Page 7 of Resist Me Not (Bloody Desires #4)

“And how did they make him big and strong?” I continue before he has to think too hard on that. “They put him in a tube thing. His was standing upright, and yours will be lying down, but it’s just as special. When you come out again, we might know more to help make you big and strong.”

“Just not as cool as Captain America,” Emma adds.

Noah throws one of his stuffies at her. He has a small collection always around or near his bed in varying sizes.

Everything from a tiny black cat to a peeled banana almost as big as Noah’s torso.

His favorite whenever he has tests being taken is a gray owl dressed like a doctor, which happened to be nearest to him and the one he chucked at his sister.

“Hey! Don’t be so mean to Doctor Hoot! He might not want to go with you into that tube thing.” Emma dances the owl in front of Noah’s face, but as soon as he pouts, she relents. “He can take Doctor Hoot with him, right?” she asks me.

“As long as it doesn’t have any metal in it.” I take the owl from Emma. It’s one of those Squishmallows, fat, round, and doughy. “You’re good. I’m pretty sure Doctor Hoot here is made of marshmallows.”

“He’s not marshmallows!” Noah giggles again. Any time I can cause that makes it more than worth it to visit him on my off hours.

“Are you sure? Feels like marshmallows to me.” I squish the owl’s middle. “Do we need to do exploratory surgery?”

“No!” Noah is still laughing as he snatches the stuffie back from me.

“Too true. Doctor Hoot should do surgery on someone else. Maybe… this fella. “I pick up a stuffie I think is meant to be a matcha latte. “He’s looking a little green.”

Noah giggles harder and snatches that one from me too, losing his grip on Doctor Hoot so I have to bend to catch it. Crisis of touching a hospital floor averted.

A knock at the door whirls all of our attentions around.

It’s Greg. Or rather, Doctor Chadwick, the radiologist, one of several here, but the one most often used in our department.

Noah and Emma’s parents are right behind him, standing outside the doorway with the same scared but hopeful faces as when I first met them.

I smile and wave at them with Doctor Hoot.

“Hey there, Noah,” Greg greets. He’s really great with kids. I wasn’t lying that he was nice and would help Noah get through the MRI, which could take up to an hour. “Sorry to interrupt such a good time in here, but we need to get going for that important scan now, okay?”

Noah looks a little winded again from the activity. He lays down, clutching the rescued matcha stuffie. “’Kay,” he says, but I can tell he’s still scared.

“While you’re gone,” Emma pipes up, grabbing Noah’s Switch, “I’m gonna trade all your good Pokémon for my crappy ones.”

“Nah uh!” Noah complains, maybe half believing her, but I know she’s just trying to preoccupy him with something other than being in a tube, especially when she adds:

“Better get back quick then.”

Greg comes in to wheel Noah out on the bed. Noah could walk, but without fully knowing what’s causing his seizures, we don’t want him overexerting himself.

He’s almost out the door when I remember I’m still holding Doctor Hoot.

“Wait!” I run up and lean over the back of the bed. “Wouldn’t want to forget this guy.” I tuck the owl into the crook of Noah’s arm. He’s still holding the matcha in the other.

“Doctor Hoot is a girl,” he corrects me, like it should have been obvious. Then he hands me the matcha. “You can hang onto Zappy if you want. Till next visit? He’s not a doctor, but maybe he can make your cut feel better.”

I keep forgetting about it and bring a hand to my cheek. “I bet he will. Thanks, Noah. And hey, just imagine how brave Captain America had to be when he was in his tube, and you’ll be fine. Yours is way less scary.”

I can tell Noah’s parents appreciate my assurances—and that I’m visiting in civvies—but I hope next time I see them, they look a little less haunted.

Technically, I lied again. It’s not that an MRI needs to be scary. It’s safe. Useful. Totally a lifesaver in so many instances. But if you are even a little claustrophobic, there are few things as terrifying as being in a giant humming coffin.

Giant on the outside . When you’re in it, it’s like the Star Wars trash compactor scene, or Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom , when the walls are closing in.

They’re not really moving, but every second, it feels like they’re closer, like you have less room to move, and you’re not allowed to move.

You’re in there for so long, it starts to feel like there’s no way out, and you can’t… breathe—

I pull the inhaler from my jacket pocket and take a big puff. Just picturing Noah slowly being engulfed by that horrible machine brings me right back to when I was in one and… and—

I take another puff. If you think your claustrophobia is bad, try having it so bad that even thinking about the situation, even when it’s someone else going through it, almost triggers a panic attack.

Maybe I was claustrophobic before that MRI.

Maybe the MRI caused it, forged by the trauma of going through that so young.

It doesn’t matter now, twenty years later.

I am how I am, and though I don’t have panic attacks like I used to, even regular therapy wasn’t enough to completely rid me of them.

It was never only tight spaces that caused them either, just the worst culprits.

The best I can do now is manage my asthma and avoid triggers when I can.

It's not even expected triggers. Elevators? Planes? No problem. Get caught with a sweater over my head trying to put it on or take it off? Panic attack.

But Noah is stronger than I was. He’ll be fine.

He’ll be fine.

“Walker?”

I gasp, eyes popping open from how I’d closed them.

My inhaler is still in one hand, the matcha stuffie in the other, when I turn and see another doctor in civvies, Laura Dunham.

She finished her residency around the same time as me, planning to go into cardiothoracic surgery.

We’re friends, but since she’ll be moving to another hospital for her fellowship, we haven’t talked in a while.

I shove my inhaler into my pocket, glad Noah’s parents went with him for the MRI and that I am outside the room where Emma couldn’t see my almost panic attack either.

Laura might have, but she gets it. Bonding over shared or at least peripherally similar trauma comes with the territory and if any medical professional calls someone out on their physical, mental, or emotional disabilities, they’re in the wrong field. It still makes me feel embarrassed.

“I see you’ve made a new friend since I last saw you,” Laura jokes instead of bringing up the sweat breaking out across my forehead.

“Oh! This belongs to Noah Thwaites. Apparently, I get to babysit until my next visit.”

“Lucky you. That’s the lupus kid, right?” Laura’s brow scrunches. “How’s he doing?”

“Not as good as I’d like. But I’m not doctoring! Just checking in.”

Laura seems about to say something else when she notices my cut. “Ouch. How’d you get that? Looks nastier than a shaving mishap.”

I would have put a bandage over it, much as the Dermabond does the job alone, but that probably still wouldn’t have prevented questions.

“Remember how you told me Curtis seemed like a complete asshole wearing the skin suit of a car salesman, but hey, what did you know; you’re a terrible judge of character?

You are not. I am the terrible judge of character. ”

“ He did that to you?” Laura snarls. “That prick! Did you call the poli—”

“Not worth the trouble. I’m fine. It’s over and done with and I never need to see him again.”

Laura isn’t the back down kind of person—one of the reasons we always got along.

But sometimes it’s better to let someone be dead to you.

She must be able to read that on my face because she immediately calms. “If you say so. He wasn’t going to be invited anyway.

” She smiles and produces a card from out of her purse. “Residents only.”

“What’s this?” The envelope isn’t sealed so I pull out the card to see that it is an invite to a party for both current and soon to be off on their fellowship residents.

It’s a few weeks out yet, set only a little before my fellowship starts, so while I’m usually the party pooper who declines, I can make this work.

I’ll probably need a few drinks by then.

“I’m in! It’ll be good to see everyone before we’re scattered to the four winds. ”

“Exactly. I’m tracking down everyone I can, and you being here saved me some postage.

Are you sure it’s okay you didn’t press charges over that cut?

” She scrutinizes it with the same keen eye that makes her such a good surgeon.

“I mean, you did a really good job cleaning it up, but how and with what did he even cut you there?”

I debate explaining that I wasn’t the one who cleaned the wound, but that would lead down a whole other path I don’t have time for right now.

“His watch caught me as he hit me. Yeah, real standup guy. I fought back though, so I’d honestly rather just move on than get into any ‘he said’, ‘he said’ over who started what.

” She didn’t need to know I had some help in fighting back, but if Trey and I actually become something, we have one helluva meet-cute I can tell people later.

“Okay,” Laura says slow and gauging. “But you better show up to that party. No rainchecks. No ditching. You have verbally RSVPed and that means—”

“If I am a no-show, you will neuter me with your scalpel. Got it.” I grin.

“Threaten someone with that one time ,” she huffs, “and you’re marked for life. But yes, I will.”

At least there’s no remaining threat of my panic attack after meeting up with Laura. She heads off to track down other residents, and I check my phone to be sure I haven’t missed any messages before heading home.

I have one new text—from Trey.

Trey: Looking forward to tonight.

Walker: Me too. How fancy is this place?

Trey: I will be wearing a tie. You don’t have to.

That just means I’ll be agonizing over what to wear for the next several hours. Can’t let 007 show me up too much.

I’m glad I don’t have any messages from Curtis.

I’m honestly surprised he didn’t call the police.

Or call me, at least to leave a bunch of drunkenly rude and sexually aggressive voicemails after the work thing he was supposed to have last night.

Wouldn’t be the first time he drunk-dialed me.

I liked the aggressive side of Curtis, just not the asshole car salesman side that accompanied it.

I’m more excited for my date with Trey than I think I ever was while dating Curtis. Trey is just so… polished and commanding. And not in that jackass do as I say sort of way that Curtis always defaulted to. More the yes, please, Daddy, tell me what to do .

Oh God! I really need to stop thinking like that or I will blurt it out again. But if ever there was someone I could call Daddy, it would be a chivalrous shining knight like Trey. Even if he is clearly way too good for me and out of my league.