Undeniably Enemies: Chapter 34

My knuckles rap on the door, and when it swings open, I nearly fall back off the front stoop.

“Jack? What are you doing here?”

“Uh, hi Katy.”

Shit. Katy is not who I was expecting, though I guess it shouldn’t totally shock me that she’d be at her dad’s or stepdad’s or uncle’s or whatever she calls Callan since he’s her adoptive father. The pitter-patter of tiny feet comes racing up behind her, and Willow jumps straight into my arms.

“Unkwah Jwak.”

“Hey, kiddo.” I kiss her forehead. “Look at you all dressed up like a princess.”

“That’s her ballet costume,” Katy supplies, taking Willow back from me and setting her down so she can run back inside. “I can’t even with how adorable she is in it. Are you here to see Cal?”

“Uh, yeah. Is he around? If now’s a bad time, I can come back or call him later.”

She waves me away. “Nah. It’s fine. Come in. Layla and Bennett are fighting over the correct way to make mashed potatoes, with skin or without.”

“Without,” I answer easily.

“I totally agree, but Bennett, the crazy man that he is, likes them with. How did I marry him?”

I laugh and follow her inside, slip off my shoes and hang up my coat on a hook by the door. I hadn’t considered doing this with an audience, nor did I want to, but it seems that’s how this is going.

“Hey, Jack.” Bennett, Callan, and Layla greet me. It’s like a Fritz meets the ER convention, and maybe I should have waited to do this tomorrow.

“Hey. Um.”

“Do you want a beer?” Bennett asks, holding up his own.

“No, thanks. I’m good.”

“Did you need to talk?” Callan questions, wiping his hand on a dish towel and rounding the island toward the great room.

I look at all of them, one by one. I should do this with Callan alone, but I’m tired of hiding everything. I’m tired of keeping things from the people I work with and my friends. Wren might kill me for this, but she’ll get over it. It’s time.

“I’m with Wren.”

“What?” everyone cries at once, staring at me as if I just spoke to them in ancient Greek.

I move straight into the kitchen and right up to the counter. “Wren and I are together. We have been for a couple of weeks now.”

Silence. I’m greeted with a heavy, deafening silence.

“Why didn’t you say anything before?” Katy’s hurt, and I hate that look on her face.

“It was new for us after a lot of fighting and tension and, well, a lot of hate, at least on her part and maybe some on mine too. We wanted to see where it would go between us before we involved the world.”

“Except something happened that brought you here tonight,” Layla surmises, and I stare down at my hands on the cold stone.

“Yes. And admittedly, it shouldn’t have come to this, and I’m sorry about that.”

“What happened?” Callan asks, coming in to stand beside me. “Is Wren okay?”

“She’s fine. We were in a grocery store shopping for dinner when we ran into Harrison Marshall.”

“Ah,” Callan says with a knowing lilt to his voice. “So he discovered your secret. Let me guess, he was ecstatic.”

I peer up at him. “To put it mildly.” I sigh. “Look, I didn’t come here to try to save myself or explain away what I did and somehow salvage my shot at chief. I came here for Wren. She wants to match in the ER, and I don’t want her reputation tarnished because I wasn’t smart or man enough to come and speak to you or the board about it when things began with us.”

Callan’s lips twist into a wry grin, and he looks at Layla. Bennett is throwing Katy a similar look.

“What? What am I missing?”

“You love her,” Katy says plainly.

“Yes,” I tell her just as simply. “I do. Very much.”

“How weird is that? You and Wren.”

I crack a smile, and Katy bursts out laughing.

“We all saw it, you know.”

“What?” That catches me by surprise.

She shrugs. “We did.”

“I didn’t,” Bennett states. “I seriously had no clue and feel totally blindsided by this. Does Owen know?”

“Not yet, but we’ll tell him the next chance we get.”

Willow twirls around the kitchen and tugs on Katy so she’ll pick her up.

“You know I was Callan’s student,” Layla offers. “He was also my med school professor, and we were pretending to be engaged, so if you really want to get into inappropriate relationships, I think we win.”

“I don’t think I knew that about the fake engagement.” The words make my lips twitch. How is that even a thing? A fake relationship? But here she is telling me that, and Sorel and Mason got married in a similar way, and Tinsley was fake engaged to Stone for a bit.

Layla shrugs. “It was so Callan could keep Katy.”

I blink, a bit stunned by that.

“Katy was trying for her fellowship while we were trying for Willow, and I was chief. That certainly wasn’t on the up and up.”

“But you told them you had to be taken out of the running for decision-making,” I counter.

“Not immediately, I didn’t.”

I blow out a breath. “Listen, I appreciate you all trying to make me feel better, but it doesn’t change what I did.”

“No,” Callan agrees with a heavy breath. “It doesn’t. Jack, you were getting chief.”

I stare at Callan, the wind knocked from my lungs. “I was?”

“That was the decision the board made. We were going to let you know Monday and then announce it Wednesday.”

Fuck. That’s quite possibly the worst news to hear.

I nod slowly, utterly sick. To know I had it and lost it is just a punch to the gut.

“Wow. I don’t know what to say…” I trail off, at a loss for words.

Another heavy silence fills the space.

“Thank you for telling me.” I swallow and lick my dry lips. “I’m honored I was your candidate. I can’t begin to tell you what that means to me. I understand that’s all changed now, but what about Wren? I don’t want this to impact her ability to match. If I have to move hospitals⁠—”

“Move hospitals?” Bennett practically spits out. “What are you talking about? You’re not moving hospitals.”

“Bennett, that all sounds good and fine, but I won’t fuck up Wren’s future or her career.”

Layla rolls her eyes, comes to the other side of me, and puts her hand on my shoulder. “Wren will be fine. She’ll match for sure. Hell, I’m not even sure if she’ll have to interview.”

“She won’t?”

She laughs. “She’s a Fritz, Jack, and is graduating top of her class. I didn’t interview either. I told them I wanted the ER, and I got it. By that point, my relationship with Callan was public knowledge.”

I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure I’m understanding.”

“What we’re saying is, we’ve been where you are and all plan to help.” Katy smiles at me and looks at Callan for confirmation on that.

“Yes,” he agrees. “That’s what we’re saying. I’m glad you told me tonight because they’re actually meeting first thing tomorrow morning. We’re going to go to that meeting and speak to them before Harrison can do his worst.”

“You realize the timing of it is all bad. It looks like I’m trying to cover my tracks.”

“Yes.” Layla shrugs. “Not much we can do about that other than have you throw yourself on your sword and hope for the best.”

“What I did was unethical.”

“And there’s a chance the board will side against you. There isn’t much I can do about that.” Callan gives me a sad expression.

“I doubt anyone would consider your treatment of Wren as a student favoritism,” Layla asserts.

A wrecked laugh flees my lungs. “No. There was no favoritism there. And we didn’t technically start seeing each other until her last day as a student.”

“Then that’s what we’ll tell the board. And we’ll see how it goes.”

I leave Callan’s not feeling a whole lot better than when I arrived, other than the fact that my secret isn’t such a secret anymore. By the time I return home, I go straight to Wren’s and find her vacuuming her sofa in only her bra and underwear because she splattered brownie batter all over herself. This is what happens when Wren Fritz is nervous and out of sorts. She does weird shit.

It would be comical, but nothing feels that way right now. Despite everyone saying they have my back, I can’t imagine the board hearing about my screwing around with a student—a student set to be an intern—and still giving me chief. Callan wasn’t chief when Layla matched in the ER, and Bennett went and spoke to the board and removed himself from decision-making on fellows.

I sleep like shit, and Wren isn’t much better. Both of us toss and turn, too worked up even for sex, which is saying a lot for us.

By morning, I’m resigned. I’ll be okay if I don’t get chief. I will be. I’ve managed disappointment before, and as long as I have her, I can weather any storm. Wren will match in the ER because, as Layla said, she’s a Fritz and is top of her class at Harvard. Each alone carries a ton of weight, but combined, she’s unstoppable.

If they give chief to Harrison, well, that’ll suck. And he might be a dick and hold this over my head or use it to his advantage. There may come a time when I do have to move hospitals, but I’ll manage that too. Life is bumpy. It’s ups and downs, but it’s the people who take the ride with us despite those bumps that make the difference.

Wren gets up before I do but isn’t much better than she was last night. She’s a mess. More so than I am. I’ve never seen her this jittery or on edge.

“It’s just chief,” I tell her as she throws on her coat and heads for the door.

“It’s more than that. It’s your career. It’s your reputation. It’s mine too.”

“Thanks for the pep talk,” I mutter dryly.

She comes back over to me and wraps her arms around my neck. “But no matter what, we’ll figure it out.”

“Thanks.” I chuckle. “That was a little better.”

She reaches up on her toes and kisses me. “I love you, and it’ll be okay.”

I kiss her back, but then she’s gone, flying out the door, and it feels… off. She feels off. More than just anxious or upset or worried. She feels off with me, and I can’t do this again. I can’t lose everything all at once, but more than that, under no circumstances can I lose her.

My shoes feel like they’re lined with lead as I walk into the hospital and onto the elevator. Callan told me to meet him at eight, and I’m here a solid ten minutes early because there’s only so much time a person can kill before they go insane. The board meeting started at seven, and I already asked the administrative assistant if I could have a few minutes of the board’s time at the end of it.

At three minutes before eight, Callan joins me, and right at eight, the assistant tells us we can enter.

“You ready?” he asks.

“As I’ll ever be.”

He claps me on the shoulder. “It’ll be fine.”

I hope so. But I’m not so sure.

Only the moment we walk in, armed with our battle plan, I freeze. Not at all prepared for what’s waiting for me.