Bad Case of Loving You

Lin was downing Southern Comfort shooters with her pints, which I thought was a stupid thing to do, but she seemed to hold her liquor well.

Nevins, on the other hand, was a giggler, in the sort of silly, infectious way that only geeky blokes had. I liked him better like that, especially when I noticed it was only Lin that he kept spontaneously hugging.

She seemed sober still, apart from her pink cheeks, but she kept cuddling Nevins back, and fiddling with her hair. We had actual, in the flesh, nerd courtship happening here, and Nevins was so damned pleased with himself that I kind of forgave him for walking back into the storeroom yesterday.

I leaned back against the bar and scanned the room just to avoid intruding upon the eyelash-fluttering and lip-licking that was going on—and that was just Nevins.

I found myself staring at Dr. M.

He’d changed out of the nondescript trousers and shirt he wore on the wards, and was wearing faded jeans and a T-shirt, looking completely fuckable as he leaned against a wall, pint in his hand, communing with some other doctor types.

Today’s bad mood seemed to have evaporated and he was smiling and waving his free hand in the air as he talked to a man who looked like a psychotic teddy bear in a suit. I guess if I had to face a troop of med students every morning as well as my usual workload, I’d be prone to bad moods, too.

He looked up at that moment, and I must have had an idiotic grin on my face because he smiled back at me, a particularly goofy smile that did great things to me.

Lin pushed another pint into my hands and followed my gaze. She said, “Oh,” under her breath and went pinker, then Nevins hugged her again, distracting her.

I turned back to the bar.

Chapter Six

F was in full flight, describing his close encounter of the obnoxious kind with Human Resources that day, and I felt the tension begin to ebb.

It had been a bad day, with a bad night before it. I couldn’t believe how close I’d come to blowing my career, or at least to blowing something else.

I’d walked onto the ward this morning absolutely determined to keep the barriers in place. They were students; I was a tutor and supervisor. The hospital would have my ass.

Okay, that wasn’t a good place to go in my head, and it certainly wasn’t helping things. F frowned a little and said,

“Andrew, you old bastard, what the fuck is wrong with you?

You look like shit.”

F was probably the closest friend I had on staff. He was hopelessly middle-class, with a full-blown chemical dependency or two, and he claimed he was only working until such time as THC became available on prescription. My sort of person, once I got past the fact he drove a BMW and sent his kids to boarding school.

“I want to ask you a personal question,” I said, leaning forward and dropping my voice.

“I’ve got half a bag in the car,” F said, leaning his head forward briefly, too, so our foreheads were touching.

I had to laugh. Maybe I was blowing this all out of proportion.

There I was again, thinking about blowing things.

“Have you ever fucked a med student?” I asked.

“A student in general, or one of my own?” F sounded far too entertained for my liking.

“One of your own.”

“Yeah, a few,” he said. “Is that what’s up your arse?”

I spluttered beer at him.

“Ah,” he said, wiping ineffectually at his suit jacket. “I prefer the girls myself, but whatever rolls your socks down.”

“So, on a scale of appallingly bad taste lechery, where does it fall?” I asked. “How many of us decide that a power imbalance is no barrier to a really good fuck?”

F surveyed the bar, chewing on his lip in thought. “I can see three registrars or consultants here that I know of.

Moronic residents don’t count; they’re just med students with the trainer wheels off. Say, a third of the quacks here.” He looked at me as I took another mouthful of beer. “Tempted, huh?”

“Yeah,” I said, grinning at F. I looked around the bar, trying to imagine which of my colleagues here had got down and dirty with a student.

Blake was leaning back against the bar, beer in his hand, smiling at me and looking utterly gorgeous.

F must have glanced across, too, because he gave a filthy chuckle. “I’m guessing it’s not the tubby guy giving serious tongue to that girl, but the babe with the curls beside him.

My, my, he is cute, isn’t he? I’d swing for him.”

Blake turned back to the bar as Nevins and Lin surfaced for air, and all I could think of was that I actually knew his cell phone number. It was in my wallet, along with his scrawled

‘Matthew Blake’.

“Buy me a beer.” F thrust his empty pint into my hand.

“Now, because you are being flirted with, you idiot.”

“Fuck off, Feargal,” I said, but I took his glass and headed for the bar.

I could have walked to any part of the bar. It was all equally crowded with hospital staff discussing who they’d sleep with if the world was about to end, but I found myself walking toward where Blake, Nevins, and Lin were.