Page 19 of The Grumpy Doc's Surprise Delivery

“In every job we have to deal with difficult people, don’t we? There’s no such thing as perfect colleagues or perfect patients. There’s always going to be a time when we’re in conflict with someone, whether we want to be or not, and I guess this week for me has been all about remembering that.”

“And the same for me,” Liam chips in. “I’ll take away from this week a renewed strength in my belief that persistence is one of the most important qualities anyone can have. It takes a strengthof will to succeed, especially as a doctor when your days are long and hard.”

“And you have to deal with less-than-ideal patients and colleagues.”

The ripple of laughter spreads again, but this time, I meant for it to happen. Liam and I look at each other, properly look, our eyes meeting, and that’s the moment that we’re locked in.

Every word we say after that flows so naturally that we might as well have planned it.

“Tolerance and hard work,” I say, “are qualities that so often get lost in our busy world. We’re all too wrapped up in our own heads to remember that sometimes you have to put your nose to the grindstone and get on with things. Especially as a doctor, you’re in a high-stress environment so much of the time; you have to learn to adapt.”

Liam jumps in again, bouncing off the end of my sentence like a springboard. “If you don’t adapt, you’ll break. You have to learn to roll with the punches, to get on with people you wouldn’t normally be able to stand because at work, nothing is more important than the patient. Their care comes first. Nothing else can have space in your brain to matter.”

I fumble my way through some closing remarks, following on from what Liam said, and when my sentences dry up, he meets my eye again. There’s a curious look in there, one that almost seems to sayDamn, I’m surprised I agree with you so much.

My face might be sayingDamn, I’m surprised that I’ve learned to like you this much, and I hope that’s all he reads into it, because if he starts seeing theDamn, I like you more than I want to, I might be in trouble.

We’ve been having more fun the last couple of days. That doesn’t mean itmeansanything.

Bruno, realizing that we’ve come to the end of our presentation, such as it was, starts to lead an applause. It’s enthusiastic because people can relate to our honesty, and we use it as an excuse to make our exit. We shuffle our way back to our seats and duck into them.

“Nice one,” says Liam under his breath. “I had no idea what I was going to say.”

“You didn’t? You sounded like you knew what you were talking about.”

“So did you.”

I chuckle at that. “Guess we’re a good team after all.”

He doesn’t reply to that, and I clench my fists, willing myself not to flinch. Maybe that was a step too far.

The rest of the presentations are exactly what I expect them to be. People got different things out of the course depending on where their headspace was when they arrived… I’m sure everyone managed to get something out of the training, no matter if it was what they expected to be learning.

Finally —finally— the last group sits down, and Bruno encourages us all to applaud again. The crowd is more enthusiastic now because this really is the end. “Wonderful, thank you. All very insightful, and I’m happy you all got so much out of this. And now, for the moment you’ve all been waiting for — the winners!”

It takes a long moment for the projector to warm up again, and while it does, I feel Liam’s eyes boring into me, digging holeslike he’s trying to figure something out. I turn to look at him, but before I can challenge it, the scores come up.

“Well,” I say as we look at the list. “At least we’re not totally last.”

“No.” He smiles with a look in his eye I can’t decode. “We’re not.”

CHAPTER 11

LIAM

As I knock on the door, I have to question what the hell it is I think I’m doing.

Here I am, bringing Emma breakfast in bed when I should be getting ready to go. The training course ended yesterday, and everyone else is getting on a flight and going home. That’s what I should be doing too. That’s what Emma will be doing, any moment now.

And yet, over the last few days as I’ve gotten to know her, I’ve realized that I want to spend more time with her.

I want to show her that I’m not just some jerk. Not the one she thought I was. I want to prove to her that I care, that I can be the kind of man she might want me to be. If she were to want a man like me, that is.

Not only that, but it’s nice to have some genuine intellectual conversation for a change. So much of the time, I’m only focused on medical terminology with colleagues and small talk to make my patients comfortable. I crave the kind of conversation thatgives me pause, that challenges me. It’s good to be faced with another mind as sharp as my own.

With Emma, it feels different to conversing with anyone else. It feels like she’s the same as me. Work comes first. Hard work means more than anything else.

Nobody else gets it like she does.

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