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“Good morning. I’m Mike Jones. New NP.”
She nodded and pulled a cell from her pocket. After she sent a message to someone, she smiled up at me. “I’m Lois, head ER nurse. Nice to meet you. You’ll shadow Randy. He was grabbing me a coffee and should be right back.”
“Is Randy an NP?”
She looked up over her glasses again. “Yes, and smart enough to know to keep the head nurse happy. As areallthe physicians.”
I liked her spunk. And she wasn’t wrong. Always keep the nursing staff happy. At all costs. They keep the whole show running. “Yes ma’am. How do you like your brew?”
A grin spread over her face, and she leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. “Dark roast, three sugars and three creamers. Think you can remember that?”
“Lois, are you scaring off my new help?” a man with dark ginger hair in grey scrubs with a lab coat asked as he passed a lidded coffee to her over the desk.
“Oh Randy, hush. This is Mike, our newbie. You boys behave.”
Randy reached his lightly freckled hand to me for a handshake. “Randy Jones. Good to meet ya. I heard you had a little experience.”
I shook his hand, careful not to squeeze too hard. “Yeah, a couple years. But always learning, right?”
He flashed a white smile behind the short scruffy beard. “Great attitude. Follow me, I’ll show you where you can leave your lunch.”
I followed him as I waved to Lois. We came to a small room with a few lockers and a fridge. “Wait, I thought we didn’t have a breakroom?”
Randy laughed. “We love Clarita. She’s a funny lady. There’s a few scattered around but they’re for clinical staff. Admin staff have desks, we don’t.” He waved me to a locker. “This will be for your stuff. You can get a lock if you want. And you can leave your lunch in there,” he said, pointing to the fridge.
“Thanks, man. So, are you on the same schedule?”
We confirmed I would be with him and on the same schedule, at least for a few weeks. He seemed like a nice guy, easy to get along with. I put my stuff away, keeping my wallet with me since I didn’t have a lock yet, and he gave me a lab coat before we headed out to do rounds.
The floor I was assigned to was split between the ER and non-specialty admissions. We had a nearly full load, and while I had told Jaz a quiet day was a good day, it did feel good to be busy. It helped me keep my mind off her, at least until I ran into her.
“Hey, you. ER this week?” I asked as I saw her at one of the coffee trolleys.
“Yep. Get the crazy out first, I guess. My group will be here a couple weeks I think before we swap out. Are you on this floor?” she asked as she sipped. She seemed less tense. Good.Friends.
“Yeah, I used to get called to help out all the time because I could think fast. Plus, it didn’t hurt that I can lift a lot of weight.” I patted my bicep and winked.
She was letting out a chuckle as Randy rounded the corner. “Well, hello, beautiful.” Randy stuck his hand out and she shook it. “Mike didn’t tell me he had friends in high places.”
Jaz’s neck flushed and I cleared my throat. “Randy, this is Jaz, well Dr. Stewart. We go way back.”
She pulled her hand away, but her eyes lit up as she smiled at me. “Way back.”
Randy looked between us and shrugged. “Well, Dr. Stewart, I need to steal him away. We have a patient to check on.”
“Nice to meet you, Randy. See you around, Mike.” Jaz turned and headed the other way.
I followed Randy. Before we made it to our patient room, he spoke up. “So, who was that woman?”
Him asking about her sent a powerful surge of rage through me, but I had to chill. He had been nothing but nice and was a colleague. Plus, she wasn’t mine to be possessive over. “Old friend. So, what’s the story on the patient?”
He smacked my arm. “Hey man, if we’re gonna work together, you may as well learn to trust me now. I did a psych rotation, just like you. So, tell me for real, who is she?”
The tension in my shoulders went slack. “We dated through high school and some of college. I thought she was the one.”
“Oh. What happened? Didn’t you say you just moved here?”
“Well, I grew up here and left midway through college for football.”
