A Billionaire for Christmas

Losing a patient really broke Andy up.

But not Raji. She cut to cure, and she had no inconvenient feelings about it.

Xan Valentine, the charismatic lead singer, lay on the couch with his wife, Georgie the keyboard player, twined around him. His hand rested on her long, brown hair, and he stroked her head absent-mindedly.

Georgie mumbled to Andy, “You could go on tour with us.”

Raji had talked to Georgie a couple of times that evening and liked her, and it was nice that she was trying to solve Andy’s problem of being a big ol’ wuss.

Over Raji’s head, Andy argued with Georgie, “I’ve wanted to be a doctor my whole life.”

Georgie said, “You can’t let six-year-olds make career decisions for you. I wanted to be a professional sailor.”

“Did you?” Xan muttered to his wife. “I have a yacht. We should sail somewhere.”

Peyton’s chest flinched under Raji’s cheek.

Cadell said to Andy, “You’d still be a doctor. We need a doctor. Emily could go with us. You could monitor her for rejection. Oh, jeez. We should go to the hospital to check on her.”

Andy shook her phone at him. “Got a text ten minutes ago. She’s fine. Still sleeping.”

Raji snorted. Of course, Andy had gotten a text. She had super-momma powers or something. She cared for all her patients with a deep, maternal bond that ripped her heart out every time she lost one.

You know what? Andy should trash the hepatic transplant fellowship and go be Killer Valentine’s doctor. Raji should tell her that, but she was so sleepy and still drunk.

In the air above her, Georgie said, “Point is that Xan, here, needs an actual medical doctor to tell him he’s ripping his throat to shreds and shouldn’t be sucking on that electro-stimulation machine three times a day.”

“I don’t suck on it,” Xan said. “It goes on the outside of my neck.”

“Whatever. Having a doctor on tour would save us from having to freak out every time someone got sick enough for antibiotics or needed to talk Xan down from doing something stupid to his throat, which is daily.”

“You should hire a vocologist,” Andy said, “not a gastroenterologist.”

At least Andy still had her wits about her. Raji was pretty sure that she didn’t. Damn vodka. Vodka always fucked her up, especially when the vodka came after several red plastic cups of white wine.

“Tryp has ulcers,” Georgie said, pointing with her thumb at the band’s drummer, who was overflowing an armchair and cradling his sleeping, blond wife in his arms.

“I do not,” the guy mumbled, his black hair falling into his eyes.

“You threw up blood,” Georgie told him.

Tryp muttered, “It was a flesh wound.”

“He needs an H. pylori test,” Andy said. “That’s actually right up my alley. I finished my gastro residency before I started this surgical one.”

Georgie lifted her hand that was draped over Xan and pointed right at where Raji and Peyton were lying on the floor. “And Peyton breaks out in shingles every few years.”

“I do not,” Peyton said, his deep voice rumbling in his chest against Raji’s cheek. She giggled a little at it.

“When was the last time?” Georgie asked.

“Four years ago,” Peyton said.

“So you’re overdue,” Georgie said.

“Or maybe they’ve gone away.”

Raji peered up at him, and he hadn’t even opened his eyes to answer. Georgie shouldn’t have known that Peyton broke out in shingles every few years and was overdue for the virus to break out again if Peys had just joined the band a few months ago. Right?

Georgie said to Andy, “We grew up together. His mother was all crunchy and didn’t get him any vaccines, so he got chickenpox.”

Raji squinted at Peyton. Curiouser and curiouser.

Peyton said, “Last time, it broke out on my ass.”

Andy asked Peyton, “Any PHN?”

He crossed his arms over his chest, beside where Raji had lain her cheek, and said, “I don’t know what that is.”

Andy informed him, “Post-herpetic neuralgia. Did it hurt afterward?”

“Like the dickens.”

“We should titer you. The shingles version of the varicella vaccine would be a good option.”

Peyton opened one eye, revealing his teal iris. Wow, he was pretty. “Yeah?”

“Should prevent a reoccurrence,” Andy told him.

Raji didn’t lift her head off his chest, but she mumbled to Peyton, “She’s right. Listen to the woman.”

Peyton closed his eyes. “Xan, hire this woman, or I will.”

“Fuck you,” Xan said, still not opening his eyes. The dawn outside the windows brightened the room. “I’m hiring her. She’s my doctor now.”

That was some weird tension between the two guys, more than your average alpha-male pissing contest. Even though both of them were exhausted, they were arguing over who got to hire the doctor and pay her salary.

“I didn’t say I was going to quit my fellowship,” Andy said sleepily from where she lay in Cadell’s arms.

“Merde,” Xan said.

Raji squirmed on the carpet, turning over to look up at Andy. Maybe it was the vodka talking. Maybe it was Peyton’s little inquiries about her phone number all night long, and she needed to scare him the fuck off. Maybe it was concern for Andy, her too-tender friend.