Page 12 of Doctor Enemy

Olivia looks like she would rather be anywhere else at the moment, but finally, after deciding that her almost fully brewed pot of coffee is more important than secrecy, she admits, “Fine. I heard from one of the nurses—” She doesn’t give a name, and I don’t push for one.

It’s important to keep sources secret when you’re in a gossip-driven work environment like this one.

Plus, we all know that it was probably Glenda Brown. Sure, she's the head nurse but she’s also a gossip whore.

“That it might have been, you know, Kurt’s idea. That you wouldn’t mind pulling a few doubles. But you know hospital policy says no more than three doubles a week, and you tap out at five a month unless there’s an emergency.”

I stare at her.

For a moment, the words don’t even seem to sink in. When they do, it’s like a rubber band snapping and cracking me upside the face.

“Oh my God. That asshole,” I breathe out, backing up and moving away from the coffee pot. “That slimy, no-good rat bastard! The moment this started happening–urgh!”

This has to be him trying to get back at me for pointing out how little he actually did to get to his position!

Olivia snatches the pot and pours herself a cup, as if the brewed coffee being dumped really might have been the end of the world, and then adds an obscene amount of sugar and creamer into the paper cup that she pours it into.

You would think that, considering the amount of coffee that she consumes, she would just bring an actual mug to work but–no, she never does.

“Look, don’t make it into a thing. I know that there’s already something going on between you and Kurt,” says Olivia. “But you don’t have to make it worse. You guys aren’t even in the same department. You don’tneedto escalate things.”

“You aren’t the one working doubles all the time!” I protest, anger hot under my skin.

I should have known that he would have had something to do with this. Of course it was him. I either get along fine with the other doctors who have some kind of pull at the hospital, or I end up as not even a blip on their radar.

Kurt Lockwood is the only exception.

“You have two more to do this month, and then you’re literally not allowed to be called in,” says Olivia. “And I’m sure that next month is going to be totally different.”

“I’ll make sure that it’s different,” I say.

Olivia groans. “You realize that’s the complete opposite of letting it go, right? Like, you could just actually let it go and forget about whatever bad blood you’ve got going.”

“Who’s got bad blood?” Cara asks, stepping into the doctors’ lounge. She looks tired, which isn’t a surprise considering we’re all working the red eye shift. Her brown hair is still done up in a scrunchie that matches her scrubs, and her eyeliner is immaculate.

Olivia says, “Kurt and Lori.”

“Oh, that whole mess. I don’t know, it never read as bad blood to me.” Cara grabs a cup and helps herself to some of the coffee from the pot. She either doesn’t notice or ignores the way that Olivia gives her the stink eye. “I always thought that it was more like, you know, sexual tension.”

Olivia makes a face. “Gross. There’s no way that’s it.”

“Olivia’s right,” I say, rolling my eyes.

I’m finally calmed down enough to grab one of the paper cups myself. The pot is mostly empty now, so I dump the remainder into a spare cup and start getting a second round on to brew. “There’s nothing about that jackass that’s attractive.”

“I mean, that’s just a flat out lie,” says Cara. “Have you seen his ass?”

I purse my lips together. Alright, sure, so I've seen his ass. Kurt Lockwood’s got a great ass. It looks like it would be nice and firm. There are a lot of great parts of him that are super nice to look at.

But that’s the thing, just because he’s nice to look at doesn’t mean that it’s worth putting up with the rest of him.

Cara teases, “See, you agree with me.”

“I didn’t say anything,” I protest. My cheeks are faintly red though, damning me and betraying my thoughts.

“That’s practically agreement,” says Cara. “If you didn’t like his ass, you would have made a face like Olivia did.”

Olivia downs the rest of her first cup of coffee and picks up the spare cup I filled. She dumps just as much sugar and half and half into this one as she did the first, despite it being much smaller of an amount. “It’s not agreement at all. Why would you even make a joke like that?”

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