Page 67 of The Holidays with Dr. Mitchell
All I could do was laugh and love this woman for everything she put up with, having me as a husband and father of her kids.
“I swear our son acts older than you sometimes,” she said in disbelief and humor.
“Our son acts just like his Uncle Jim. He needs these candid moments to keep him young, or he’ll be gray by the time he reaches high school.”
“Hey, nutcracker,” Collin said, leaning into his nutcracker prank as if it hadn’t gotten old yet to put a life-sized wooden statue in front of my office every Christmas season to keep everyone in the building humored. “Hey, Ash. Are you going to let the kids host everyone tonight so you can hang out with Jake and me for New Year’s?”
“I’m thinking this might be the safer bet,” Ash said, then hugged Collin. “Happy New Year’s. I’m taking off just in case this is the night one of the ladies or kids gets a craving for wild figs.”
“Oh, shit. You told her? You can never tell the wives. That’s our number one rule,” Collin taunted.
“Oh, really? I didn’t realize this was some club you both had going?” Ash said.
“It’s only so no one gives away their bullshit,” Stone walked up, wearing scrubs and most likely hunting me down to join him in the cardiac ER wing. “Nice work, both of you,” he eyed Collin and me.
“What did they do to you?” Ash questioned.
“Nothing out of the ordinary for these two,” he said. “Luckily, I got laid as a result of it.”
“Jesus. You guys are all beyond me. I don’t even want to know,” Ash said, then offered me a quick kiss and wished us all a Happy New Year before she left the office.
“How did you get laid because of that?” Collin questioned.
“Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps it was the blown-up, blue ball ornament with the lyrics to Blue Christmas written on it that you set up outside my office and your clown message, telling everyone I hadn’t been laid, so the ornament was dedicated to me? You know, because I’m supposed to have blue balls, I guess?”
“Most women find it pathetic when a loser such as yourself doesn’t get laid over the holidays?” I said.
“And most women aren’t turned on by Elvis unless they’re eighty,” Collin added.
“Turns out, the new Elvis movie has all the ladies drooling over him again, and apparently, when it comes to my sexy ass not getting laid, they lined up in an attempt to help me with that dry spell you both are forever saying I’m having?”
“Sounds about right,” I said, and that’s when mine and Stone’s pagers went off simultaneously.
“Looks like it’s go-time for you two studs,” Collin said. “Happy New Year’s.”
“We’ll hit you up if it dies down,” I chuckled, knowing how crazy this night could get in the ER.
And it did. Even so, we enjoyed our New Year’s Eve, knowing our families were happy, safe, and celebrating together. In our own special way, we were too. We just did it by saving lives.
Ash
The thingabout the holidays is that they could either bring out the best in us or the worst. It was all determined by your outlook, and since I didn’t want to deal with the worst of any situation tonight, especially where my toilets were concerned, I decided I needed to intervene on Jake’s final bit of payback.
“I can’t believe those little shits werestillplotting revenge,” Alex said as everyone sat around eating the New Year’s Eve Chinese food I had catered.
“Shit being the operative word,” Bree laughed.
“I’m just glad Ash called ahead and had John remove all the itemslacedwith Collin and Jake’s special additive,” Jim said with a chuckle. “You saved our asses, sis.”
“Quite literally,” Spencer said, annoyed that Jake and Collin were like ruthless little brothers who didn’t know when to quit.
“Well, there’s a good lesson here, and I’m thankful to have learned it without having been a part of it,” Titus Hawk, the newest and liveliest member of our crazy gang, added.
“What’s that, brother?” Jim mused.
“You know exactly what that is,” Titus grinned. The man was most certainly a lady killer with his smooth voice and topaz eyes that glittered with his beaming smile. “That I will never join in on pranks to attempt to put Jake and Collin in their places.”
“True that,” Jim said with a laugh. “Lucky for you, they know you had no idea of our devious intentions when you donated the property for our private use. Not that you aren’t a fan of a good prank, but we knew this one would come with retribution from them that you didn’t deserve.”
