Doctor Daddy (Dark Daddies 2)

“I know a place nearby,” he says, not looking at me as we walk down the hall. We get to the end and he hesitates while glancing at me. “I think we’ll take the elevator.”

“Good one,” I grumble at him as he grins at me. We do take the elevator though, stuffed in with a few other nurses and patients.

We leave the hospital together. A few people say hello to him as we pass, mostly patients. I can’t help but notice the other doctors all ignore him completely, and only a few nurses smile as he walks by.

The patients though, almost every one of them say hello. One guy even gives him a hug, practically in tears. I can tell it makes him supremely uncomfortable.

“Call me Aiden,” he says once we leave the hospital out of nowhere. “I hate being called doctor outside of that place.”

“Uh, sure,” I say.

He glances at me. “And you should still be on crutches.”

I make a face at him and he grins. We walk down the sidewalk and head deeper into the city.

He takes me to a bar, a place I’ve never heard of before, called Informal. It’s a nice spot, like the usual hipster gastropub-type place. Aiden leads me to the bar and we sit down next to each other.

He orders a whisky and I order a glass of wine. He looks at me out of the corner of my eye.

“How long have you been a doctor?” I venture, breaking the silence.

He shrugs. “A long time,” he says. “Been at Jefferson since the beginning.”

“Do you like it?”

He barks a laugh. “Not at all.”

“Really?” Our drinks arrive and he sips his whisky right away.

“Gets tedious sometimes. And it’s gotten in the way of… well, just in the way.”

I want to ask him what he means but I decide not to press. “Your patients seem to like you.”

“They usually do when they survive. The dead ones can’t really call you an asshole, though.”

I bite my lip. “That’s really freaking dark.”

He laughs a little. “Sorry. I’m still shedding that place.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like whenever I leave the hospital, I have to shed a layer of skin. I have to leave all that misery behind.”

“It’s not all misery.”

“No, it’s not,” he admits. “There are some nice parts.” He looks at me appraisingly again, and I get the feeling that I’m being examined.

I like it, but it makes me blush. I look away, sipping my wine to distract me from his intense scrutiny.

“Tell me about yourself,” he says finally, and I start talking.

I tell him about my mother dying, about my father running off, about taking care of myself. I went to college, took out loans, basically got myself through school. When my friends went home to their comfortable suburban homes, I stayed here and worked. The only person I care about in my family is my grandmother.

He seems to understand. He nods, listening carefully, and I feel like he actually hears what I’m saying.

“My parents died when I was young also,” he says when I finish. “I was raised by my uncle.”

“Really? Where?”

“Here, in the city. I went to med school at Penn, put myself through it.”

“Huh. So we both shared that.”

He shrugs. “It was easier for me. You’re, what, twenty-two?”

“Exactly,” I say, laughing. “How’d you know?”

“I have a talent for it,” he says. “You’re almost half my age, you know.”

I frown slightly. He’s right. I hadn’t even thought about it.

But he is twice my age. His hair’s graying slightly, but he looks like he’s thirty at most. He’s so attractive that I hadn’t realized how old he actually is.

Which is strange. I’ve never been into older men, let alone men like him. If I had just met him on the street, I’d think he was an asshole.

He tells me about school and soon we’re both eating burgers. We get another drink, and another, and the evening turns into night. Before I realize it, we’ve been sitting at the bar for three hours talking about going to school in the city, and Aiden’s even laughing a little bit.

I can almost see the skin he shed. The hospital slowly melted away from him, and now he seems lighter, happier. Still an asshole, but less of one, more willing to laugh.

He pays and we leave the bar together, walking back toward the hospital. “I live near here,” he says, glancing at me.

I look back. “I should get home. I have work in the morning.”

He nods once. “Yeah. I always have work.”

I laugh, although I’m not sure if he’s joking. We stop at the next corner and I face him, heart beating fast.

“I had fun.”

“Me too.” He steps closer to me. “I don’t normally take patients out like this.”

“It’s not some kind of ethics violation, is it?” I ask him, jokingly.

He smirks, moving closer. “It’s definitely an ethics violation,” he says softly. “Do you like that?”