Page 29 of No Greater Love
My gaze dropped to the scuffed linoleum. She was right. Of course, she was right.
“You’re off the floor for the day. Go home, Nate.” She paused, and I braced myself. “And I’m sorry, but I have to write you up for this. This is too big. Administration will be involved. I don’t have a choice.”
Her voice caught on the "I'm sorry," a tiny tremor that somehow made it worse.
There was nothing to say. No defense. I’d crossed a line. A big one. I nodded slowly, the movement feeling stiff, unfamiliar. My shoulders, which had been locked back, sagged.
“I understand, Sophia,” I said, my voice raspy, barely recognizable. “I… I put you in an impossible position. I am sorry for that.” I met her eyes then, a flicker of the man I used to be, the one who’d faced down worse than Jensen. "But I'm not sorry he knows he can't talk to her that way." The words were out before I could stop them. A beat of silence. "I shouldn't have lost control," I added, the admission costing me. "It won't happen again."
I turned and walked out of her office, out of the ER, the weight of what I'd done settling over me like a shroud. I didn't look at Tasha, didn't look at anyone. Just walked.
But as I pushed through the doors into the corridor, the image of Tasha's face flickered in my mind—those wide eyes fixed on me, that expression I couldn't quite read. Not the gratitude I'd half-expected, but something more complex. Concern? For me? After the way I’d just detonated? Or was it just shock? Disappointment that the guy who fumbled through explaining periods to his daughter, who relied onherto rescue Paige from a school bathroom, could also lose his damn mind like this?
The Tasha who’d handled Paige’s period emergency with such unexpected kindness and humor… what would she think of this? I shoved the thought away, a fresh wave of shame washing over me. I had bigger problems. A write-up. Possibly a suspension. A conversation with Paige about why Daddy was home early.
And somewhere beneath it all, the unsettling realization that the control I'd fought so hard to maintain since coming home, through therapy, through sobriety, through the rigid routines that structured our lives… it was more fragile than I'd allowed myself to believe.
All it had taken was one word, not even directed at me. One ugly word aimed at a colleague. A colleague who'd shown Paige, and me, a surprising amount of grace just a short while ago.
So why had it shattered my control so completely?
Each step felt heavy, the future uncertain. Paige. My job. Everything felt fragile, breakable. And it was all my own damn fault.
ten
tasha
The worst partwasn't the words themselves.
I'd heard worse. Growing up as one of the few Black girls in honors classes, working my way through nursing school, even here at Metro General—racist assholes were nothing new. You developed thick skin, learned to document everything, kept your face neutral while you fantasized about creative ways to make their IV insertions especially memorable.
No, the worst part was the look on Nate's face afterward.
I'd seen him handle every kind of chaos the ER could throw at us. Code Blues where he moved with surgical precision. Trauma cases that would make seasoned doctors flinch. Difficult families, belligerent drunks, the woman last month who'd thrown her bedpan at Dr. Ward's head. Through it all, Nathan Crawford remained the same: calm, controlled, professionally competent.
I'd never seen him lose it. Not once.
Until today.
"You okay?" Sophia appeared at my elbow as I finished charting the racist asshole's discharge. Her voice was carefully neutral, but I caught the concern underneath.
"I'm fine," I said automatically, not looking up from the computer screen.
"Tasha."
Something in her tone made me glance over. Sophia's expression was gentle but direct—the look she got when she was about to have one of those conversations that made everyone uncomfortable but needed to happen anyway.
"Really, I'm okay," I said, meaning it mostly. "It's not like it's the first time some ignorant piece of shit has?—"
"I'm not asking about him," Sophia interrupted softly. "I'm asking about you. About what just happened with Nate."
Right. Because Nate Crawford, model of professional restraint, had just screamed at a patient to get the fuck out of his emergency department. And then I'd had to watch Sophia march him out of the bay like a misbehaving toddler, while he stood there looking ashamed and furious and something else I couldn't quite name.
"I didn't ask him to do that," I said quickly.
"I know you didn't." Sophia's voice was matter-of-fact. "But he did it anyway. That had to be... complicated."
Complicated. That was one word for it.
