“Oh, my God,” Katie said, getting up from the table to hurry over to her. “You’re always here before me. You’re here before everyone. I thought you might be sick.”
Aubry put her things away in her locker and tried to get her wildly beating pulse under control. “I’m fine.”
“You are not fine. Your face is flushed. Are you sure you’re not coming down with something?”
“No. I’m not sick.” She wound her stethoscope around her neck and turned to Katie, then took a quick look at her phone. She’d made it. Barely, but she’d made it. “Shall we head out?”
“And what’s on your neck?”
“Nothing.” She reached out to scrub both sides of her neck. “What are you talking about?”
“Right here.” Katie rubbed a spot. “It’s all red. Is it a bruise?”
Aubry put her hand on the place where Katie had rubbed. “It’s nothing. Probably hives because I got up late this morning. You know how Chen freaks me out.”
“It’s not hives. Actually, it looks kind of like a—” Katie squinted at her, then her eyes widened. “Oh, my God. You had sex.”
Aubry pivoted and walked out of the lounge, Katie right on her heels.
“I’m right, aren’t I? You had sex. Was it with that hot baseball player?”
She really hated that her friend knew so much about her life. “No.”
“Now you’re just lying to me. You had sex with him. What’s his name again? Tucker, wasn’t it?”
She stopped and turned to Katie. “Yes. And yes, if you must know. We had sex. Lots of it.”
Katie grinned. “Awesome. No wonder you look like shit. You probably stayed up screwing all night long and you’re worn out from him giving you multiple orgasms. He looks like the type of guy who’d give a woman a lot of orgasms.”
Her body quivered at the mention of orgasms. She inhaled, then let it out. “Eight.”
Katie’s brows rose. “Eight? Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Get the hell out of here. Eight? And you let him go? I’d have called in sick today and had him give me eight more.”
She laughed. “Shut up. I don’t call in sick to have sex. I don’t call in sick, period. Even when I am sick.”
Katie shook her head. “Then you’re doing it wrong, Aubry.”
“Come on.” She pulled on Katie’s sleeve. “We have work to do. We’ll talk about sex later.”
She immersed herself in her job, trying to shove thoughts of Tucker out of her head for the next several hours. Fortunately, she was busy. Not as busy as when she worked nights, but she’d had a steady stream of work. A broken arm from a job-related injury, a sick infant, and an elderly gentleman with a bowel obstruction.
Fortunately, Dr. Chen hadn’t noticed she’d barely made it on time this morning, so she’d dodged a bullet there.
Late afternoon she finally found time to get a bite to eat. She got a salad in the cafeteria, grabbed her medical notes and sat in the lounge, enjoying the few minutes of peace and quiet so she could study.
Until Katie came in with her bag of food. She pulled up a chair across from Aubry at the table, laid her iced tea down, and opened her bag.
“Surely you’re not going to study. Don’t you ever shut off that brain of yours?”
Aubry looked up from her notes. “We have a lot to learn in a short period of time. And you never know when Chen is going to ask us about some complex brain trauma we’ve never heard of.” She pinned Katie with a stern look. “You could stand to study more.”
Katie pointed to her temple and bit into her sandwich, talking with her mouth full. “I’ve got it all right here, honey.”
“Sure you do. What you’ve got is balls enough to bullshit your way through Chen’s tough questions. Or you just don’t care.”
Katie took a sip of her drink. “Of course I care. I just don’t walk on eggshells around Chen like you seem to. He wants us all to do well, and his bark is way worse than his bite. You need to relax. Didn’t those eight orgasms do the trick, or are you going back for more tonight?”
“I . . .” She paused, not sure how to answer. She’d left Tucker at her place early this morning, without thought as to when, or if, she’d ever see him again.
She didn’t date. She spent days and nights at the hospital, and when she was off, she studied and caught up on things she had to do at home. She’d used one of her rare nights off to go out with him last night. Surely Tucker would understand that she wasn’t looking for a relationship, right?