Page 47 of The Maine Event (Romancing the Workplace #2)

NOAH

Blood pours like a bad horror flick, an over-the-top fountain of gore. I count six heartbeats on the monitor—each slower than the last—before the guy’s done for, and I don’t plan on wasting a single one. Not today.

“Noah, we’re losing him,” shouts Nurse Patty. She’s all grit and tough love, which explains why I like her so much.

I cut a glance at the newbie, who’s about five seconds away from ruining his scrubs.

“Shouldn’t we wait for Dr. Patel?” he says, voice cracking, but I’m already snapping on gloves. “If we wait, he’s dead.” I’m not the waiting type.

This guy’s artery is slashed, his blood forming little red lakes around the wheels of the gurney. We haven’t seen a bleeder like this since New Year’s Eve—the wound you’d get from whiskey bottles and pool cues, not the more pedestrian stabbings.

Nurse Patty yanks a fresh packet of gauze and shoots me a look that says both, ‘you’re insane’ and ‘hurry up.’

“He’s crashing, Noah!” she shouts, barking out orders and elbowing the resident to suction.

The monitors tell me I have no room for error.

No room for anything but an unsteady pulse and dropping BP.

A heart rate that’s only memorable because it’s tanking fast. It’s why I don’t think twice about the thoracotomy or how much trouble I’ll be in for it.

You can’t teach instincts like mine, but you can get your ass handed to you for using them.

I slice the blade cleanly into his chest and feel a slight shudder as my hand hits the rib cage. Rookie loses more color.

“We’re really doing this?” he asks, mostly to himself, while Patty already has her hands over the wound, keeping it steady, keeping it real.

I know better than to answer. I focus. The guy’s lungs are in the way, his tissue and muscle resistant and fleshy and fighting.

It’s like an anatomy textbook come to life in a very R-rated fashion, and the kid looks ready to hurl.

I pry the ribs apart. My gloved hand fishes inside like it’s searching for the world’s worst pinata prize.

It’s been a few seconds now. Way too many.

“Nine-zero over forty,” calls Patty.

The resident’s still holding his breath, and I’m about to punch the air out of him if he doesn’t catch it soon. “What now, doc?” Patty prods, no fear, just steel.

“I’ve got this,” I insist. I hope.

The organ’s a limp, purplish mass of nothing, and I thumb the artery, feeling where it’s knotted and tearing and wanting to give up.

But I’m not the giving-up type.

Then: life.

It flutters under my fingers like a newborn bird.

One kick. Two. Then full rhythm, and I swear it’s the sweetest damn sound I’ve ever heard.

Better than vinyl. Better than old guitars.

A steady lub-dub from the ECG that wipes the horror-show clean, and for a moment, there’s nothing else but this. The win.

“Pulse is one-ten. Pressure’s coming up.” The monitor pings alive. Patty’s mouth quirks into what passes for a grin, and her satisfaction’s almost as good as a thank-you note. “Not bad, doc. For a guy working solo.”

I wipe my brow with a bloody wrist, feel the tension and adrenaline in every molecule of my body. “You know me—big on happy endings.”

Patty snorts. “Big on something.”

Resident regains some color. He’s still more frightened than awed, but he’ll come around.

The rest of the team exhales. The room shifts from panic to relief, collective fear shedding like an old skin.

Only the suction unit still wheezes, the wet splatter of blood underfoot like rain.

They all saw it. They all saw what happens when I get in too deep and too fast and actually pull it off.

“He’s stable. Let’s get him to the OR” Patty takes charge, shoving the gurney out the door while the rest of the staff stand around, like we just caught the last ten seconds of the Super Bowl.

Most of them still don’t know what to say when Noah Carter hijacks a trauma case, and that’s just the way I like it.

For now, anyway.

Because my celebrations last about as long as it takes for Dr. Patel to breeze in, take a sweeping glance around the carnage, and fix his stare on me. He’s crisp. Unhurried. Puts together the whole situation before I even get a chance to bask.

“Dr. Carter,” he says. “A word.”

Dr. Ajay Patel’s office AC is set so low I can feel it chilling my blood. If my talk with him lasts longer than five minutes, I’m suing for frostbite. The desk is a barren wasteland, and Patel’s expressions aren’t any better. He doesn’t bother with hellos or have-a-seats, just straight to business.

“Dr. Carter,” he starts, without preamble, “you do not make that call without an attending present.”

He’s the king of rule-following, and I can practically feel the protocol manual hurling itself at my head.

“He would have died,” I counter, but not loud enough to sound like I have a leg to stand on.

“That’s not your decision to make,” Patel insists, voice clipped and sterile, like the rest of his damn office. He sits back, arms crossed in a way that makes me cross mine too, purely out of spite. “You are a resident, not a hero.”

My jaw twitches. I hope it doesn’t look too obvious. “With respect, I did what I thought was necessary.”

His eyes bore into me, relentless, like a particularly exhausting CT scan. I’m still trying to thaw out from the frosty reception when he delivers the next blow.

“This is the last time we will have this conversation,” he states.

The unsaid— or else —floats between us like an iceberg, and I know when I’m about to hit something hard.

It takes every ounce of self-control not to roll my eyes or laugh out loud.

Not because I don’t believe him, but because I do.

Patel isn’t the kind to bluff. If anything, he’s probably insulted that I don’t take him more seriously.

“Understood,” I say, my words as short and sharp as I can make them.

Patel doesn’t respond. His silence speaks volumes, most of which are titled You Are on Thin Fucking Ice .

I’m out the door and into the corridor before the walls start closing in.

My pulse is still racing, still wired from the thrill of diving in headfirst and getting away with it.

Almost. The only thing I hate more than getting called out is getting called out when I know I’m right, and it’s eating me alive.

“Patel looks pissed,” comes a voice from the nurses’ station. Marcus Young. My partner in crime, except he never gets caught and never breaks a sweat. He’s leaning against the counter, all casual-like, grinning in that way that tells me I’m about to be made fun of. “How bad was it?”

I pull up beside him, trying to match his breezy air, trying to forget the crack in my facade that Patel must have seen.

“Could’ve been worse.”

He shakes his head in mock dismay. “Could’ve been better. So that’s, what, your third warning?”

“Fourth,” I correct, like it’s a point of pride. “But who’s counting?”

Marcus laughs, and it’s a solid, reassuring sound, like a warm blanket over all this cold, clinical shit. He hands me a chart to review and claps me on the shoulder.

“You are,” he says. “At least, you should be.”

I snort, pretending not to care but caring more than I’d ever admit. It’s the same argument every time, and Marcus has seen me through enough of them to have the script memorized.

“Patel doesn’t want a repeat of last year, man. You’re not in New York anymore. Just keep your head down for a while, okay?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” I fire back, scanning the chart, scanning his face. He’s the only one who ever dares to tell me the truth straight up, even if he knows I won’t listen. Especially if he knows I won’t listen.

We’re in the eye of the storm, nurses running in every direction, clipboards flying, cases stacked up like overdue bills, but Marcus and I stand still in the chaos, anchored.

I shrug it off, or try to. “As long as the patients live, does it really matter?”

Marcus’s eyes are sympathetic, but unyielding. He’s got the whole perceptive-best-friend thing down to an art.

“Maybe not to you,” he replies, “but this place isn’t Emerald City, and you’re not the Wizard. They play by different rules here.”

“Rules, shmrules ,” I retort, feigning bravado, ignoring the tight knot in my chest, the one I never quite shake when someone calls me out on my shit. The one Marcus can see plain as day. “It’ll be fine.”

He arches an eyebrow. “It always is until it isn’t.”

I know he means well, but it’s more than I can deal with right now. Too much truth, too much realism. I smile, a mask I’ve perfected over the years.

“You’re right, Dad. I’ll try not to embarrass the family name.”

Marcus laughs again, this time louder. “Too late.”

And maybe it is. Maybe it’s way past too late. But at least we’re still laughing about it.

The sixteen-year-old skater next on the list has the hangdog expression of a guy who’s had both his bones and his pride severely broken. I’d put money on the pride being the more painful of the two.

“Dude, I think I broke it,” he moans, pointing to the swollen balloon he used to call his hand.

I’m still fresh from my first scolding of the week, but I haven’t lost my touch with bedside manner or sarcasm.

“What gave it away?” I ask, studying his chart. “The searing pain or the fact that your wrist looks like a pretzel?”

He glares up at me, the look every teenager saves for adults who don’t immediately acknowledge how tragic their situation is. “Oh, you’re funny.”

“Most people think so,” I shoot back, a grin breaking through despite the bruising Patel’s lecture left behind. I nudge his arm gently to check the range of motion, and the kid winces in dramatic fashion.

“Am I gonna lose it?” he asks, half-concerned, half-expecting me to tell him he’ll never play Xbox again.

“You’ll live,” I assure him, slipping on a pair of gloves. “But next time, maybe stick to Tony Hawk?”