Page 2 of Swerve
“Five minutes. They’ll page you if you’re needed.”
Reason waves its flag again, but he is the head of the department, so who am I to argue?
I take the chair, my mug wedged between my hands, tempted to follow the path of small talk, then deciding against it. If there’s a reason he’s asked me to sit here, I’ll leave it up to him to get to it.
“What’s the most difficult case you’ve seen since you’ve been here?” he asks, sipping from his mug, staring at the skyline outside the large glass window in front of us.
“Um, that would be the naked man who insisted on doing cart wheels in the ER.”
“Ah, yes,” Dr. Maverick says, smiling. “Hypoglycemic, right?”
“Right. And he had no memory of anything that happened before we gave him the orange juice.”
“That one was a bit of a shocker, I have to say.”
“What’s yours?” I ask.
He visibly ponders, then, “A young woman who suffered from trichotillomania. She had the compulsive urge to pull out and eat her hair as well as her eyelashes.”
My eyes widen at this one. “What did you do for her?”
“The amino acid N-acetylcysteine worked wonders. And cognitive therapy. She’d had a traumatic experience during childhood where an adult caretaker had punished her for chewing on her hair by cutting off a chunk and making her eat it.”
My stomach dips a bit. Human cruelty still surprises me. Although I’m not sure why. I see evidence of it every day and its lasting effects. “I guess you’ve heard it all by now.”
“Actually, I still get surprised. That’s the thing about human beings. We’re all unique.”He takes another sip of coffee. “What made you decide on Hopkins? We were all glad you did, of course. You were one of our top pics, but I’m always curious as to what tips the scale.”
“Columbia would have been my other choice,” I say, deciding on honesty. “But I’m my sister’s guardian, and she’s finishing up high school in D.C. I didn’t want to make her move to another place where she wouldn’t have the friends she’s grown up with.”
I can see that my answer isn’t what he expected. “That’s a pretty enormous load of responsibility.”
I shrug. “I don’t see it that way. She’s my family, the only family I have.”
He studies me for a few seconds, visibly rearranging the pieces of information that have until now formed his opinion of me. “Does she have your drive and academic talent?”
“Actually, I think she got the brains in the family.”
“You’re modest.”
“Honest.”
Admiration flickers through his scrutiny, and I feel the moment his interest flares to something not appropriate for our positions. I’m conflicted in my response. This beautiful man, and he is beautiful, has noticed me. I’ve been turning away from potential relationships for so long now that my inclination is to douse the spark of this one before it ever has the chance to flame to life.
But I don’t. I don’t know why. Common sense mandates that I do. Workplace relationships are always a terrible idea, and in the case of him being department chair, well, terrible wouldn’t be a strong enough adjective.
I hold his gaze just long enough to let my recognition of the attraction register. The silence between us becomes full with awareness, and it’s then that my phone buzzes. I glance at the screen. “I’m needed in the ER.”
“Better go then,” he says, his smile again retreating to neutral so that I wonder if I had imagined the attraction.
I set my mug on the table in front of us, stand. “Thanks for the coffee, Dr. Maverick.”
“Thanks for the company.”
“Have a good night,” I say, heading for the door.
“You, too, Dr. Benson,” he says, his voice now brisk with professionalism.
Already, he has rethought the wisdom of that detour we’d both considered taking. A single moment of weakness properly rerouted by an ER page. No harm done.
