The Temporary Roomie by Sarah Adams

3 HOURS EARLIER

I’m dead.

I am a walking zombie after the night from hell. I’m not sure if there was a full moon or what, but three of my patients all went into labor around the same time yesterday. One ended in an emergency C-section around 2 AM, and the other two (God bless them) labored naturally for close to twenty hours total. I have practically been living at either my clinic or the hospital for the past thirty-something hours because I didn’t want to be too far away from my patient that was experiencing complications, but now that the storm is over, all I want to do is go home, shower, and pass out for maybe the rest of my life.

Even just trying to get down the main hallway of the hospital feels like I’m walking through a warped room in Willy Wonka’s factory. Everything is tunneling and the lights feel strange, like I’m floating but also dragging. I’ve worked a lot of long hours over the last few years, but this stretch feels like the hardest yet. Normally, I can rest for at least an hour or two in one of the on-call rooms even when I’m needed at the hospital for extended stretches. But not this time. It was one freak situation after another, and I was a human bouncy ball, pinging all over the place.

When I pass a vending machine, I realize I haven’t eaten in…well, I have no idea how long. I barely know what day it is now. My stomach grabs me by the collar of my scrubs and screams at me to feed it. I’m tempted to flatten myself against the glass and nap for one tiny minute before the protein bar drops. I don’t get the chance, though.

“Hi, Dr. Marshall!” A nurse named Shannon pops up beside the vending machine, ponytail perky, fresh-faced for her shift. Since I feel like death warmed over, her exuberance for the morning makes me want to grimace. “I heard about that emergency C-section you did earlier for the twins—uh-mazing! I wish I could have been here to see it.”

I lean down and shove my hand into the slot, the flap thing scraping against my hand as I pull the protein bar out, and I wonder why they haven’t discovered a better way of making these things yet.

“Yeah. It went well. Thanks.” I try to smile, but it doesn’t work. My brain is no longer sending signals to my face apparently. Must. Get. Home.

I sling my backpack over my shoulder and start unwrapping the protein bar while walking toward the doors. Shannon falls in step beside me, and I find it odd. We’ve never talked outside of dealing with a patient or exchanging pleasantries.

“Cool! So…have any fun plans this weekend?”

“Sleep,” I say around a bite of the bar. Normally, I’d give a better effort at conversation, but not today. I can’t. I’m about to give up on everything and curl into a ball on this nasty hospital floor then sleep for a minimum of eight hours.

“Oh, yeah! I bet you’re exhausted. Well…”

I can see the sliding double doors. I’m almost out of here.

Shannon takes two extra steps to get a little ahead so she can turn and face me, walking backward. “After your beauty sleep, if you’re bored and need something to do, I’m around. Call me.” She wrinkles her nose in what’s supposed to be a cute smile before she hands me her number on a piece of paper and bobs off, but I don’t like it. Not one bit.

First, I’m not going to call her because I have a policy of not getting involved with anyone I work with. It’s just how I do things. It makes life easier and drama-free in my career. Second, I’m not going to call her because if I do manage to get any downtime this weekend, I will use it to do absolutely nothing.

My sister, Lucy, and her four-year-old son, Levi, were living with me until about a month ago when she married my best friend Cooper. Before she lived with me, Cooper was my roommate, and before that, I roomed with a few other guys from med school. It’s been years since I’ve lived alone, and I’m ready to enjoy my empty house on my time off. Maybe I’ll walk around in my underwear. No—naked! Yeah, that’s it, I’ll become a nudist when I’m home. Free to sit my naked butt anywhere I want.

I’m six feet from the exit when another nurse steps into my path. For the love.

“Dr. Marshall! So happy I ran into you!”

What is happening? Is this a joke? Does everyone know I’m about to die of exhaustion and they’re pranking me? Because honestly, nurses don’t talk to me like this. I always have a firm, unapproachable wall up.

“Hey…” I trail off because I do not know her name.

“Heather! I’m Heather. I assisted you on the Murphy family’s birth last week.”

“Oh, that’s right. Sorry, Heather.” Not right. I don’t remember her.

She smiles wider. “Yeah, no problem. Anyway, just…wanted to see if maybe you’d be interested in getting a drink at some point? There’s a really great bar on 2^nd Avenue I’ve been wanting to try.”

Am I in some sort of twilight zone? What. Is. Happening?

“Uh—thanks for the offer, I really appreciate it.” I really appreciate it?! What am I, turning down a job offer? “I actually have a rule, though, that I don’t date colleagues. It just keeps everything simple; you know?”

This time I do muster up a smile, although I’m afraid it looks closer to a grimace. Oh well. Everyone needs to get out of my way so I can go sleep. Heather does not get out of my way. She stays firmly in the way.

“Sure, and that’s a great rule.” Her shoulder hitches up coyly. “But surely you could make an exception just this once.” Her lashes flutter, and it makes my eyes feel even drier. “I bet we could have a really good time together.”

Nice job. Subtle as a freight train, Heather.

I’m not proud of it, but I’m in survival mode now, so I pull my phone from my pocket and look at the screen, pretending to be getting a phone call at six in the morning. “Sorry, I don’t think…oh, excuse me, I gotta take this.”

She looks crestfallen for sure, but I don’t stick around long enough to give her a chance to respond. I hike my backpack more firmly onto my shoulder and press my phone to my ear. I make it two steps and then Siri asks loudly, “How may I help you?”

Nice. Smooth.

I don’t look back to see if Heather heard. I walk at a frantic pace to my Jeep, hoping no more women will appear out of thin air and proposition me. Definitely not something I’ve ever thought before. I make it to my old Jeep, throw my bag in the back seat, and then slide into the passenger seat and lock the doors behind me. I’m not sure what was happening in that hospital, but clearly everyone has lost their minds.

Leaning my head back against the headrest, I debate calling an Uber because I know driving this drowsy is not safe. I pry my eyes open enough to request a ride and then sink back against the seat again, preparing to doze until it arrives.

TAP. TAP. TAP.

My eyes fly open, and I shoot up so fast I give myself whiplash. Something snaps angrily in my neck. That, however, is the least of my worries right now. No, instead, I rub the now sore spot in my neck while turning to look at Dr. Susan Landry, one of the other doctors who works in the same practice as me.

Feeling safe that it’s not another nurse about to come on to me, I roll the window down.

She chuckles, eyeing the dark rings under my eyes. “You look terrible.”

“Thank you for noticing. I feel terrible too.”

I like Susan. She’s an amazing doctor, and we’ve always had a great working relationship. There’s no nonsense between us. We never see each other outside of work, and we keep everything professional. It’s just how I like it.

“Although apparently the nurses in there didn’t get the memo that I look terrible. I got asked out twice in five minutes.” I rub my neck. “It was the weirdest thing. I blame it on the full moon that sent all my patients into labor.”

“Really? Because I blame it on the fact that when your sister came and had lunch with you in the cafeteria last week, she went on and on about how single you are and how you need to find yourself a girlfriend and settle down.”

I groan inwardly and curse my sister and her good intentions. “But how does anyone know about that?”

“Gossip travels fast within those hospital walls, and one of the nurses was sitting behind you guys. Apparently, the whole nurses lounge knew by one o’clock.”

Well this is bad. The whole staff being alerted to my singleness is something I wanted to avoid. It’s why I’ve always been vague about my personal life. “Well, I guess it’s fine. I’ll just have to be firm about my rule.”

“What rule?” she asks while tightening her raven ponytail.

“I don’t date colleagues.”

Her eyebrows rise. “Ever?” Something about the way her voice goes up an octave alarms me.

“Yeah…it’s just something I do to keep everything professional at work.”

Her smile goes nervous, which is strange because I’ve never seen it do that before. “Well, then I guess I shouldn’t toss my hat in the ring like I was planning to.” She tries to cover up her embarrassment with a soft chuckle, but it doesn’t work. I can still see how vulnerable she is, and I am absolutely too tired to deal with this gracefully. My eyeballs feel like they’ve been doused with pepper spray.

“Oh—you were going to…ask me out?” Now I’m worried my policy won’t be enough. What if Susan is offended I won’t bend my rule for her? Will our working relationship become awkward?

She shrugs a little, her smile quirking hopefully. “Yeah, to the fundraiser gala. I was thinking since we get along so well, and we’re both single—”

“I’m not,” I blurt, before I have the chance to stop myself.

Her brows crinkle together. “You’re not?”

“Nope. I actually already have a date to the gala.” I don’t. “My girlfriend.” Don’t have one of those either.

Susan looks understandably confused. “But you told your sister you were single…”

“Only because she doesn’t know about it yet. It’s new. I’m dating her best friend, and I know she won’t like it.” DREW STOP. “We’re serious though.” I can feel my brain shaking its metaphorical head at me. You tired, tired fool.

“Okay, but then…why didn’t you say that at first? Why mention your rule?”

Goodness, Susan. So many questions.

“I forgot I was in a relationship. Like I said, it’s new. And…I’m sleep-deprived.” There, that last part is real at least.

“Gotcha,” Susan says, like she still doesn’t fully believe me. “Well, I’m looking forward to meeting her at the fundraiser.” Why do her words feel like a taunt? A challenge? This is bad, but I can’t worry about it now.

My Uber driver finally arrives and carries me home, where I stumble inside, feeling more drunk than I’ve ever been from the effects of alcohol. I throw my phone on the couch along with my backpack then go into my room and strip down to my underwear. I normally shower when I get home from work, but not this time. Sleep. Sleep is all I need.

It’s only when I’m falling asleep that I feel a nagging thought…almost like I’m forgetting something…something I was supposed to do today. But no matter how hard I try to wake up enough to remember it, sleep overpowers me, and I give in.

* * *

A few hours later, I wake up with a jolt. I sit up ramrod straight in bed as I suddenly recall what I was supposed to do today. “Jessie!” I hiss through my teeth like an expletive.

I hop out of bed and go straight into the living room, where I find my phone on the couch along with fifteen missed calls from the woman herself. Dammit. I’m in so much trouble. I was supposed to go over to her house at nine o’clock this morning and pretend to be her fiancé in front of her grandaddy. It was a ridiculous idea, and likely the reason my subconscious concocted the same stupid scheme when talking to Susan.

When my sister called late last night and asked me if I’d do it, I said yes. Probably because I was really distracted with all the humans I was in the middle of bringing into the world, and also because Jessie and I got off on the wrong foot (and every foot since). She hates me, and I saw this as a good opportunity to bury the hatchet between us and start over. I’m willing to forgive her if she’s willing to forgive me—and that’s saying a lot considering how she treated me the first time we met.

Our initial encounter was when I got home from a long shift at the hospital to find her pacing like a feral animal in my driveway, ready to pounce the moment I opened my door. I had been avoiding Lucy and Cooper after they decided to date even though I asked them not to. I didn’t handle their new relationship well at all, basically giving them the cold shoulder for three weeks. Since I had been ignoring their phone calls and holing up at the hospital, I didn’t realize my nephew had gone in for emergency surgery to have his appendix removed. Don’t worry, Jessie came over and informed me. Very loudly. Very angrily. She also tossed a pack of diapers into my arms and said if I was going to act like a baby, I might as well dress like one. The forethought she had to put into that insult was astounding.

I’d never met the woman before, and she was up in my face, pregnant belly practically pressing against me as she very thoroughly explained exactly how I should get my head out of my ass, stop acting like a chauvinistic dirtbag, and go show up for my sister. So you can see how it was pretty easy for me to dislike her from the get-go, and every other interaction between us has looked pretty much the same. The last time I saw her, she was eating an entire bowl full of pickles. Like thirty pickles! As a medical professional who happens to specialize in maternal care, I advised her to be careful of her sodium intake. She showed me her favorite finger as a response.

We are mortal enemies now, and I had a chance to end that, but instead, I’ve made it worse.

For all of thirty seconds, I feel terrible. I let Jessie down in a big way, and I wish I could fix it. But then, I read the last text message she sent me, and I decide maybe I don’t want to bury that damn hatchet after all.

Jessie:I hope you know that you are scum. I would rather walk around with dog poop clinging to the bottom of my shoe than have to look at your ugly face one more time. You want a war, Andrew? You got one.