Bad Ideas (First & Forever 4)

Theo and I lingered in the stairwell for every moment of my fifteen-minute break. Finally, he kissed me before climbing off my lap. He looked wistful as he touched my cheek and murmured, “I’m really looking forward to you coming over tonight.”

“So am I.”

He leaned in for one more kiss before saying, “I’m going down to the first floor and riding the elevator up, just to make sure no one spots us leaving our secret hideout together.” Then he grinned at me before jogging down the stairs.

I watched him go before leaving the stairwell. The hall was empty when I stepped through the door, and I paused for a moment and scrubbed my hands over my face. Anger, frustration, and exhaustion all fought for the top spot in what I was feeling right then. I knew I needed to stick a smile on my face and get back to work, but my heart ached for Theo.

Maybe if I’d been in a better mindset instead of being bone-tired with zero fucks left to give, what happened next would have gone differently. Then again, maybe not.

As I approached the nurse’s station, the first thing I saw was a cluster of six doctors, all dressed up and about to leave work. A young, blond doctor named Chad Cunningham was leaning on the counter, flirting with a cute new nurse named Nora Yang. It seemed like she was trying to get rid of him, because she asked, “Aren’t you going to be late for your reservation?”

“We’re just waiting for our colleague, Doctor Gregory, and then we’ll head out,” Chad told her. “Everyone else from our department is here.”

“What about Doctor Koenig?”

Nora asked that innocently. She hadn’t been here long enough to hear the gossip about Theo, but Chad leapt at the opportunity to fix that. “We all try to steer clear of Koenig, and you should do the same,” he said. My hackles rose instantly, and I froze in my tracks.

When she asked why, Chad leaned in closer and said, loud enough for all three nurses at the station to hear him, “I for one don’t want anything to do with a man who slept his way through med school and cheated an old man out of his money.”

All eyes turned to me as I said, very loudly, “That’s a load of horse shit.”

Chad had been caught off guard by that, and he mumbled, “What?”

“The ‘old man’ you’re talking about was named Martin Gaultier, and he was only fifty-five when he died suddenly of an aneurism. I looked it up. He was also considered a genius by all who knew him, so the idea that Koenig could have manipulated Gaultier into giving him his fortune is absurd. Gaultier didn’t have any heirs, so he left his money to his friend and protégé, Theo Koenig. And guess what? There’s nothing wrong with that!”

Cunningham started to say, “Now, hold on, Lassiter. I—”

“I’m not finished,” I snapped. “It’s not just unprofessional, it’s also rude and petty to spread lies like that, Chad. So, you don’t like Theo Koenig. Fine. You’re not the most likeable person yourself, you know. We all have to sit around and pretend to be interested while you go on and on about your ivy league education, and your family’s vacation home in Martha’s Vineyard, and your new Porsche. Do you honestly think a bunch of nurses who make a fraction of what you do want to hear you bragging about your wealth? Hell no!”

Chad raised his chin and said, “At least I didn’t sleep with someone for my money.”

“You didn’t earn it, either! Your family made its money by exploiting factory workers during the industrial revolution. I looked that up, too.

“Also, Koenig and Gaultier didn’t have a sexual relationship. Gaultier wasn’t even gay, but to hell with the truth if it makes for a juicier story, right? All you care about is belittling and undermining the smartest, most dedicated, and most competent doctor on staff. Does that make you feel better about yourself, Chad? Because from where I’m standing, it just makes you look jealous.”

He snorted and exclaimed, “Why would I be jealous of Koenig?”

“Because you know you’ll never be as smart or capable as he is,” I told him, as I held his gaze. The other doctors behind him fidgeted, clearly embarrassed and uncomfortable. Good. This was for all of them, not just Chad. “Maybe you also resent the fact that, unlike you, he was number one in his graduating class in medical school.”

Chad started to say, “Yeah, because he—”

I cut him off again. “Don’t even try to go there by saying he slept his way to those top marks. He would have taken classes from something like twenty different professors while he was in med school, male and female, so are you going to suggest he slept with all of them for those grades? If so, that’s some serious sexual prowess! Hell, I’m almost more impressed with that than I am with the hard work it actually took to graduate first in his class.” A few of the nurses chuckled at that. I’d gathered quite the crowd, not that I cared.