Bad Ideas (First & Forever 4)

“I’d be happy to.” I thanked Darice for bringing the cake, and once she handed me two big slices on paper plates I called, “Thank you, everyone,” since they’d all chipped in to buy it.

As I left the breakroom and headed down the hall, I glanced at the frosting stain on my scrub top. It looked sloppy, so I’d have to try cleaning it up with a little soap and water before going back to work.

In the next instant, I crashed into someone as they came around the corner. I was built like a linebacker—literally, that was the position I’d played on my high school football team—so the other person didn’t stand a chance. He ended up bouncing off me like a spiked volleyball and landing on his ass, while the tablet he’d been holding flew out of his hands.

I realized I wasn’t holding the plates anymore and looked around to see where they’d gone. Then I spotted them stuck to the man’s chest, held in place by the squashed slices of cake.

My first impulse was to laugh because the plates were positioned perfectly, like a pair of cartoonish boobs. But the laugh turned into a cough when I met the man’s gaze.

Anger burned in his ice blue eyes, and I muttered. “Oh, hell.” Of all the people to flatten and cake bomb, it just had to be Theodore Koenig, M.D. I always told myself M.D. stood for Major Douche, because I was mature like that, and because he was the most annoying, uptight person I’d ever met.

I blurted, “Shit, sorry,” as I tried to help him up. He ignored my outstretched hand and got to his feet on his own as I asked, “Are you okay?”

Instead of answering, he growled, “You’re a train wreck, Lassiter.” In the eleven months we’d worked together, he’d never once used my first name. I doubted he even knew what it was, despite the ID card on my chest, which he’d probably never bothered to read.

He peeled off the plates and thrust them into my hands, and then he assessed the mess I’d made. His white lab coat had taken most of the hit, but his light blue dress shirt and navy tie had also gotten splattered. Koenig impatiently tossed his head to swing his dark hair out of his eyes. It always seemed off-brand to me that he wore it slightly long. Someone that joyless and controlled should have a short, no-nonsense haircut.

As he removed his coat and gathered it into a ball to contain the cake, he snapped, “Watch where you’re going next time. What if you’d run into a patient?”

We were in an employees-only part of the hospital, and I was always careful when I was on the main floor. But I said, “You’re right. Again, I’m sorry.” It was tempting to point out he hadn’t been watching where he was going either, but it was important to play nice with the doctors. Otherwise, they could make our lives a living hell.

His gaze dropped to just below my mouth, and his frown deepened. Then he stepped around me and retrieved his tablet from under a gurney. While he did that, I stacked one plate on top of the other and quickly rubbed my chin. When I glanced at my fingertips, they were smeared with dark blue frosting. Well, great, apparently the rose had grazed more than just my shirt on the way down. Koenig already thought I was a moron, and this definitely wasn’t helping.

He walked away without another word, holding the ruined lab coat at arm’s length while I hurried to the restroom. I threw away the plates, then grabbed some paper towels and took a look at myself in the mirror over the sink. The frosting mashed into my short beard was super attractive. Even after washing it off, a faint blue tint remained. That was the best I could do, though.

I dried my face and paused to assess my reflection. Thirty-three, Jesus. It felt like I’d turned twenty-one just a couple of years ago, but nope. I studied myself closely and decided I looked my age. There were lines around my blue eyes, and if I had to sum up my appearance in one word, it’d be tired.

I ran a hand over my beard and wondered if I’d look younger if I shaved it off. I’d actually grown it because I had a baby face and had wanted to seem older at some point in the past. But what did it matter? So, I looked thirty-three. So what?

Before leaving the restroom, I took a moment to try to get my light brown hair to stop doing whatever the hell that was. It always looked disheveled though, no matter what, so I gave up and went back to the break room. Then tried again with my cake delivery to Darice’s friends in the kitchen.