Page 11 of Love Medley
Chapter five
Jake
July 2025
As I wait for sign-out from Denise, who is clocking out from the morning shift, I feel my body relax as it absorbs the active hum of the Blackwell Emergency Department. All around me, doctors, nurses, patient techs, social workers, and specialty consults bustle around doing their individual tasks. I love the organized chaos—somehow the ebb and flow settles me.
The Blackwell ED is one of the biggest in the region. Associated with the Blackwell School of Medicine, it’s aLevel One trauma center equipped to handle the most complex and acute cases in the area. We can pretty much call on any specialty under the sun. Need Plastics for management of a facial laceration? Give them a page, and they’ll be here within half an hour. Need Ophthalmology? Good luck with getting them to consider it an emergency, but they’re available. GI? Usually one of their in-house people will run down to eyeball the patient and sometimes even take care of the admission process.
Not to mention, if there is a mass casualty situation, like a huge wreck involving a multiple car pile-up, first responders will direct a large portion of the injured here. There are one hundred beds in our ER, but in a pinch, we can transition some of the other rooms to fit more patients. Like other ERs of our caliber, we have trauma bays, negative pressure rooms to prevent airborne diseases, consulting rooms, procedure rooms, and probably several more that I can’t even remember off the top of my head. I’m usually in the nursing bay, catching up with charting and watching the vitals of the patients, or hanging up IVs, drawing blood, or giving meds.
“Hey, Jake?” A hesitant, familiar voice startles me out of my thoughts.
“Hey, Sam,” I say, trying not to sound resigned. My neck immediately feels tight again, the ease I’d found in the rhythm of the ER vanishing all at once. Sam Greenleaf, one of the ER secretaries, is part of the reason I took this job in the first place. I figured that not only was Blackwell a terrific place to work, but also, it would give Sam and me time to figure out if we were right for one another. Turns out it didn’t take long. A week after I started working here,we broke up. For a moment, I remind myself I had other reasons to take this job, not just Sam, and that I’m meant to be here.
“Um, can we talk over there?” Sam looks pretty, her pale hair pulled back into a ponytail, her blue eyes worried.
“Sure,” I say. “Hey, Denise, I’ll let you finish up, and I’ll be back for signout in a few minutes.”
Denise nods, deep dimples appearing in her dark cheeks. “Sure thing, doll, take your time.” She glances over at Sam curiously, then goes back to her charting.
Sam and I walk a few yards away where we can have a little more privacy.
“This is really embarrassing,” Sam says, her eyes darting around. “But I’m dating someone new. And I should have put two and two together, but—”
Oh, hell no. I don’t want to hear this. While we ended things amicably, we aren’t the type of friends who tell each other about our personal relationships. I hold up my hands, cutting her off. “Whoa, Sam, you don’t need to tell me about your new boyfriend. You don’t owe me anything.”
Sam shakes her head. “God, I’m not an idiot, Jake! I know that! But…it’s Sterling.”
I stare at her, stunned. “What?”
Sam looks miserable. “I swear I didn’t know he was your brother. But when we were talking about our families and Sterling brought up your name, I realized. I feel awful.”
I scramble to order my jumbled thoughts. Okay, some of this is my fault. While I’ve definitely made an attempt to talk to Samabout my family—specifically my issues with my father—Sam didn’t understand where I was coming from. She has amazing parents and three sisters that she considers her best friends, basically the opposite of my situation. The few times we broached the topic, she ended up encouraging me to reconcile with my father because “you only have one family.” I know she meant well, but the result was my complete evasion of the subject. Subsequently, Sam has never met anyone in my family, and my family was never aware of her existence. In fact, I’ve never mentioned Sterling by name, and I've certainly never told her he was a surgeon at Blackwell Hospital.
And now, my deflection is biting me in the ass because in a bizarre twist of fate, Sam and Sterling are somehow dating. But the situation is awkward enough that I can understand why she would want to clear the air. While I appreciate the gesture, part of me wishes I could have lived in ignorance for a bit longer, because this new development is throwing me for a loop.
Then I notice Sam is looking at me expectantly, and I suddenly realize she’s waiting for myblessingto date Sterling.
Uh, even I have limits.
“Okay, thanks for telling me,” I tell her curtly. “I appreciate the heads-up.”
A frustrated expression appears on Sam’s face as she snaps, “If you had just introduced me to your family like a normal person and not been so closed off for the entirety of our relationship, we could have avoided all of this!”
I stare at her in shock, especially because we rarely fought while we were dating. But maybe that was part of the problem—it’s clear now that we had a significant breakdown in communication.
Sam immediately backtracks with an apologetic tone. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, you’re right,” I say as guilt floods my gut. “Do what you want to, Sam, but please don’t expect me to like it. You’re not a bad person or anything. This is just an awkward situation, okay?”
After a quick nod, Sam flees, and I end up feeling like an asshole because she’s right—I’m not blameless in this situation. But everyone has their raw spots, and mine is my family.
But come on, my ex is dating mybrother. Sterling, the man that seems to get everything he wants, the approval of my father and now my ex-girlfriend. Despite the fact that Sterling’s already divorced two women, he's had no problem locating additional members for his harem. It appears that my ex couldn’t escape his gravitational pull either.
And a voice in my head, sounding suspiciously like my father’s, informs me that Sam has finally discovered the more impressive Whitlock to date. I can't even blame her.
It’s not even the fact he’s datingSamthat’s bothering me. My ego’s a little bruised by the revelation, sure, but we’re not together anymore—it’s none of my business what she does.
