Page 12 of Last Chance Love

I hesitated, surprised by the request. “Seriously? Are you sure?”

“Reed,” she said with a light laugh. “You’re the only person here I’d trust to run it.”

“I’ve only been here a few months,” I protested.

“Four, almost five, actually,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “And of the people working here, we have three doctors, and I’m the only one on shift. Two interns who still think they’re going to get dragged outside and beaten, and then you. And last I checked, you’re able to run circles around at least one doctor here.”

I knew better than to comment on that last one. Dr. Gideon wasn’t exactly well-liked at…well, anywhere. Most people who worked on the ranch weren’t that fond of him, but most of them didn’t comment on it, or they hid it. Dr. Greenway, however, was not like that, and I appreciated it.

“It’s not going to be hard. If they come in with an appointment or a medication, you know how to handle it. If they’re hurt, well, last I checked from your records, you should be able to do that too.”

“Uh, working a front desk is a lot different than trying to keep someone’s innards in while they thrash around to bite me,” I said with a sigh.

“Well, anyone tries to bite you, you handle them the way you did.”

“I’m being given sedatives?”

“Mmm, maybe call for help. And I’ll show up with the sedatives.”

“Fine,” I said, taking myself to the front desk and looking around. The chair didn’t look comfortable, but at least it rolled. I dropped into it, looked around for anything to do, and realized…there was nothing. Since there wasn’t much to do without patients, that had to be better than having someone come in and start demanding things from me.

It took about an hour before I realized the fatal flaw in that idea. After twenty minutes, I could feel my brain starting to itch. After another ten minutes, I thought it was going to shake out of my head. After the full hour had passed, I was scooting along the floor and spinning around as I tried to remember the jingle from a cartoon I’d watched a few times as a kid.

Finally, a buzz rang through the air, and I suddenly stopped. The room continued spinning, but I wasn’t too dizzy. I scooted forward and pushed myself upright. “Hey there…what the fuck?”

It was probably a good thing I’d been holding the edge of the desk when I caught sight of the person standing on the other side. Six years had thinned the last of the baby fat from his face, and he was bigger than before, but there was no mistaking my old best friend and first crush, first love, standing half a foot away from me.

His eyes bulged almost comically as he stared open-mouthed at me. Only for him to recover with a shake of his head. “R-Reed?”

“Well!” I said with a sudden laugh, which was not humorous, but it wasn’t bitter either. “I’ll be damned. Hey there, Leon, no time, no see.”

“Reed?”

“You’re repeating yourself, Leon. Yes, it’s me. Do you need me to show you the scar to prove it?” I asked, glancing down and lifting my shirt partly.

“Uh, no!” he said quickly, shaking his head. “Look, I…what’re you doing here?”

“Working the clinic?”

“That’s not what I mean.”

I knew what he meant, but a flare of bitterness kept an answer that would have come so easily once upon a time in back in my throat. I shrugged instead, giving him a little smile. “Well, if you’re here, you know as well as I do we’re not supposed to ask that sort of thing.”

“I…” he paused, hesitating slightly before looking down at his feet. “Yeah. You’re right…of course, you are. I uh…you look good?”

“Why is that a question?” I asked, sitting in the chair and watching him with a smirk. “Was I supposed to look disfigured?”

“No!”

“Grotesque?”

“What?”

“Was I supposed to have dramatically aged? Got white hair from the sheer horror of your absence in my life?”

“I…you’re fucking with me right now,” he said with a weary sigh. “Which I deserve.”

“You do,” I said with a laugh. “But I promise I’ll only torment you from now on because it’s fun and not because you deserve it.”

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