Page 24 of Give Me a Shot

“There’s the man of the hour!” Khalil announced as soon as Mo walked into the room. Mo didn’t understand. His face must have shown it.

“Only kidding, man. Come on, sit down.” Khalil patted the couch beside him.

“Hey,” Rachid said, in his much more appreciably quiet tone from the matching burgundy club chair to the left. Mo nodded back. The leather of the couch creaked as he sat. The sound was welcoming, familiar, but of course Khalil couldn’t let Mo fully enjoy it.

“What’s good with you?” he asked. “How’s the little lady?”

Mo smiled, about to answer, but paused. Did Khalil do that on purpose? He always ribbed Mo for being prickly, a grouch, for not wanting to talk. But Madison always put him in a good mood, and it was easy to talk about her. Could Khalil tell that Mo had been a little annoyed when he sat down and was trying to push him into a better place? Or maybe it was just uncle stuff.

“She’s good,” Mo said. “She’s on her way back to Diana’s from a Girl Scout campout, but next weekend she wants to have some friends over for a slumber party.”

“Oooh…” Khalil said.

“Yeah,” said Mo.

“Any way to convince her to do it at Diana’s?” Rachid asked.

Mo shook his head.

“She’s out of town. I think I’m going to have to bite the bullet and say yes. I mean, I don’t want to say no. And the two girls she wants to invite over are sweet kids. I know they’ll be well-behaved. It’s just…”

“Mo and his space,” Khalil said.

“Mo and his quiet,” Rachid said.

Mo frowned. He’d already felt guilty enough when Madison had asked, and he hadn’t immediately said yes. He wanted to. But other people. Especially children, with all their energy, in his space? Overnight? His skin started crawling, and his heart started racing just thinking about it. He needed to change the subject.

“Rachid,” he said. “What’s new? Mom said you’re here for a conference?”

“Yes,” he said, straightening in the club chair somewhat dwarfing him. “Most of it will be about pediatric cardiomyopathy. And there will also be talks about the latest research into techniques for Tetralogy of Fallot and the developments in atrial switch operations for d-TGA. I’m really looking forward to those.”

Mo had no idea what the hell had just come out of Rachid’s mouth. He glanced at Khalil, but he looked like he didn’t know, either.

“You’re doing it again,” Khalil said to Rachid.

“What?” asked Rachid.

“Your thing,” said Mo.

Rachid sighed.

“Sorry. Um. Kid heart stuff. I…I don’t want it to sound boring.” He slumped back into the chair.

“Nah, man, it doesn’t sound boring. Just confusing,” said Khalil. He turned to Mo. “Bro, you gotta let him tell you about the kid’s life he saved last week!”

Mo raised his eyebrows.

“You saved a kid’s life last week?” he asked.

Rachid waved a hand in the air, as if it were no big deal.

“My team and I worked to help a patient together,” he said. “That’s all. We did our jobs.”

“ ‘My team and I’…‘We did our jobs,’ ” Khalil imitated him. “Dude, do not play it down; you saved a child’s life. Tell Mo what happened.”

Rachid leaned forward again and explained. As far as Mo could understand, he—or he and his team—had come up with a new process for a particular type of surgery for kids. Mo might have understood more if Khalil had been able to keep himself from interrupting every other sentence with a “wow,” “that’s so cool,” “man, that shit is amazing,” again and again. It wasn’t that Khalil was wrong. It was just that he was, as always, incapable of being quiet.

“So, if I understand correctly,” Mo said, “in this instance, the child wouldn’t have made it without this process?”

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