He stared above my head for a while, his brown eyes hard and impossible to read. His normally warm presence was now ice-cold, and he was clearly still in the same bad mood that he’d been in before. “I’m sorry.” He dropped his gaze for the first time and made eye contact with me, giving me a window into the sincerity in his soul. “I’m glad you didn’t let me fire you.”
I wasn’t the kind of person to hold a grudge because it took too much bad energy, but I definitely couldn’t hold one now when his apology was so sincere, when this beautiful man had no issue admitting his wrongs and facing me head on. I knew he was such a good person, so it was hard ever to be mad at him in the first place. He was just overwhelmed and temporarily insecure. “Never.” I gave him a smile to tell him it was over, that everything was good between us.
His eyes slowly softened as he looked at me, and then a gentle smile moved on to his mouth, his eyes a little brighter than they were before. “I apologize for the way I spoke to you too. That was uncalled for…and unprofessional.”
“Dex, it’s water under the bridge.”
“Wow, you’re a forgiving person.”
I shrugged. “You make it easy for me to be forgiving.”
His eyes quickly shifted away, dismissing the heartfelt thing I said.
“So, we’re seeing Mr. Torres on Wednesday.”
He continued to look away, his mood falling now that he was facing the thing he dreaded the most.
“It’s an hour-long appointment, so you’ll have plenty of time with him. And we don’t have any other appointments, so…you can have all the time you want.”
His gaze remained locked elsewhere, his eyes open and unblinking, like he was so deep in thought, he wasn’t aware of me sitting right in front of him.
“It’ll be okay, Dex.” I lowered my voice and kept it gentle, trying to pull him out of whatever mental torture he was enduring.
His eyes came back to life and shifted to mine, his gaze still hard. “I don’t think you truly understand what’s at stake here.” He didn’t raise his voice or seem angry, like he’d been before. He was subdued, defeated. “Mr. Torres has exhausted every other option possible, and now I’m his very last hope. If I don’t succeed, he’ll die. I literally have this man’s life in my hands—and I don’t take that lightly.”
24
Dex
When the ref made the call, Daisy lost her shit.
“Why don’t you go up to Fuck Off Town and fuck yourself?” She slammed her beer down on the coffee table then looked at me. “Who the hell does this guy think he is?” She shook her head then looked at the TV again.
I shrugged because it was pointless to say anything.
We watched the game in silence, seeing the minutes tick away, helping ourselves to the beer in her fridge and the snacks she put out. She was dressed in her sweatpants and a baggy shirt, completely casual since it was just me.
She turned to me. “Why are you so quiet?”
“Just stressed.”
“About?”
“I’m supposed to see Mr. Torres tomorrow.”
Instead of telling me to suck it up and get over it, she sighed loudly. “Dex, you’ve got this.”
“It’s not so easy…”
“You do the best you can. Period.”
“I really don’t want to kill my first patient back.”
“Being unable to save someone’s life is not the same thing as killing someone. You need to get that shit out of your head. And if you aren’t ready, why did you take the appointment in the first place?”
“Sicily. She basically forced me.”
Daisy gave a slow nod with a look of approval. “I like her.”
“You like her for going over my head like that?”
“Hell yeah.” She looked at the TV. “I respect a woman who doesn’t give a damn and makes shit happen. You should be thanking her.”
The most I was willing to do was apologize.
“I can move some things around and attend the appointment with you, if you think it’ll help.”
It was a nice gesture, but that wouldn’t make a difference. No one could do this but me. “I’ll be alright, Daisy.”
“I know you will.” She gave me a clap on the shoulder and looked at the TV again. “Things are going well, otherwise?”
“Yeah. I started my own research project. It’d been on my mind before all the shit hit the fan, and now I’ve decided to devote my time to it. Depending on how it goes, I might recruit a few other researchers to join me.”
“What’s your idea?”
“You know how patients have pacemakers in order to keep their hearts in rhythm automatically?”
She nodded.
“What about automatic epinephrine injections for those patients with advanced heart diseases at a high risk for myocardial infarctions? When an episode happens, they’re either alone and unable to call an ambulance, or by the time the paramedics arrive, it’s too late to get the heart restarted. By establishing some kind of regulatory system that can provide the intervention automatically, it could keep patients alive long enough for help to arrive. It’s a bit out there, I understand that—”