First Real Kiss
Chapter 2
Luke
My stomach shook as I maneuvered the thin, flexible tube through Mr. Dinwiddie’s femoral artery, threading it toward his heart.
Luckily, my fingers were firm. My fingers never shake during transcatheter aortic valve implantation. They’re so much simpler than open-heart surgery.
It must have been my run-in with that Chandler woman.
The catheter reached the heart, and I began the delicate procedure of replacing the faulty valve in Mr. Dinwiddie’s heart with one made of animal tissue.
What was her problem? Who did she think she was, accusing me of … what? Killing her client? Was life coach even a real job? There ought to have been a medal for not rolling my eyes or snorting in derision. As if I could discuss a patient’s confidential medical history, even posthumously, with someone unrelated to him. Or related to him, for that matter. HIPAA laws were strict. I’d never have risked my license over something as inane as that.
No matter how beautiful her hair was, or how well that emerald green sweater brought out her amazing eyes, or how much blush rose up her neck to her cheeks when she was most riled.
Who did she think she was, anyway? I shoved the gorgeous redhead from my thoughts.
I’m no slouch in the operating room. I’ll earn that regional MVS plaque this year, no matter what.
“Trent, would you close, please?” Normally, I completed all final sutures and stitched up the patients myself, but today I was liable to leave a sponge inside, so I left it to my assisting doctor.
Ms. Chandler’s unfounded attack had left me flustered, which was not my default setting.
I scrubbed out and left the OR, heading out into the hallway.
“And so I said to Charlie—”
Great. Dr. Daddington and his sidekick Dr. Chortall—unaffectionately also known by me as Dr. DadJoke and Dr. Chortle. The last two staffers I wanted to overhear today.
“—Charlie, I was thinking about a brain transplant, but I changed my mind.”
Dr. Chortle broke into her signature guffaw.
If I walked with my head down, maybe they’d just keep making puns and not notice me.
No such luck.
“Oy! If it isn’t Dr. Hotwell, the resident hottie of Torrey Junction Regional Hospital.” Dr. DadJoke had punched in the launch codes and there was no stopping his missile deployment. “Did you see your face on the cover of the Pink Ladies magazine in the gift shop, Luke? Torrey Junction’s Sexiest Man Alive, for the fifth year running.”
“Yeah,” said Dr. Chortle, “and the straw poll for who the hot nurses most want to make out with in the linen closet.”
“I do not make out in the linen closet.” I also did not change my fast gait.
“Sure, you don’t.” She gave one of those snort-filled snickers.
Frankly, I probably would’ve liked a linen closet make-out, with the right person. The right person, however, never appeared, and I was stuck getting railed on by gorgeous women instead of getting hit on by them.
I thought I’d left my witty colleagues in the dust, but unfortunately, Dr. DadJoke fell into step with me. “How was the Alvernon surgery? Did you hear about the Italian chef that died? He pasta way. Get it?”
There was no reason to respond. The orthopedic surgeon would’ve laughed until he peed himself on that one.
“So, are you going to the Quake Commemoration?” Chortle had caught up, too. What was with all the fast-walkers today? “We have a hospital booth planned.”
“No.” I sped up. They say an apple a day will keep the doctor away. I wished I’d had two apples just then. Big ones. And a good aim.
“If you skip it, it’s like you don’t care about all those people who died in the Great Quake.” Chortle had a whine to her voice to rival an ambulance’s siren, which I could only imagine truly unsettled her gynecological patients. If she hadn’t been such an expert at her job, she would have been a hundred percent intolerable. “Take a date, impress her with your sensitivity to past suffering.”
Ha. Apparently, sensitivity to suffering was patently impossible, according to Miz Chandler.