Page 46 of Dr. Brandt

“One would think. Trust me, it tastes a lot better than it looks,” he said, nodding toward the steak on my plate that I hadn’t touched.

“It looks delicious, sorry,” I said.

“Sorry again, huh?” he questioned, arching an eyebrow of disapproval at me.

“That bothers you?”

“I just don’t understand what the fuck you feel you need to apologize for?”

“Hurting your feelings by not eating your food,” I stated while he shoved nearly half of his taco in his mouth and held up a finger for me to pause.

I grinned and proceeded to construct my steak taco while Cameron worked on chewing down his large bite of food.

“I don’t know. Enjoy it because I know you don’t ever remember a time when I apologized for shit with you,” I said.

He smiled and dabbed his napkin into each corner of his mouth. “Exactly.” He scooped some salsa with a chip and threw it back as if this were his last meal. “I guess what I find so bizarre is that you feel responsible for my feelings?”

“No,” I answered, “I feel responsible for hurting your feelings.”

“Right,” he said as if his point was being made, “and who said you hurt my feelings? Who gives a fuck if you hurt them or not? I’m a grown-ass man, and I can take it if someone doesn’t like something I do or don’t do.”

“Fine, then,” I rose to meet his challenging banter. “If you can handle it, then maybe you’ll be fine with me saying that I didn’t appreciate having to learn the hard way that Jacks will most likely be paralyzed for God knows how long after this miracle cure of a surgery.”

Cameron had eaten one and a half tacos in the time it took me to get all that out, all while putting a healthy dent into the guacamole.

“Now we’re getting to a place where we can actually have a conversation.” He placed a whole, guacamole-loaded chip in his mouth, and his dark blue eyes widened in humor as he chewed it up.

“Damn, when’s the last time you ate, a year ago?” I laughed, sat back, and proceeded to nurse my beer.

“I ate this afternoon, but lunch sure as hell didn’t taste as good as this does,” he winked, then leaned back and took a sip of his beer. “So, I need to understand what Jackson feels about the surgery. I’d hoped to get a little more out of him tonight, but the reason I need to perform this surgery in the first place got in the way of that.”

“If I’m honest—”

“And sorry?” he interrupted.

“Whatever,” I rolled my eyes. “I’m scared and sad for him.”

“Just scared and sad, huh?”

That response caught me off guard, “Yes, what were you expecting me to be?”

“You seemed pissed off earlier,” he said. “You have every right to feel that way.”

I grew more serious. “I am pissed off. None of this is fair to Jackson. The only way to stop him from having constant seizures isn’t by medication. Oh, no, no, no. That would be too easy. He’s got to have half of his fucking brain removed instead. That’s the solution.”

“And if that wasn’t unfair enough,” Cam said. His eyes locked onto mine, but his demeanor was cool as a cucumber. “He may not even walk again, much less play sports. It’s fucking bullshit, I know.”

“You know?”

“I fucking know. I’ve performed this surgery. You, yourself, met with one of my former surgical patients. So, you know what I’ve seen in Lisa alone.”

“Right,” I said. “It’s not fucking fair.”

“You’d rather have Jacks back on medication? After reading his charts, he was on, what, twenty pills a day to control them when they were steamrolling his ass?”

“That’s why he was walking around like a zombie.”

“But at least he was walking around, not having to deal with possible paralysis straight out of surgery and all the fucking work that goes along with rehabilitation?”

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