Page 14 of Born Chaos

I take that twenty-minute walk to work. I’m blasted with snow. And when I walk through the doors to the hospital, I’m dripping wet, my hair coated in snow. Without looking at anyone, without looking around, I go straight to the locker room, and climb right into the shower. I make it quick, and blisteringly hot. The snow melts off of me, my hair unfreezing.

Thankfully, the locker room is still empty when I walk back out in my bra and underwear. I pull on a fresh set of scrubs, and walk out into the hall, headed into the emergency room.

“That was some announcement,” Diana says as she walks up with a smile on her face. “You sure know how to make a splash in this city. You are all this city can talk about.”

Great. My stomach knots instantly. “Honestly, I haven’t even seen it yet. And I haven’t watched TV in… forever.”

“Well, it’s quite the picture,” she says with a wink. She pulls out her phone. “I’m pretty sure the look on both your faces is its own erotica novel.”

Oh. I blush. Hard.

At a quick glance, it would look innocent. Sebastian is sitting on the arm of his couch. I’m seated on the cushion. Our hands are clasped together, and we’re looking at each other.

But if you look at either of our faces… It isn’t too hard to tell what had been going on just minutes before this. Sebastian looks like he’d rip my clothes off if the camera turned away for two seconds. And I look like I’m stripping him completely naked with my eyes. Which I totally was doing.

Warmth sparks low in my belly. I too easily feel myself falling back into the heat of that moment, the mad desire that filled me.

“Oh boy,” I breathe out, pushing her hand away, along with the picture. “That’s embarrassing.”

“Why?” she retorts. “You landed the second most eligible bachelor in the city,afteryou had your way with thefirst. People might be calling you a gold digger if you weren’t so damn successful yourself.”

“You’re really not making me feel any better,” I say with a breath as I walk away from her, setting off to attend to a man being wheeled into a room.

I’m doing my job, and I’m still doing it well. But my ears are constantly listening for the first hour I’m at work.

I know the sound of his footsteps. I know the sound of his breathing. I know the sound of his voice like it’s my own.

So I know the second he steps foot in the emergency room. And from the way he hesitates just after walking in, I know he knows I’m here, too.

I’m resetting a broken arm. Two children were playing in their apartment. One pushed the other, and now this little boy’s arm is broken. At least it was a clean break. But his mother is frantic, and she’s trying to keep her daughter from touching and getting into everything. So, the room is chaotic. So, for now, I don’t have to have the confrontation I know is coming.

It’s an entire hour later before we both step out into the hall at the same time.

I lock eyes with Sebastian. He stares at me, too. Those dark eyes are filled with pain. With remorse. With uncertainty.

But he doesn’t say anything. From the very slight quiver in his lower lip, I think he doesn’t dare say anything.

“Obviously we need to talk,” I say, taking charge of the situation. “You’re coming to my house after my shift is over, and we’re going to talk.”

Sebastian simply nods and barely gets the word, “Okay,” out.

I give one nod myself, and we both turn our separate ways to go back to work.

Just ten minutes later, an alarm goes off. “Dr. Vincent!” I hear Diana shout. “Dr. Doe!”

Sebastian and I both dart into the hallway at the same time and watch as a man with an entire sleeve of rose tattoos is wheeled into the emergency room. His eyes are brilliant red, black veins sprouting from them. He coughs, something deep and hoarse, and then gasps for air.

“He was fine an hour ago,” a woman says frantically as she jogs with us, looking down at the man with a wedding ring on his finger. “He went out, fed, and came home. We cooked dinner and were watching a movie. He said he didn’t feel very good. Within a few minutes he started coughing, and then he was having a hard time breathing.”

“Pulse is off the charts,” I say, my tone desperate as I listen to his heartbeat.

“Oxygen levels are falling,” Diana notes from the reader clipped to his finger.

Just as we wheel the man into a room, he coughs. Once. Twice.

And then he makes this choking sound. Just a second later, his body shakes violently, a clear seizure.

“I need you out,” Sebastian barks at the man’s wife. He scoots around to the other side of the bed, digging through drawers for supplies.