Page 15 of Safe With You

“Well, if the goal is to reduce chloride, which is an acid, we’d need to introduce a base or something more neutral, right?”

I smile at her.

“Are you going to add in bicarb? Bicarb is most likely low, plus it’s fairly alkaline, so that could help neutralize the acid. An infusion probably? It would also help with the volume loss.”

I let the small smile turn into a full-fledged grin. She. Is. Awesome.“Right again. I’ll put in orders for an infusion. Keep managing her glucose with the current protocol, and I’ll increase the amount of fast-acting insulin she receives with meals. Can you give me an update this afternoon? It’ll probably take another twenty-four hours for her pH and chloride to fully normalize, but we should see some improvement by the end of shift today.”

She breaks eye contact to look down at her lap as she smiles. “Of course. Thank you. I’m sorry if it came off like I had an attitude or was questioning you. I know you are insanely busy and don’t have the time to look at all these little details. I’m sorry.”

I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees, reaching for a hand to grasp the edge of her seat. In one quick motion, I rip the chair towards me, causing her mouth to pop open and her hand juts out to grab the desktop for balance.

“Let me make one thing clear, firecracker.” I wait until the shock of the abrupt motion has worn off and she’s steady and focused on my face. “Don’teverapologize for catching an error, for questioning when something isn’t right. Andneverapologizefor being smart. Got it?” I release the hold I had on her chair, sitting upright, letting my message sink in.

School teaches us about the human body. About organs, labs, and medications. It doesn’t teach you how to follow your gut, how to take a second or third look at the chart when something doesn’t feel right. That’s exactly what Lainey did, and if it was any other doctor, or me on a bad day, her curiosity may have been snuffed.

“Okay,” she says hesitantly, “and thank you, you’re one of the few doctors we have around here that I feel comfortable bouncing my thoughts off of.”

Well, fuck. “No, no, that’s …” I trail off.That’s attractive. That’s amazing. It makes my dick hard seeing how your brain works. “It’s my pleasure, you can ask me anything.” I stand and squeeze her shoulder, the connection between our bodies magnetic. She must feel it too, and for a moment she leans into my touch. I let my hand graze further across her shoulder,almostpulling her in for a hug. “You're going to school for your NP right?” Her head twists to the side to look up at me, and I can see all the wheels spinning in her mind wondering what that has to do with this case.

I pulled out the chair again and took a seat next to her, leaning down to rest my forearms on my knees. “What type of classes are you in right now?” Her gaze falls to her lap, and she picks at something invisible on her nails.

“Right now, just Advanced Pathophysiology and Health Policy. I'm going part-time since I work full-time here and have a second on-call job as well. I don't know yet if I'm going for a Nurse Practitioner or if I'll choose a management or education route. I have a few months before I need to decide that.”

“I know you'll choose whatever route speaks to you, and you didn't ask my opinion, but I'm going to give it to you anyway.”She smiles a little bit, her posture softening as she leans back in the computer chair.

“I can bore you with the politics of it—there are plenty of job opportunities, job security as an NP, you can work in almost any capacity you want, all that. But, from what I’ve gathered about you the few weeks we’ve been working together, is that you’re smart. You think about the whole picture, not just admission diagnosis, you care …” I hold up a finger for each attribute I raffle off and can see the moment she wants to smile. A flush crawls up her neck, the compliment making her uncomfortable, so I move on. “When you have the passion, plus the opportunity, why would you choose anything else?”

“It's hard not to compare myself to others. I look at you or Dr. Hendricks, and there is so much that you know, but I don’t.” She looks up at me with a flirty smile. “Granted, you became a doctor while I was still in high school …”

Christ, I knew I was a little older than her, but never thought of it that way.

“I don’t know if I will ever have the knowledge that you guys have, and I don’t want to be some half-ass NP. When I decide I want to do something, I want to do it right.”

I didn’t think I could be more attracted to this girl, but here I am. I fucking love that attitude she has. I don’t know why she’s insecure, or not confident in herself, but when she talks about that passion for medicine—for not wanting to be some half-assed doctor who is a medical malpractice waiting to happen, that is something I admire.

“Here.” I gesture for her notepad, and she hands it over, letting me flip to a blank page and start scribbling. “Pretend this is your patient. You’ve just discovered that the idiot night shift doctor and cocky day shift doctor didn’t catch an error in her labs …”

She bites her bottom lip to temper a smile as she looks up at me.

I do my best to keep my eyes on the paper. “Sodium Bicarb comes in a few different forms. We will likely do a continuous infusion if we feel the patient can handle it.”

Lainey nods, rolling her chair closer and propping her elbows on the counter.

I scribble out a rough physiology of the bicarb infusion, the forms available to use and how to calculate the rate before we go back to looking at the patient’s labs. “You said electrolytes are normal, correct?”

She nods. “Potassium is low but regulates with each piggyback infusion.”

“We’ll have to keep a close eye on her chloride since it’s already high, and we want to make sure we don’t push it to a critical level.” I show her how to calculate the bicarb level based on patient weight, and by the time we’re done, she’s fully leaned into me, offering just as much guidance at figuring this out as I’m offering her. I show her how to place orders, how to change the frequency if we want, and what labs we need to monitor for the future.

“Any questions?” I push the notebook back to her and she takes it from my grasp, fingers sliding over the back of my hand as she does. She nods but doesn’t look at me, gaze still busy perusing the notes we just broke down.

“That was cool, thank you.” She closes her book and looks up at me again. “I mean it. I know that you’re busy. You would have figured this out without me talking your ear off, but something as little as this gives me more inspiration for school.”

I lean back in my chair, clicking my pen off and tucking it into my coat pocket.

“It’s my pleasure, Lainey,” I tell her again as I lean back, clasping my hands behind my head. She watches my everymovement as her chest rises a bit, not wondering if my choice of words is specific to her. I must not be making myself clear enough. I decide right here, at this moment, that I want nothing more than to bring her every ounce of pleasure I can.

Chapter Eleven

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