Medically Speaking

Chapter 10

I don't know what I was expecting when I left Kota and Luke to their own devices in my home. Honestly, I didn't put much thought behind it at all. Anything I didn't want them to see was upstairs in my room and Mr. Darcy would have freaked out if they had come any farther than the landing. When I woke up around six to crying cats, I figured I'd go downstairs, dump food in their bowls, make a bowl of cereal, and crawl my way back up to my room to go into a comatose state until time for me to go to work again.

Instead, I stumbled down the stairs to find that my kitchen had been cleaned. I blinked, wondering if I was still sleeping as I looked around. It hadn't been messy, per se, but there had been dishes in the sink, a rag still laying on the island, and a blob of questionable origin caked onto the stovetop. But now, there was a lingering smell of cleaning supplies, the dirty dishes from earlier were now in the drying rack, and no more blob.

After feeding the cats, I opened the fridge to find two takeout containers stacked on top of each other that I didn't recognize with a post-it note from the office stuck on the smaller one.

Joey,

Get some rest and take care of yourself, you deserve it.

Kota & Luke

Inside the larger one was a container full of pasta coated in a tomato sauce that smelled an awful lot like it came from my favorite restaurant nearby. The smaller one had tiramisu from the same restaurant in it and I'm pretty sure my stomach rumbling registered on the Richter scale. They must have texted Phil or my brother to ask about my preferences. It had my heart thundering, but I dutifully dished some of the pasta out into a bowl, warmed it up, and ate it before dragging myself back upstairs, cuddling in with the cats, and falling back asleep.

The next morning, I'm right back to my normal routine like nothing has happened at all. I wake up, start the coffee maker, pack my lunch, drink a cup of coffee on the patio with the cats while eating the tiramisu they brought me, take a quick shower, and then hustle to work. I'm still tired, but it's not the bone crippling tired from the day before.

Leah's there, getting her stuff ready to go home as I blearily cram everything into my locker. "Good morning, starshine," she hummed, and I grunted in reply. "Long night?" she questions, and I grunt once again. "Word around the water cooler is that you let one of your mystery patient's attractive friends go home with you when you finally left yesterday."

A grunt wasn't going to suffice here and I resented her, just a little bit, for not respecting my clear tiredness. "I got less than an hour of sleep, so one of them drove me home while the other followed in their car, it's not a big deal."

What might have shut up somebody else, had Leah wiggling her eyebrows, making me regret ever telling her about my hopes for the future. "Oooh, two of them! Kin—"

I slapped my hand over her mouth, suddenly very awake. "Would you shut up?" I hissed, glancing over my shoulder to make sure no one was within earshot. "It's not like that, Leah. All they did was drive me home and drop me off before leaving." I didn't add the part where I told them to snoop and they brought me dinner. And dessert. She'd take it the wrong way. Academy guys were wired differently. Bringing me dinner was just them being nice after seeing an opportunity.

Taking my hand away, I reminded her, "They're also my patient's family and don't give me that crap about how they won't always be. They are right now, so those are the boundaries going up."

Quietly, since someone had just walked in, Leah sing-songed, "Somebody's defeeeensive."

"Oh, shut up. I need to go do handovers and check on my patients." Everything was put away in my locker, I just couldn't find my stupid pen. I'm protective of my pens-- you need a good one that writes easily, doesn't smear, and doesn't bleed through paper. Pens and sharpies are almost like drugs around here, except it's up to us to keep other nurses and doctors from snatching them up.