Undeniably Enemies: Chapter 23

Monday, I wake before dawn, which this time of year in Boston is fucking early. It’s cold. It’s dark. It makes the annoyingly short one-and-a-half-mile run to the hospital exactly what I need it to be, even if it’s not longer. I left Wren’s house sometime before midnight on Saturday. I wasn’t sleeping over, and neither of us had to even mention that. She was my Cinderella again, but this time, at midnight, I turned into the pumpkin.

I haven’t seen her since, but I haven’t stopped thinking about her either.

On Sunday, I didn’t go to Stone’s to watch Mason’s away game, and I didn’t do much other than unpack and order in. I didn’t listen for her. I didn’t look through my peephole at her door. I put myself in a bubble, but a bubble can only do so much to block out the rest of the world when it’s fucking translucent.

Saturday was a mistake. Because now I don’t know how to go back.

Other than maybe being a dick to her, but I don’t want to be a dick to her anymore. I want a repeat of Saturday every Saturday. I want to take her on dates and learn all the things I never knew because I was too afraid to look.

I’ve never wanted anyone with this level of life-altering intensity before. It’s as if my body and mind are no longer under my control. I want her to the point of madness. To the point where I no longer care that she’s Owen’s sister or my neighbor or my student because I want her anyway. I’m hardly trying to resist. It makes me hate myself.

Which is why I’m running at a hard sprint, hoping I’m exhausted and spent by the time I reach the hospital so that my mind is only able to focus on work and nothing else.

Because I have to resist.

There’s no other way this can go.

I want this chief job—I’ve earned it. Work is consistent. Work doesn’t cheat, and it doesn’t lie, and it doesn’t break your fucking heart. Well, the patients might, but work itself doesn’t. Work hasn’t failed me, and it hasn’t betrayed me. It saw me through. Even when she was my second-best gal, she stayed dutifully by my side.

Cold sweat drips down my face and neck as I pant for my life when I reach the ambulance bay. My hands link behind my head, and I do my best to drag oxygen into my lungs while I pace back and forth.

“Jesus, Kincaid,” a voice comes from behind me. “Are you okay, man?”

I turn to find my uncle, Brecken, standing by the ambulance bay doors.

“Yeah. Hey.” I laugh, a little taken aback. “What the hell are you doing out here at this hour?”

Brecken is my mom’s older brother. He’s also married to Rina, who is Wren’s aunt, but whatever.

“I’m picking up Rina. She’s on nights, and I hate it when she leaves here in the dark.”

A smile breaks clear across my face. Rina Fritz Davenport is an ICU nurse, one of the few Fritzes who didn’t become a doctor because she wanted to make a direct impact on her patients. Rina is fucking cool. And her husband is obviously obsessed with her.

I check my watch. “Change of shift isn’t for another hour.”

“Nah, her floor switched it up, and now they’re doing it at six.”

I stare at him. “For real?”

“Something that has to do with school schedules.” He shrugs. “I don’t know. So who’s the girl?”

“What?” That takes me aback for a second time, and I find myself crossing the asphalt over to him. “Why would you ask that?”

He gives me a don’t play a player look. “You ran here over an hour before your shift, and it looks like you sprinted the entire way.”

“So?”

He laughs. “Come on, man. Just tell me. I’m a vault, and I won’t tell your mother even though she’s been trying to match you up like a bride for a decade now.”

I think about this for a moment. Breck fell in love with Rina, who was—is—my mom’s best friend. Like Owen is for me. I remember hearing once how my mom and he fought over it because she wasn’t happy he was dating her best friend. Fuck it.

“It’s Wren.”

He blinks at me. “What about her?” Realization dawns on him, and he slowly nods. “Ah. You’re in love with her. Shit.”

“What? No.” I take a step back, feeling like he just hit me in the chest with a two-by-four.

Especially when he smirks knowingly at me. “What would you call it then? What else has a man leaving his house before dawn, running the way you ran here, and looking like that?”

I shake my head. “That’s not⁠—”

“A million years ago I stood outside these very doors”—he pans his hand toward the bay doors—“with that same forlorn, had my gut punched in, can hardly take a deep breath expression. Hell, that woman got me to read Twilight. Imagine that.”

I gulp, thinking about the books Wren got me to read.

“Those Fritz women, man. They just get inside of you, and that’s that. You’re a goner. For real, there is no coming back from them.”

“Thanks,” I mutter dryly.

He pats my sweaty shoulder, winces, and wipes his palm on his jeans. “Sorry, man, but it’s true. Best thing you can do is roll with it. Accept it. Chase it.”

I put my hands on my hips and stare down at the ground. “I can’t do that. I’m after chief, and she’s looking to match as an intern here. Plus, she’s Owen’s sister and ten years younger than me.”

He whistles through his teeth. “Feels like a lot is stacked against you.”

“Yeah,” I agree, my lips twisting at that.

“Sucks that you’re already in love with her then.”

I glare, and it’s not a kind glare either. Uncle or not.

He holds his hands up in surrender. “Just calling it like I see it.”

The doors swoosh open, and Rina waltzes out into the predawn morning. She sees Brecken, and her face lights up, and I’m reminded how much she looks like Wren. Or how much Wren looks like Rina when Rina was Wren’s age. And I look like Breck—I look a lot like my dad, but I also look like him too.

Rina leans in and kisses him, and I feel awkward standing here witnessing it. Breck clears his throat and points to me, and Rina laughs. “Oh. Sorry, Jack. I didn’t see you.”

I wave that off. “It’s fine.”

“He’s in love with Wren.”

“The fuck?!” I bark incredulously at him. “What happened to you keeping your mouth shut and not spilling my secrets?”

He laughs and points at me. “Ah, but I just got you to admit you’re in love with her, didn’t I?”

“No… I mean, I’m not…” I trail off, struck by that. Did I just admit that? Is that what’s going on? I sigh and feel it rattle in my bones. Fuck me sideways, he did, didn’t he?

The truth is, I am starting to fall for her.

I can lie to myself, and I can lie to them, but he’s right. I am.

“Shit,” I hiss, scrubbing my hands up and down my face. “I can’t be in love with her. She’s all wrong for me.”

A smile lights up Rina’s face, and she and Breck, hand in hand, stride over to me. “I don’t know what’s going on with you and Wren, but consider this. Sometimes all wrong leads to the right happily ever after.” She throws Brecken a side-eye, and he winks at her. They walk past me and head out into the morning. “Later, Jack.”

“Bye,” I mumble under my breath, still more than a little off from this revelation.

This is going to be a problem.

After a shower, a quick change into scrubs, and a drag of my fingers through my hair, I deem myself ready for the day. Rina and Brecken can say whatever they like because it’s easy for them to do so. They don’t have to deal with the reality of it, and with that, I’ve decided to pretend this morning is yet another thing that didn’t happen.

Childish? Maybe. But do I care? Not so much.

By a quarter to seven, everyone is here. The night nurses are giving their reports, anxious to get out of here and leave their patients to the day shift. Med students and interns are going through charts and doing early exams—much to the patients’ chagrin—to be able to present during rounds. Me? I’m sipping my second cup of crap coffee and anxious like a thief waiting to get busted.

Wren is already here. I know that. Her name murmurs through the halls, and as I decide to get the fuck over it and head toward the nurse’s station, I catch a glimpse of her chatting with Dr. Marshall. He leans in, places his hand on her lower back, and whispers something by her ear that makes her laugh, and my fists ball up accordingly.

“Hey, Marshall, your wife is on the phone for you,” I bark as I pass them.

He jumps back, all wide-eyed and terrified as he rips his phone from his hip to check it. “She is? I don’t see a missed call.”

Dick.

“Oh, maybe that was someone else’s wife.”

He goes from nervous to annoyed in a nanosecond. “That was uncalled for. You’re a real asshole.”

“Never said I wasn’t. Just ask my student. Speaking of, keep your fucking hands to yourself and stop flirting with her.”

He glares. “Watch yourself there, Kincaid. You don’t know who you’re messing with.”

“I’m not the one with the band on my hand and a reputation for trying to bend it.” I make a point of glaring at the fat yellow gold wedged on his left hand and continue on. Wren doesn’t say anything, and I don’t even so much as glance at her, but I’m sure she’s angry with me over that. All the better. He should know I’m on to him, and he needs to stay the fuck away from her.

I do too, so those are words we should both live by.

Wren seems to feel the same way because I don’t see her at all the rest of the day. She and Daffy are on fast-tracks because I’m feeling magnanimous like that, and it gives me the freedom to work on harder patients. The rest of day one of Wren detox goes smoothly, and I run home, shower again, and watch Monday Night Football with the sound up so I can’t hear anything that’s happening outside of my apartment.

Tuesday goes the same as Monday without the mental bitch slap of Rina and Brecken. I run, I work, I run home. Wash, rinse, repeat. By Wednesday, I feel like I can do this until there’s no getting away from her because it’s suddenly all hands on deck, and she’s my student to manage. A college Devil’s Night party—that started during the day—got out of control, and at least a dozen kids are bleeding, burned, or so drunk we’ve had them loaded up with IVs and emesis basins.

But when you mix alcohol, fear, and stupidity, you get very combative patients. Like this kid on the gurney who has third-degree burns on his forearms and a nasty head laceration across his forehead. He’s bucking and trying to knock us off, which makes me wonder if he’s on more than just some alcohol. If he is, none of his dipshit friends are telling us, so we’ll have to wait for the tox screen to come back. Right now, the dip isn’t showing much other than some marijuana, which isn’t making him react like this.

But without knowing what he’s on and the extent of his injuries, we can’t sedate him yet, and we can’t restrain him because of his burns, so it’s like trying to calm down a bull when all he sees is red. He’s ripped out his IVs, and I can’t start a central line because he won’t hold fucking still.

“Andrew,” I yell in his face. “Calm down. I’m Doctor Kincaid, and I’m trying to help you. Not hurt you. You’re in the hospital.”

He thrashes. “Let me go. Get the fuck off me! I’ll kill all of you if you touch me.”

“What did you take? Calm down.” I glance over at the nurse on my left, who’s trying to hold his legs down, while I go after his shoulders. “Any suggestions?” He and his pack of Mensa candidates tried to set off homemade fireworks. Hence the burns. They’re lucky they didn’t die or blow up the city. I could sedate him, but if I give him the wrong thing, he could also die. “He’s tachycardic with a prolonged QTc interval on EKG. My guess is something with amphetamines.”

“Right. Which could be a dozen things or a congenital defect.” She shakes her head, at as much of a loss as I am. She turns and searches the room, finding a student in the corner. “Plus, his dipstick didn’t show anything. You, check on the labs. We need to know what’s in the tox screen. Go to the lab and sit on them until it’s done.”

The student runs off, and we turn back to the patient, holding him down and hoping he settles so we can start to treat him.

Movement out of the corner of my eye catches my attention, and I see Wren coming up behind me toward the patient. I shake my head at her. “Get back, Wren. He’s not safe.”

She doesn’t respond. She just gives me a look that says to trust her, and I don’t like it.

I open my mouth to tell her to fucking listen to me when she says, “Hey, Drew?” The kid’s head twists, and his eyes blink in rapid fire at her. “Molly is just down the hall.”

That sets him off, and he starts to scream and up his thrashing to the next level, fighting like he’s trying to get to Wren. Or Molly. I’m holding him down, but it’s tough because he’s a big, strong kid with no appreciation for his own pain, and I’m afraid he’s going to break through my grip and grab her. Anxious sweat prickles my forehead and the back of my neck.

I need to get her out of here, but I can’t release him.

“Wren! Go!” I yell at her, unable to hide the fury and fear in my voice. “Get back.”

She ignores me and continues to talk to the patient. “She wanted me to check on you. She’s worried. She said you need to calm down and that you can’t see her until you do.” She holds up her hands and waves them gently in the air toward him in a soothing motion. “Drew, calm down and listen. Molly sent me to talk to you.”

“Molly,” he repeats, starting to quiet a little. He’s still bucking and jerking away from us, but whoever Molly is, she’s someone who’s getting his attention and focus.

“Yeah.” She smiles. “She’s okay. Her burns are minor, and we put some cream on them.”

The kid breaks down, tears pouring from his eyes like a river. “I hurt her,” he wails. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t think it would explode like that.”

Wren moves in closer and puts her gloved hand on the side of his face away from his bleeding cut, and I shoot her a look that says back the fuck off, but again she ignores me, and I can’t reprimand her in here when she’s talking to the patient.

“Hey,” she coos softly. “She knows. She told me that.”

“Is she mad?” the kid sobs.

“No. She’s worried about you. She said she loves you, and she needs you to let the doctors treat you.”

He sniffles and stares at her for a very long moment as if trying to register her words, and he glances back at all of us, his pupils totally blown out, so it could be any number of things or just a fuck ton of alcohol. “You won’t hurt me?”

“We’re trying to help you,” I tell him. “You have a bad cut on your forehead and some nasty burns on your arms.”

He gulps, and more tears trickle down the sides of his face. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

“We know,” Wren says. “Let them help you. For Molly.”

“I’m going to be in so much trouble. My parents will kill me.”

“Shh,” Wren soothes. “None of that. You need to get better. Molly told me you guys took some ecstasy. Is that right?”

“Yeah,” he says, starting to shake now. “I got some from my friend.”

“And it looks like it was cut with a hell of a lot of coke or amphetamines,” the nurse murmurs beside me.

I nod, but with that thought in mind, and with him finally calming down, we get going on his line and give him some lorazepam to settle him down and also reduce his risk of seizure and lower the amphetamine-induced hypertension he has.

Finally, he closes his eyes, and his body goes slack. All of us take a deep breath.

“Miss Fritz, I need to speak to you in the next room. Now.”

She gives me a wary look but nods, not stupid enough to argue with me in here.

“Let’s get his wounds cleaned up and examined, but don’t dress them until the burn unit comes down,” I tell the team of doctors and nurses. “I want a CT of his head, and once that’s clear, we can suture him up.”

I storm out of the room and march down the hall. I don’t have to look to know Wren is following me, and when I reach an empty patient room, I march in there and slide the glass door and the curtain closed behind us.

I turn on her. “What in the absolute fuck were you thinking?”

“I was trying to calm him down!” she fires back, indignation flaring in her eyes.

“Do you have any idea how dangerous what you just did was?”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“Not at first it didn’t, and what would you have done if he had broken through my grip and come after you?”

Her gaze drops to the floor, and I take a step toward her, my jaw locked and my hands… fuck, I’m shaking. It’s not from the patient or the adrenaline. She could have gotten hurt in there. Before I can stop myself, I cup her jaw in my hand and lift it so I can see her eyes.

“What if he had hurt you?”

“He didn’t. I’m fine.”

I shake my head, unable to form words. I got spooked. Really fucking spooked, and it hits me that I feel like I have something to lose here. Something that isn’t even mine and never will be. But something I can’t lose or see hurt all the same.

“Wren…”

Her hand covers mine on her face, and I don’t stop myself from dragging my thumb along the edge of her lips.

“I was so scared. I thought…what if I couldn’t hold him back?”

“I’m fine, Jack. I am.”

I stare into her eyes, feeling like I’m losing my mind. Losing it completely.

I clear my throat and drop my hand when what I really want to do is bring her into my arms so I know she’s safe and kiss the hell out of her so she knows she can’t disobey me again.

“Next time tell me what you’re going to do. Approaching an out-of-control patient like that is dangerous to you, him, and the rest of the staff. We communicate with each other in traumas because it’s life or death in that room, and it’s not just the patient’s safety I’m concerned about.”

She glares wordlessly.

“Do you understand me?”

She swallows audibly and slowly nods. She knows I’m right. “Yes, Dr. Kincaid. I’m sorry I didn’t communicate with you. You’re right. I put myself, the patient, and other staff at risk.”

I blow out a breath, and now I do break and pull her into me. Just for a second. Just a beat so I can hug her and smell her hair before I immediately release her and take a step back. I’m seriously fucked with this girl.

“Okay. You can go back now.”

“Can I stay and watch the burn unit?”

I nod. “Yes. But stay out of their way.”

“I will.”

I walk past her and open the curtain and glass door.

“Jack?”

I pause and wait.

“I really am sorry.”

“You did good in there, Wren, and you learned how to do it better for next time.”

With that, I walk out. Tomorrow is my interview for chief, and that’s what I need to focus on. Not the woman who somehow has managed to flip my entire world upside down.