Washed Up (Bayside Heroes)

“I do,” she says. “And if he doesn’t, we’ll file a restraining order against the shit taco.”

I smirk at her using my nickname for my soon-to-be ex-husband, especially because I know that petite woman with the slicked-back bun and glasses has likely cursed only a total of ten times in her adult life.

As I approach the junction where I-4 connects to 275, I’m forced to slow down, the fog thickening until I can barely see a car’s length ahead of me. One quick glance at the clock on my car’s stereo confirms I’ll likely be late for class with all this traffic.

Great.

“Okay. So, for now, I just need to… wait?”

“Wait,” Myra confirms. “Focus on school and that new grandbaby of yours. And maybe on having a little fun, if you can imagine such a ludicrous idea.”

“Funny,” I deadpan, switching lanes so I’m in the right one to head north on 275 toward the university.

“It’ll all be over soon.”

“And then you and I are going out for a drink.”

“Multiple drinks,” Myra says. “Starting with a shot of tequila.”

I smile, marveling at how an attorney I pay to spend their time on me has somehow become my closest friend. But I guess that’s what happens when you let yourself be slowly isolated from your friends and family over a few decades.

“Thank you, Myra,” I say softly. “I don’t know—OH, SHIT!”

The gasp that instinctively rips from me mixes with Myra’s worried what?! as I slam on my brakes, holding the wheel as steady as I can as more and more brake lights and crunched cars come into view through the fog. But it’s too late. I’m too close. There isn’t enough time to fully register what’s happening, let alone stop.

I slam into the side of a half-turned BMW, the impact feeling like speeding over a long line of potholes. The airbag explodes, my car filling with powder and the distinct smell of hot metal as I finally come to.

I blink, Myra’s voice screaming through the speaker now and demanding that I answer. I don’t feel pain. I don’t feel anything really, other than confusion. I blink, head as foggy as the morning as I try to gather my bearings.

Through Myra’s screams, I hear screeching tires and loud, thunderous thuds as more and more cars pile up.

My heart is slow, the beat thick and heavy in my ears as my eyes flick to the rearview mirror.

Just in time to see an old F-150 come into view through the fog.

I close my eyes and feel afraid of death for only a split second before I’m hit.

Then, I feel nothing at all.

GREG

“It’s a two-very-large-cups-of-coffee kind of morning,” my associate, Dr. Stacy Banks, says as she leans a hip against the frame of my office door. “I’m going to run down before I go over my cases for the day. You want anything?”

I smile at her from where I’m already going over my own cases, holding up my Yeti water bottle. “All good, thanks.”

“Oh, that’s right. You don’t drink coffee,” she muses with a shake of her head. “I’m not sure how you survive this profession without it.”

I just smile wider in lieu of answering, mostly because I’ve had the whole “Why don’t you drink coffee/alcohol/anything other than water?” conversation for far too many years to want to have it again this early in the morning.

“He also wakes up at four in the morning, goes for a run or spends at least an hour in the gym before he shows up here, and still manages to be the first one in,” Dr. Ray McLaughlin adds with a wry smile from the hallway behind Stacy. He checks his watch. “It’s six thirty and you look like you’ve been reviewing cases for at least a half hour.”

“Guilty,” I admit, which earns me a groan.

We’re three of the four anesthesiologists at Bayside Regional, a level one trauma center in the heart of Tampa Bay. Of the four, I’m the youngest, and the newest addition to the staff — which means I’ve become quite used to being riffed on every morning.

“Do you schedule in your fun, too?” Stacy teases.

“Sure do. I’ve got an exciting documentary on the history of the justice system in America penciled in for this evening, if you’re looking for a wild time.”

“The sad thing is that I’m a thousand percent sure you are not kidding right now,” she muses.

Dr. Banks is a woman who commands attention in every way. If the fact that she’s just shy of six feet wasn’t enough to do it, just one look at her cat-like eyes or one conversation where she not-so-subtly puts your educational training to shame would do the trick. She earned my respect the first day I met her, and I’m not naïve enough to think I’ll ever earn hers in return — not until I’ve served much more than the two years I’ve been at Bayside, anyway.