Josie groans and I look down at her as she walks by my side. "What? You said you loved that movie. Second favorite and all that."
She looks up to me and smiles. "First, it's totally sweet you remembered that. Second, I don't know if I'm ready for you to see me cry yet. I don't like being vulnerable."
I release her hand to drape my arm over her shoulders. "Oh, Doc...I totally want to see you cry. Want you a puddle of melted goo in my arms. Gives me all the more reason to touch you and feel you up."
Josie laughs and gives me a tiny elbow to the ribs. "Seriously, though. I'm not a big crier and it embarrasses me. Let's skip the movie and just go straight to the dirty talk."
"Movie first," I say adamantly as we reach my car. "Dirty talk later."
"You're sadistic," she mutters as I help her into the passenger seat.
"You're adorable," I tell her just before I shut the door.
When we're headed to the museum, which isn't far from the hospital, I ask her, "How do you feel about going to the mountains day after tomorrow for a little getaway? You've got three days off and I thought it would be cool to go kick around Asheville."
"That sounds awesome," she says with clear delight in her voice, only to slap her palm on her forehead. "Crap...I can't. I forgot I committed to work on this project with Aiden, and while it won't take up all my time, we're just getting started on it and we're going to buckle down on these next days off to get started. He's got the same shift schedule as I do."
"What project?" I ask curiously, although I've got deep disappointment swirling within me. Not only does that mean no mountain trip with Josie, but I won't get to do anything with her.
"He's going to do a comparison project on field versus urban medicine, and what practices can be used across the two fields to further better the treatment. He's hoping to get it published and asked me to coauthor it with him."
"That sounds like a pretty big deal," I say, and I'm happy I don't have to force enthusiasm into my voice. I get off on the fact that my girl is a doctor and I'm proud as shit of her. I want her to have every success she can. I also refuse to be bothered by the fact it's Aiden she's going to be working with. Aiden has easily insinuated himself back into her life, and now he's actually commanding her attention away from me, but past the whole teddy bear gift thing, he's acted like nothing but a friend to Josie.
"It is a big deal," she says, and continues to chatter on about the project. I listen to her talk with an excitement I've not heard from her before about anything, which makes me realize that there are layers upon layers that go into the makeup of Josie Ives, M.D. I knew she got off on the thrill of emergency medicine and was immensely fulfilled from her work, but I didn't understand that there was more. That she is still striving to learn and pioneer her field, and that fucking makes me even more proud of her yet.
When she winds it down, I ask a few follow-up questions. "So you think it will take three months?"
"Maybe four," she says, and turns slightly in her seat to face me. "But I told Aiden that I wasn't giving up all my free days to it. He said we'd put ten to fifteen hours in a week, as it's really just compiling existing data, and I can do that in just one day off. Except for this week when we start it."
This satisfies me, because really, I would never stand in the way of her doing this. Doesn't matter that it's with her ex-almost-fiance who has come back into her life, or that as my summer off winds down, my time with her will be more limited. Nothing about this even makes me think about looking elsewhere for my jollies, because Josie is the only one I want them with.
That makes me snicker, and Josie asks, "What's so funny?"
"Nothing But you tell Aiden if he tries any funny business, I'm going to kick his ass."
Josie is the one who snickers. "I'll totally tell him that."
"Seriously," I say a bit hesitantly, because Aiden hasn't been a subject between us at all. "He might be doing this to get close to you."
I know those were the wrong words by the way she turns even more in her seat to face me. I glance at her and her expression borders on livid. "You don't think he could ask me to do an important research project because of my brains and medical talent?"
"Jesus, Josie," I chastise her. "You know that's not what I was saying. I know you're brilliant and talented, and so does Aiden. I'm just saying there could be an ulterior motive."
As quickly as she was pissed at me, I can actually feel her surrender as she leans back into her seat. "Sorry. Not sure why that made me so testy."
I reach over and take her hand in mine. "I think you're amazing, and Aiden is lucky to have you on this project."
She blows out a hearty gust of air and squeezes my hand. "Actually, I hate to say it, but that was the first thing I thought when he asked me, but you know, he's been nothing but professional at work. He was even there when I got your flowers, and he didn't seem bothered by it at all. So I think he's really moved on too."
"You're probably right," I tell her as I cruise down Wade Avenue, noting traffic starting to slow for the turn lane into the museum parking lot. "But you see, I've got you now, Josie. So I know what he's missing, and he'd be fucking crazy not to want it back again."
"Well, he can't have it," she says with a firm nod of her head and another squeeze to my hand. "Because I've had me some of Reed Olson and I don't want anything else."
I laugh and Josie joins in. I release her hand so I can make my left turn into the museum, following the cars to the lot nearest the outdoor area they use to project the movies. I've not been here before, but I figure everyone in front of me knows where they're going.
I'm here with Josie. She's here with me. We're going to enjoy a nice evening watching a movie, then we're going to go back to her place where I can fuck her brains out. Or she'll fuck mine out. Whatever. I'll wake up early with her and take her into work, and everything is going to be awesome.
Besides, I've got another surprise for Josie tomorrow and she's going to flip out when she sees it.
Chapter 20
Josie
"Code blue. Room 4304. Code blue. Room 4304."
I lurch out of my chair where I'd been doing some charting and check the pager at my hip, which is also showing a code blue, or in other words, cardiopulmonary arrest.
I'm on the code team today, which consists of multiple nurses and doctors to respond to such an emergency and to have a redundancy system in case some on the team are stuck in another emergency. I take off out of the emergency department because my patients are all stable and there are plenty of others to cover the load. I hit the transport elevators, which aren't slowed down by visitors to the hospital, and make it to the fourth floor in under a minute.
I've perfected the brisk walk, which is almost a run in these emergency situations. Turning a corner around the nurse's station of the cardiac unit, which comprises the fourth floor, I run smack into a solid wall of muscle. Before I can fully bounce back, a pair of large hands grab my shoulders and I'm blinking up into the face of Reed.
He smiles at me in pure delight to have me in his arms, but I don't have time. "Not now. Gotta go."
Reed immediately releases me, concern washing over his face. I have no time to wonder why he's here in the cardiac unit because I've got more important things to do. I brush past him and jog the rest of the way to room 4304, but I can feel Reed's eyes on my back the entire way.
When I arrive, I see a nurse already doing compressions on an elderly man with snowy white hair and a gray complexion. He's completely flat lined on the monitor.
"Where are you at?" I ask her as I hit the antiseptic dispenser on the wall and coat my hands quickly.
"Second cycle
," she says, indicating she's in the second round of thirty chest compressions with two breaths.
Another nurse bursts into the room pushing a crash cart. Without any need to exchange words, I smoothly take over the chest compressions while the nurses get ready to intubate the patient.
My pager starts vibrating on my hip but I ignore it. Nothing takes precedence over a code blue. At the end of the thirty compressions, I do two one-second breaths into the patient, and when I pull back, the nurses start to insert the breathing tube.
Before I can make it halfway through the next round, Dr. Levenson--a cardiothoracic surgeon on the code team--comes into the room with another nurse with an IV setup. I update him on where we stand, and he takes my place while the nurses work the airway bag compressions. Dr. Billroy, an internist, also slides in with a tight smile. She hates being on the code team because she doesn't like people dying, but she's very good at her job.
I take a moment and look down to my pager. Multiple GSVs. ETA 5 minutes.
Multiple gunshot victims heading into the Emergency Department.
"You got this?" I ask Levenson and Billroy.
Levenson says, "Go," in response, and that's all I need. They know that I would be the first release from the code, since emergency medicine is my game and I easily could be needed elsewhere.
I rush out the door and immediately see Reed standing in the hallway outside a patient's room four doors down. His worried eyes are pinned on me as if he had been waiting for me to come out.
Approaching Reed, I glance at my watch. I can spare thirty seconds. When I look back up, Reed is nodding at the patient's room I just left. "Is everything okay?"
"They're working on him now," I say briskly, but there's no hiding the affection I have for him that comes through in my tone. "What are you doing here?"
He smiles and nods over his shoulder toward the room behind him. I lean to the left and peek in to see Marek standing there with the Stanley Cup and the Cup attendant who accompanies it wherever it goes. A man in his fifties is talking to Marek from his bed.
"I was going to tell you, then thought I'd keep it a surprise," Reed says, and I lean back to look up at him. "I decided to use my day with the Cup here at the hospital taking it to all the patients who want to see it and have some pictures taken. I plan on being down in the ER a little later. The hospital administrator coordinated everything."