claire scrunches her nose at my suggestion. “He would just use his robot doctor voice and lecture me for an hour about something I’ve somehow done wrong. No thank you.”

I hold my tongue so that I don’t start gossiping and return my focus to the computer .

“See this one? Type and screen.” I hover the mouse over a lab order. “Know what that is?”

Claire studies the order closely. “Not a clue.”

As much as she drives me nuts, I’m kind of enjoying teaching. Plus, I could get used to having her do my dirty work while I catch up on things that I need to do. At the very least, I know I’ll leave on time tonight because I’ve got an extra set of hands to help with the menial parts of my job.

“It’s for a blood transfusion,” I reply, clicking into the patient’s chart to show her the results. “A type and screen is a lab test that determines the patient’s blood type and screens for any antibodies that could react with donor blood if they have to use it during surgery. I doubt there’s going to be a ton of blood loss, but we still need to know the information. Some idiot ordered it again though, because as you can see, it’s already been done.”

I check the order again and feel my stomach twist when I read the name of the physician who wrote it.

Dr. Walker Chastain.

We haven’t spoken since he kicked me out of his house.

Okay . . . kicked out is a dramatic way to put it considering he offered to walk me home like a damn gentleman. But I told him that I was perfectly capable of walking on my own, given the night included absolutely no dicking down.

Who would have thought that a sleepover with bondage and punishment could be entirely non-sexual? Not me.

It’s been three days since I saw him, and I haven’t heard a peep. Not a measly “just checking in” text. Not a “thinking about you” text. Not even a classic “you up?” text.

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