Her lips curved and she reached across the table to grab his hand. “Trust me, Tucker. I like what you’ve got.”
“Good. Then quit trying to end it. We’re good. We’re having fun together. So stop trying to complicate something that, so far, isn’t complicated.”
Now she studied him, before finally nodding.
“Okay. Uncomplicated it is.”
He wondered if she’d brought it up because of the work schedule thing, or if it was something else. Because, really, what they were doing was as uncomplicated as it could get. Sure, they both had busy schedules, but so far they’d been able to work around them. And he liked Aubry—a lot. He wanted to keep seeing her. But if she had reservations about it—about him . . .
He decided to shrug it off and just go with the way things were for now. Aubry was pretty upfront and outspoken. If she had issues, she’d tell him.
He definitely had no issues. He liked being with her, liked seeing her, touching her and having sex with her. He knew she didn’t want to complicate her life, and after that debacle with Laura, the last thing he wanted was a difficult relationship.
So far, the two of them were working well.
He intended to keep it that way.
AUBRY HAD HER HANDS FULL WITH A PATIENT WITH abdominal pain, another with a broken ankle, one with a bloody nose that wouldn’t clot properly and one with an upper-respiratory infection. She’d been running nonstop since she got to work this morning, which made for a good day as far as the passage of time, but it sure as hell had been hectic.
“Room twelve is vomiting blood,” Olivia, the nurse said as she passed her in the hall.
“Tell him to quit sniffling. He’s drawing all that blood down his throat. And is the clotting agent working yet?”
Olivia nodded. “It seems to be slowing down the bleeding. I’m heading back in there now to check.”
“I’ll be there shortly. I need to check the X-rays for the abdominal patient.”
She reviewed the X-rays, which didn’t tell her what she needed to know, so she found the intern in charge of her abdominal patient.
“What do you see on this X-ray?”
The intern, Max, studied it. “Not much, really. Nothing to account for the amount of pain the patient is in. We’ve ruled out appendix and gall bladder.”
She nodded. “What would you do next?”
Max looked at her. “I’d order a CT scan of the upper and lower abdominal region.”
“Good call. Get that done and go monitor the patient. Let me know when we have the results.”
Max nodded and went to order the tests.
That taken care of, she went in to check on her nosebleed patient. True to what Olivia had told her, the clotting agent was working and his bleeding had stopped. She packed his nose and decided to keep him there to make sure the bleeding didn’t start up again. Hopefully within an hour he’d be on his way, with instructions to see a specialist about his inability to appropriately clot.
They’d gotten X-rays back on the upper-respiratory patient, which fortunately revealed no pneumonia, just a bad case of bronchitis. She sent the older woman on her way with antibiotics and an inhaler, and a note to follow up with her personal physician.
Since she actually had a minute to breathe, she went to grab an energy drink. She had downed that when her phone buzzed.
It was Tucker. In the waiting area. You busy?
She rolled her eyes. She hadn’t seen him in a couple days. Conflicting schedules and all. But he had kept in touch and they’d talked.
But now, to just show up here? For some reason he must think she worked in an office, and he could drop by anytime. She was going to have to set him straight about that.
Like now, when she had those few minutes to breathe. She headed out to the waiting area where he stood at the desk talking to Charlene, the intake coordinator.
He looked up when he saw her and smiled.
So typical. He wore loose jeans, a long-sleeved cotton shirt pushed up to the elbows, and he looked gorgeous.
She, on the other hand, had her hair pushed behind her ears and her scrubs were covered in . . . God only knew what. She felt disgusting.
“Hey,” he said, heading over to her. “I was in the area so I thought I’d drop by.”
“I’m really busy. You should call or text and make an appointment.”
He laughed. “I haven’t fallen or torn anything up, Doc. I don’t need an ER appointment.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh. You meant like an appointment for a date. Well, aren’t you all important.”