Page 79 of Dr. Fellow

She rolls her pretty eyes at me but allows me to pull her to her feet. “So is being a pain in my ass.”

I wrap my arm around her waist and guide her out of the room. “The feeling is mutual, I promise.”

She’s steady and completely fine to walk on her own, but I don’t want to let her out of my grasp until I have to. Even as we field questions from various staff members, I find myself standing beside her and rubbing my thumb along her lower back—I want her to know I’m not going anywhere.

After speaking with what feels like everyone employed by the hospital, I step away for a moment to pull the charge nurse aside. It’s nearly six in the evening, so Morgan technically has another hour of work, but there’s no way in hell she should go back to the floor today—she needs a break and a breather. I don’t get any pushback at my suggestion, and after we quickly clean out the scratches, I find myself leading her toward one of my favorite places in the hospital.

We walk in silence, climbing several flights of stairs and weaving through dated corridors until we make it to a nondescript door on the sixth floor. I enter the code that I’ve come to know by heart and gesture for her to go first. She looks hesitant, so I take her hand and lead us across the slender all-glass walkway that hangs above the main hospital lobby.

I stop when we reach the middle, squeezing her hand to get her attention because her gaze is focused exactly where I expect it to be—on the unobstructed view of a cotton candy sunset blanketing our city.

She turns toward me, the warm pinks of the sky combining with the natural green of her eyes to make them appear almost mauve. I feel my heart leap in my chest as those beautiful colors imprint themselves in my soul, a precious memory to look back on for the rest of my life despite the shit show we just experienced.

“You’re . . .” I start, trying to find the right words.

How do I explain the tornado of emotion in my mind? Or everything I’ve thought about for the past month while I gave her space? Hell, how do I tell her everything I’ve felt since the moment I allowed myself to truly see her? I have so much to say, but the only thing that comes out of my mouth is trivial compared to the rest of it.

“Glowing.”

She lets out a disbelieving exhale. “Yeah, right. I’ve never felt more disgusting in my life. I can’t wait to get home and shower. And after today, it’s going to clock in at a solid two hours, probably more if I don’t run out of hot water.”

I chuckle, unable to look away from the way the evening rays illuminate her face like the sun is only shining on her. “Let me know if you need someone to check on you.”

Her cheeks flush, her gaze returning to the expansive windows in front of us. “What is this place?”

“It’s a walkway the custodial staff uses to change the flags that hang over the lobby. During my second year of residency, I got to know one of them because she always cleaned the on-call room. Not personally, or anything, just head nods and smiles for months on end. Somehow in those brief interactions, she was able to tell the difference between a typical bad day and a really terrible one. One night, after hours of getting my shit kicked in, she brought me up here, gave me the code, and then left me alone.”

My lips tug upward at the memory. “I don’t know how to explain it, but a weight instantly lifted off my shoulders. Something about being stories above everyone and watching them experience their own struggles gave me the perspective I needed when I was bogged down in the trenches. I still come up every so often to reset.”

“When was the last time you were up here?”

I don’t hesitate at all when I answer, “The day after Vegas.”

Only, a few hours alone on this walkway didn’t give me the reset I was searching for because it turns out that a reset wasn’t what I truly needed after the trip. What I needed was to allow myself to feel the one thing that I’d never experienced my entire life—peace.

I’ve tried to pinpoint why—I even went to my therapist last week to see if he had any insight. But ultimately, I concluded that the reason doesn’t matter. What matters is that Morgan and I fit together in a way that only happens once in a lifetime. And a month later, despite her constant barrage of divorce requests, that overwhelming sense of peacefulness hasn’t subsided.

And while there’s no way in hell I’m letting her go, I’m also not going to push her into anything. She asked for space, so I’ve been giving her space. I’ve been waiting until she came to see me because I knew she would when she was ready. And just because she hasn’t yet, doesn’t mean anything has changed between us, it just means that I have to be more patient. I’m going to give her as long as she needs to come to the same conclusion that I did—our marriage wasn’t an accident at all—it was fate.

Morgan’s throat works as something that looks like guilt washes over her face. “Oh, right.”

That’s the last thing I want her to be feeling, especially after everything she’s been through today. I squeeze her hand gently. “Come on. Let’s watch the sunset.”

Sinking to the floor of the walkway, I guide her down beside me. Her eyes briefly flicker with nervousness as the platform shakes from our movement, but she relaxes after positioning herself between my legs. My arms wrap around her body and hold her close as we settle into silence, watching the sun scatter a beautiful array of colors along the Atlanta skyline.

“Thanks,” she murmurs after a while. “For helping me with the patient.”

I nuzzle my head into her hair, inhaling my favorite scent in the world. “Don’t thank me. That’s what friends are for.”

The word doesn’t taste bitter coming off my tongue like it has in the past, probably because it’s not said out of jealousy or spite for the designation—I’m calling her my friend because I truly mean it.

Over the course of a few months, Morgan Lovett has worn many titles in my mind. She’s been my crush, my tormenter, my lover, and most recently my wife, but none of those titles hold a candle to what she’s truly become—my best friend.

I’ve been trying to avoid thinking about how everything could have ended differently today—if I hadn’t been walking past the room on the way to a consult for Beau, if I had been even a minute later, if the patient had used the pocket knife they found on his person—my world could have flipped in the blink of an eye. Because I don’t know when it happened, and I’ll never know why it happened, but Morgan has become everything to me.

Chapter 32

Morgan

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