Page 30 of Doctor Enemy

Kurt says, “If it were anyone else, that would offend me.” He steps over to the bed, checking my charts, and then checking the surgery incision. “You’re looking good, Lori.”

“What a compliment,” I grumble.

He snorts. “You always look good. It’s just your attitude that needs work.”

Anger flares up hot in my chest. My mother always said that it was my biggest fault. I get angry easily and hold grudges longer than anyone else that she’s ever known. My bad mood today is certainly not helping with that.

“My attitude is just fine,thanks,” I tell him, hotly.

He clucks his tongue and puts the chart back into place at the foot of the bed. “Your attitude is atrocious. You’ve got to work hard to be mad all the time.”

“I’m not mad at everyone all the time. Just you.”

“Why? Just because–you don’t like that I sleep around?” Kurt asks.

My lips pull into a thin line. “I already told you—”

He waves a hand. “Right, right, everything last night.” He shakes his head. “Just seems like a weird thing to be mad at me over. It’s never affected you.”

We’ve worked together on a couple of patients. More than just Sawyer Green. Kids, they get into accidents all the time. They fall out of trees and crack their heads. They take their parents’ cars out for joy rides in the middle of the night. They play dangerous sports without wearing helmets or taking precautions.

I’ve hated him from the moment that we first met.

He had been leaning against the counter upfront, flirting with the nurse on duty. What was her name? Kitty? I think that’s who it was. She had been really eating it up. And then the very next day, he’d been hitting it off in the doctors’ lounge with a resident from the cardiac unit.

I can’t stand people like that, who jump from one girl to the next. It reminds me too much of the other men that I’ve had in my life.

Kurt continues, “You think that I’m… What did you say last night?” He snorts. “A party boy player without any empathy.”

Well, maybe he has empathy.

But that doesn’t change the rest of it! I scowl at him, trying to make sure he knows that. Heisa party boy, and heisa player. I’ve spoken to the other nurses. I’ve seen how often he gets changed into bar clothes before hitting the streets with his friends.

“I think that makes you childish,” Kurt says.

My irritation with him prickles at the back of my chest. “I’m not childish. I’m just willing to call you out on your bullshit.”

Kurt leans forward, bracing a hand on the wall behind my head. He’s more in my personal space than he’s ever been before. “You’re childish, because you don’t even know me, and you’ve already decided that you hate me.”

“I—”

Kurt cuts me off. “You know what a good doctor does? They reevaluate their original takes on a situation once they’ve been given new information to work with.” He straightens up. “I’ll be back later.”

And then he’s gone, and I’m left to stew in my own thoughts while Rachel Ray talks me through herb roasting a chicken.

It’s a long, miserable day.

The next two times that Kurt comes in to check on me, I stay tight-lipped. I don’t have anything to say to him. At least, not until he shows up ten minutes after I know that his shift has ended, stepping into my room sans his doctor’s jacket.

“What?” I ask, sour and put out.

Kurt pulls the deck of cards out of his pocket. “You want company again?”

“Yes.” The word comes out as a mumble, almost sheepish. He comes over and sits on the side of the bed this time.

We play two rounds of Go Fish start to finish before the exhaustion grips me.

And it’s the strangest thing. One moment we’re playing, and the next, I can barely keep my eyes open. It might be the medication, or the stress, or any combination of things. The cards almost slip out of my hand.

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