Page 6 of You Loved Me Once
Today is going to be a marathon and I won’t allow the past to shadow the possibilities of what this could mean not only for me, but for the daughter who will be asking me to give her hope.
It’s an hour before I need to be at the hospital. Thankfully, my condo isn’t far and I can make it there in ten if I push it. Which I do often.
I head to the kitchen and brew a pot of coffee, check my phone, and attempt to decide what to eat. After a few minutes, I give up, not wanting anything and decide to get ready for today.
Westin stands in front of the mirror, brushing his teeth, wearing just the bottoms of his scrubs, which hang low enough to reveal the muscular cut above his hips. His light brown hair is cut short, and he has the most incredible green eyes. It’s not hard to understand why every nurse, doctor, and intern fawns over him. He’s every woman’s version of the perfect man. Sexy, smart, rich. . . he’s the total package.
“You’ve got that look, Ren,” he grins at me in the mirror as he ruffles through his duffle bag.
Westin Grant is a very attractive man. I can’t seem to help myself with him. I’m lonely in every part of my life, except when I’m with him. My feelings border on something more than friendship, but I can’t afford to let myself go there. If I think about it, maybe his comment before isn’t such a surprise. Every now and then, Westin will make a joke about finally calling this more than casual sex or moving in so we can stop with the back and forth. I never really thought much of it, but now I wonder if he has been hinting all along.
Does Westin really want more? Or does he like the idea of us together for real? Do I want more? The answers to these questions have to wait because I can’t think about it today.
I can’t think about anything right now. I have to stay light and playful and focused on the tasks of today.
“I like your butt,” I say with a shrug. “Especially in scrubs.”
He laughs, turns, and pulls me against him. “Yeah? Well, you’re the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen when you’re scrubbing in for surgery.” Westin kisses my neck. “The way the soap moves up and down your arms, I can almost feel your soft skin.” His voice is full of desire, and I’m trying to resist the pull. “I want to strip you down right there, touch your body, and finally tell everyone what we are.”
“Is that so?”
“Yup,” he runs his tongue along my ear and I shiver. “It’s too bad today isn’t the day for a morning round.”
I lean back, holding onto his neck. “Today is a day to save lives, and that’s what this new dose of chemo is going to do. Then you can say you get to have mind-blowing sex with the ground-breaking, award-winning oncologist at Northwestern.”
“So, I’m just your boy toy?” he leans in for a kiss, which I give freely.
“Pretty much.”
He rolls his eyes and sighs. “Well, Dr. Badass, you better get in the shower before you’re late for your own pre-trial.”
“Do you think I’m crazy?” I ask.
His eyes narrow. “Crazy? Well, in what way?”
“For this . . . the whole trial. It could fail, and then what? Hell, what if the board doesn’t allow it to proceed today and then I have to tell these people that I can’t do it? I must be fucking insane for trying this!”
Westin deals with a different side of medicine, one that I’m a little jealous of. He saves more people than he loses. He can repair things, where I have to be methodical and sometimes it doesn’t matter. Cancer will take their lives and I’ll have no way to stop it. I’ll watch a disease blacken everything around my patients, knowing I’m completely helpless. There are seldom times that Westin can’t dosomethingto help.
“You’re not crazy, Serenity. You’re brave, beautiful, and the best damn oncologist I’ve ever met. I think you’d be crazy fornotdoing this. You’ve already made it through phase one and two, this is the time to see where it can really go.” Westin brushes my blonde hair off my face and smiles.
“And what the hell do I do if they cancel it?”
He pulls back a little. “Who? The board?”
“Yeah, there’s no guarantee they’ll push it through. I mean, they’ve approved it so far, but since Dr. Pascoe was out for the last two weeks, and the meeting got postponed, now I’m worried.”
It’s what has me feeling so uneasy. No one ever can predict the hospital’s choices. One day they are on your side and the next the publicity is too much of a risk. We should’ve had this fully approved weeks ago, but Dr. Pascoe, the current president of the hospital, was dealing with an emergency and told me to push along as though we had the approval since delaying would change some of the patients’ situations. Time is of the essence for us.
Westin releases a deep sigh. “There’s a chance they won’t, but it’s all about how much you believe in it. Do you think doing this cocktail instead of surgery is worth the possible risk of a life?”
I look in his eyes, showing him the steel in my words. “One hundred percent. I know the data is inconclusive and can be argued, but Iknowit, Wes. If I could get this opportunity to prove it. . . I know this is the right dosage so that these women don’t have to lose everything. We can shrink the tumor enough to remove it, treat the cancer, and leave the patients able to bear children. These women, some of them are in their twenties and thirties, and they have hopes and dreams. If it was me, and I had those dreams taken away, I can’t imagine what I’d do. But what if I can give them more choices? What if they don’t have to lose it all or die?”
He holds my gaze. “Remember this feeling, because if you suffer with a loss, you’ll need this determination to push you through.”
The memory of Westin a year ago comes back. I’ll never forget how broken he was. We started our fling a year before he started his last trial. He was a cocky surgeon who wanted to be casual. Then his trial went downhill, and Westin retreated. No one could get him to talk, except for me, after he’d . . . worked off his pain. That was when our very casual fling became a friendship with sleepovers.
My chest tightens as I wonder if I’ll be the same way if this doesn’t work. “I can’t go there,” I say. If I admit defeat before the fight, it’ll be a massacre. I need a victory.
