Page 55 of Rogue

Melody’s goodbye echoing in my head from last night is suddenly louder than all the noise the patients waiting to be seen are making. Including the noise made by the guy who managed to rip one of the plastic bench seats off and is not slamming it against the plexiglass to my left, because apparently he’s been waiting to be seen since last night.

“Do you know where she’s staying?” I ask the nurse, who’s busy calling over more security guards.

“Listen, if she didn’t tell you then I can’t either, OK?” she says, sounding apologetic, but annoyed at the same time.

“When’s she coming in?” I ask.

“The answer’s the same,” she says and stands up.

A moment later she’s yelling at the guy banging on the wall to stop while the lone security guard tries to take him down. He gets hit in the side of the head with the chair for his trouble and goes down like a sack of potatoes. I’d help, but the other security guards have reached him and I don’t trust myself not to get carried away in a fight right now.

Melody lied to me.

She meant her goodbye.

It makes no sense but it’s not something I can fool myself into ignoring anymore.

A part of me wants to wait right here until she shows up to work again. But the part of me that’s never looked for a relationship is louder. Not by much. But loud enough to get me out to my bike and on my way back to the clubhouse.

Tomorrow I’m getting answers.

Tonight, I better leave before I do anything too stupid.

Even Angel never could get my blood boiling the way Melody does. And that’s saying something.

If she thinks she’s walking out of my life with just a single goodbye and no explanation, she has another thing coming.

Hell, she has another thing coming if she thinks she’s walking out of my life, period.

26

Melody

Before coming here, I was warned that my Resident level salary wouldn’t go a long way in the LA housing market, but I still wasn’t prepared for the shit hole apartments within my price range that I had to endure checking out all day. One had plexiglass instead of windows. Another was just a single room with a rusty fridge used as a screen between the living area and bedroom. Another was a fifth-floor walk-up on a staircase that creaked and groaned under my weight. And those were the better ones.

I’ll check out more over the weekend, but I don’t think that’ll help. There’s nothing to it. I will have to find something in the burbs, which means a commute of at least an hour, two if it’s rush hour. On top of my crazy long work day, I don’t know how that’s gonna work. But it’ll have to, since I have three more years of this before I can practice medicine on my own. So, I better get used to it.

I tossed and turned all night because I couldn’t get Rogue out of my mind and the more I tried, the worse it got.

As a result, I’ve been at the ER since seven AM, having arrived two hours early for my shift. The night shift docs and nurses were glad I came, since by all accounts, they had a hell of a night last night. Shelly got elbowed in the stomach by an out-of-control patient and left early and even Howie, the chief, was more than happy to knock of his shift an hour early. It’s nearly lunchtime now and it’s been very quiet so far.

But I can’t focus on work. I can’t focus on anything that doesn’t involve thinking about Rogue. The way I left it with him and not answering any of his texts and calls yesterday has me feeling like crap.

This little voice in my head keep trying to convince me that he’s not the kind of guy who’d hold my club girl past against me. But that’s just wishful thinking.

No guy like that exists. At least not among bikers. And if I get any closer to him before I find out I’m absolutely right about that my heart will shatter and I might never be able to put the pieces back together again. That’s the kind of hold he has on me. That’s the measure of the kind of dreams I have of us when I’m not careful and I let myself dream them. But they’re totally pointless. Because, what guy could ever actually love a whore?

“There you go, Mrs. Brown, good as new,” I say to the elderly lady who sliced open her hand making her husband a sandwich this morning. “Next time, just cut the cheese, if you know what I mean?”

I smile at her and she looks confused for a moment, before getting the joke and grinning too. “My eyes aren’t what they used to be. Enjoy your youth, Doctor, it goes by so fast.”

I shrug, not meeting her eyes while I put away the suturing kit. “I think maybe I enjoyed my youth a little too much. And it’s all coming back to bite me now.”

Bite me on the ass hard, that is. But I can’t exactly use that kind of language in front of this lovely old lady.

She laughs. “Oh, you’ve got plenty of good years ahead of you yet.”

Then she keeps chuckling to herself while I tell her that I hope she’s right, and that I’ll get a nurse to bandage up her hand.

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