Page 108 of Just Forever

Being a third-year emergency medicine resident is a delight.

That last one wasn’t actually sarcasm.

Somewhere inside me is a masochist who somehow, after all the years in med school and despite everything that is frustrating about working at a hospital, still enjoys this life.

Go figure.

Well, night shift is still pure torture. I’m a morning person by design, always have been, and staying up all night makes me cranky as shit, so by six o’clock in the morning the little enthusiasm there was to begin with has left the building, and I’m running solely on fumes and caffeine. I sit down on the floor in a quiet corner to finally eat the granola bar I’ve been warming in the pocket of my scrubs since last night and send up a quick prayer for a moment of peace and quiet.

I get a minute before I’m up on my feet again because I performed a thoracostomy on a guy a little while ago, and he’s apparently decided to remove the chest tube and is now regretting it on account of, you know, not being able to breathe.

All in all, by the time I stumble out of the hospital into the gray early April New York morning, even the fumes and the caffeine have dissipated, leaving behind only a vague need to contemplate every decision in my life that has brought me tothis moment. I’ll feel better once I’ve face-planted into bed and stayed there for a couple of hours, so I repeat that like a mantra to keep myself going.

My subway stop seems an impossible distance away. The few blocks I’ll have to walk might as well be the length of Antarctica.

My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I’m determined not to look. That way lies trouble. They might call me back in for whatever reason, and then I’ll just stay for another shift. It’s happened before.

I scrunch my nose and tell myself to be strong. Resist the urge to look. Ignore the loud sense of obligation.

The phone comes out.

I smile and my heart picks up speed when I see Ryk’s name on the screen.

Ryk: On your left.

I see his car immediately.

He’s in a no-parking zone, so a second later, I jog toward him and jump into the idling car.

The moment I’m in, he erases the distance between us. His hand goes to the back of my neck, and he’s pulling me on for a deep, earthshattering, love-you-like-there’s-no-tomorrow type of kiss. The kind that makes my toes curl in my sneakers and my chest swell with joy even after all these years. The kind of kiss he’s so proficient at.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” I say, failing to sound disapproving. He came back from an eight-day road trip sometime last night—his longest one this season—and by the time his plane landed, I was already at the hospital.

The Blades have been having the kind of season every hockey fan dreams of for their team, which is a nice change from the last two seasons when they… how do I put this nicely? Fumbled the puck? Miserably. But they picked themselves up and dusted themselves off and are now seriously on fire.

He leans his forehead against mine and smiles at me. “I missed you too fucking much.”

I’m a puddle of gooey feelings and satiated longing.

“Take me home,” I say.

The back terracemight be my favorite part of our house. It takes up most of our backyard, small as it is. Strings of lightbulbs zigzag across the space overhead. There’s a long plank table that fits at least ten people, more if we squeeze together tightly. Neither of us has been blessed with a green thumb or really any inclination to educate ourselves about plants, so we hired a landscaping company to figure out the plants and drop by regularly to make sure they stay alive.

I pad over the hardwood floors of the living area, slide open the glass door that leads to the terrace, and step outside. Ryk is lounging in one of the chairs, his long legs stretched out in front of him, a large cup of coffee on the side table.

It’s late afternoon. We got home earlier, he fucked my brains out in our bed, and then we both conked out.

I go to him and slide my fingers through his hair before I lower my mouth to his and kiss him.

He pulls me down onto his lap, and I wrap my arms around his neck.

“How long have you been up?” I ask.

“Fifteen minutes or so. Not long.” He squeezes my waist and slides his hand under the T-shirt I pulled on before stumbling out of the bedroom. He leans his head back against the headrest and grins at me. “We have the next two days off. Both of us.”

He sounds like he’s describing a miracle, which he might as well be. Our schedules are insane and more often than not, they don’t align very well.

“Are you proposing we go to bed and just stay there for the next forty-eight hours?”

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