Kissing My Dad's Friend

What more could my father possibly want now?

I’m tempted to ignore the summons, but I know he’ll just keep buzzing for me. I storm down the length of the hall toward the distant double doors that lead to the wing where Dad’s office is located. By the time I reach it, sure enough, someone has already paged me a second time overhead, and my stomach clenches. I hope my direct supervisor doesn’t hear this and judge me for not sprinting to Dad’s attention.

I hope I don’t get into trouble for missing my next set of rounds, if Dad keeps me here for ages to lecture me.

I hope a lot of things, really.

I reach his office door just as it’s swinging open, and when it does, I freeze on the threshold, my breath catching in my throat.

“Maggie!” Russ looks, if possible, even more handsome than usual. Unlike my dad, whose face has aged into permanent frown lines and a furrowed, disapproving brow, Russ’s only wrinkles are the faint laugh lines around the corners of his eyes. He smiles at me now, his salt-and-pepper hair still full and trimmed into a neat cut, his beard just long enough to show the same smattering of gray throughout it. It only adds to the sharp edge of his jawline, the high angles of his cheekbones.

His face softens when he sees me, his dark eyes flashing with something like warning. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? You’re looking more gorgeous by the day, you know.”

Something curls in my belly, a warmth that spreads throughout my veins. Gorgeous. My teenage crush just called me gorgeous. But he means it in that way adults do, right? Like “oh you’re so cute, child of my best friend.” Surely he doesn’t mean anything more than that, does he?

He doesn’t mean what I want him to mean.

Still, I can’t help but notice the way his gaze drops, almost like he’s checking me out for a split second, before he recovers and steps aside, to allow me access into my father’s office.

“John, I’ll talk to you later tonight,” Russ calls over his shoulder, and my father grumbles something inaudible in response. “Careful,” Russ adds to me, sotto-voice. “He’s in a mood.”

“Believe me, I know,” I mumble, though I pause for long enough to trade conspiratorial grins with Russ before I slip past him into Dad’s office. As I pass, my hip brushes against his, my bicep skimming his forearm for a second. The heat of his skin is almost enough to make me stumble in my tracks.

Get it together, Maggie. I need to deal with my father right now, not get swept under by the crush I’ve nursed since my senior year of high school, when Russ came over for my family’s semi-regular pool parties, stripped off his shirt and dove straight into the deep end. Watching him toss his head back, running a hand through that salt-and-pepper hair, a huge smile on his handsome, angular face…

Fuck. It’s enough to distract me all over again, even now. I try not to think about how cute he still looked without a shirt, how his muscles haven’t faded with time. If anything, he looks in even better shape now. The man must have a serious workout routine. Then again, working in surgery here has got to be grueling, not to mention all the overtime I know Russ pulls.

He, unlike my dad, is an idealist. He believes he can save every single person who walks through the OR doors, regardless of how hopeless others might pronounce the case. It’s always mystified me that he and my dad could get along so well, but I guess opposites can be friends sometimes.

“Good luck,” I think I hear Russ murmur behind me, just before I pull the door shut after myself.

Behind the desk, Dad clears his throat and reshuffles a stack of folders at his elbow. “So. I gave you one very simple instruction this morning.”

“And I followed it,” I reply, before he can get his rant going.

“You didn’t visit those three patients first.”

“What, do you have people tailing me?” I ask, crossing my arms.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He points to his left, to a pair of large monitors on the side wall. Of course. He had the security cameras patched through to the spare monitors he has attached to his desktop.

I roll my eyes. “Good to know you trust me to do my job, Dad.”

“I was merely interested to see how you would do, following our chat this morning.”

“You mean following your half hour long lecture,” I mumble.

“You should have gone to the priority patients’ rooms first. You should always treat the priority patients first. We are a private hospital, Maggie. How do you think we stay funded? How do you think we’re able to treat anyone? Because we play the game, we treat the people who keep us funded and supplied very, very well.”