Page 26 of The History Between Us

“Hi.”

“Why don’t you tell me a little bit about what’s going on with you.”

“I’ve had pain in my right ear for a couple days,” she explains. “It’s only getting worse.”

I nod, then glance at her chart. “It looks like when the nurse took your temperature, you had a slight fever. Is that new or did that start when the ear pain did?”

“I’m not sure,” she replies softly. “I don’t have a thermometer at home, but I think I had a fever last night.”

“Alright, let’s have a look and see what we find.” Placing the otoscope just inside her ear, my suspicions are confirmed when I take in her red, bulging eardrum paired with the pain and the fever.

After getting her a prescription for antibiotics to treat her ear infection, I send her on her way, and once I get the makeshift room sanitized and ready to go for the next patient Meg brings in, I step out and meander toward the front. The line has gotten significantly longer than when I was last up here, and as I wander up to the table Colt is sitting at, and peruse the list of names and symptoms of the checked in patients, I glance over at him, but he remains focused on thetask at hand.

“Good morning, Colt,” I murmur.

Without even looking at me, he says, “Morning, Dr. Andino.”

Dr. Andino.NotDoc.NotWilliam.

Before I have a chance to reply, Meg calls me back, letting me know my next patient is in “room” number six. From there, the rest of the morning passes in a blur of runny noses and pesky coughs. We’re so busy that I don’t even have a chance to take a break and eat a snack, but we’re somehow able to get through everybody who checked in today, only running over our allotted time by a half an hour. The last patient went to Doug, so I help Meg and Colt break everything down, and he’s still not paying me any attention, which is annoying me far more than it should.

The paranoid part of my brain is telling me he’s giving me the silent treatment because I switched him over to Doug’s care, but even if that is the case, shouldn’t that make me relieved? Isn’t that exactly what I wanted when I made the decision? It shouldn’t be getting under my skin, and I certainly shouldn’t be wanting to approach him and start a conversation myself.

Leave it alone, Will.

I’m doing a pretty good job at keeping my distance as we finish putting everything away, but then Meg goes and takes a load of stuff out to her car, and Colt and I are left alone. Like I have zero control over my actions, I find myself walking over to him before my mind has a chance to talk me out of it.

He doesn’t look at me as I come to a stop beside him.

“Busy day, huh?” I murmur as I close one of the folding chairs.

“Sure was.”

“See your sling is gone. Bet you’re happy about that.”

What am I doing? Why on earth am I trying so damn hard toinitiate small talk?

Finally, Colt turns his head, bright green eyes meeting mine, and a barely-there smirk slides across his lips. “Sure am.”

“Have you gotten any better at doing things left-handed?”

The smirk grows as he regards me. “Some things,” he replies before taking a step closer. “Other things I had to…get a little creative with, if you know what I mean.”

Heart slamming against my chest at the insinuation that’sveryclear, I swallow thickly, trying to bring moisture back to my mouth as I force a dry laugh through my nose and nod. “I’ll bet.”

Cocking his head to the side slightly, he asks, “Do you?”

I bite down on my molars as I stare down my nose at him. He’s only a few inches shorter than I am, but his energy is about eight feet tall. “Yes, Colt, I think I do.”

Gaze dipping down to my lips for a single moment, Colt grins with all his teeth but doesn’t reply. We finish breaking down the rest of the chairs, and then the table, by the time Meg walks back inside.

“You two still okay cleaning everything up?” she asks, looking from me to Colt. She must see the confusion on my face because she adds, “Doug and I both have to leave right away, remember? We talked about it earlier this week.”

“Right.” I nod, the conversation coming back to me. “That’s fine. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, Meg.”

“Thanks, Will. You too! Doug’s still with his patient, but he’ll be done any minute,” she calls out from over her shoulder. “See you Monday. Bye, Colt!”

Turning my head, I glance over at Colt. Breaking down the table, he’s not paying me any mind. It’s not something that should aggravate me, but it does. Ethics aside, the entirereason I moved Colt over to Doug’s care was to remove myself from the situation, and now, here I am, mere days later, finding reasons to talk to him because he spent the whole morning pretending he didn’t know I existed. It’s ridiculous.

---