“You said nothing to me.”
I shrug. “I wasn’t allowed. Plus, I really didn’t want to hear about it. I swear, sometimes I think you pick fights just so you can hear yourself yell at me.”
“It’s like listening to an aria or a sonnet. Beautiful as it enriches and fills the soul.”
I snort out a laugh, kissing the corner of her lips.
“What happens to Janet now? They said she was gone. What does that mean? I didn’t think it was right to ask for all the details.”
“She gets expelled from program number two.”
“Number two?” Grace gasps incredulously. “I thought she transferred. I thought her parents bought her way in here.”
“Oh, they did. But it wasn’t the first thing her parents bought.”
Her eyebrows scrunch together. “What do you mean?”
“There was something off about her from the start. Her lack of ability in the OR. Her not teaching her residents. Her never actually delivering a baby or if she did, there always being a complication. Then that woman who was hemorrhaging when Janet broke her wrist. That was the final straw. It never should have happened. After that, I did my research. She barely graduated medical school, much of her grades and reports were purchased by her family. In her last program, they only kept her on because of her parents’ money until she had a poor patient outcome there. She left to come here before they could do much about it.”
“Jesus,” Grace sighs.
Grace’s arms encircle my neck. “What a nightmare. But why isn’t my name on the board?”
“That’s because I knew this was going to happen this morning, but I wasn’t allowed to say anything to anyone until they spoke with Janet and then you. Plus, there’s something else we have to do. Something that if we don’t do now, could have dire consequences in the end.”
“What?” Her face dances with concern.
That’s when the knock, knock comes on the door. “Carter?”
Grace’s eyes instantly widen. “Oliver,” she hisses under her breath. “You had Oliver come up here. Why? You said at lunch!”
The wary tilt of her head tells me she already knows why.
“Are they in there?” comes another voice from the other side of the door.
“Rina too?” she squawks.
I grin. “Do you want to face the consequences of not telling them? Especially Oliver? And if you tell him in the cafeteria, anyone could hear.”
“Ugh. I wouldn’t have minded waiting a couple of weeks.” She sags in my arms before retreating a step like she needs the space and the moment to get her head in the game. She flicks out her hands, pops her neck and then says, “Alright. Let them in.”
The second I unlock the door, the two of them come toppling in, almost like they had their ears pressed to the door. “Dude,” Oliver starts, shutting the door behind him. “Your floor is like a beehive with all this swarm and buzz. What the hell happened this morning?”
I launch into a whole account of the events of this morning. Well, the things I can talk about anyway. The hospital hiring on a resident like that, seeing potential dollar signs can be embarrassing and discrediting for a program and hospital if the word got out.
“But Dr. Johnson is not why we called you in here this morning.”
Rina and Oliver exchange glances and then look between the two of us skeptically. “You’re not getting engaged, right?” Oliver questions, a harshness to his tone. I don’t think he wants me to beat him on that. I think he’s dying to make it real between him and Amelia.
“No,” Grace tells him, jumping right in with that when what I’m really thinking is, not yet.
“Then what’s up?” Rina asks, sitting on the corner of my desk and staring at us expectantly with her big green eyes.
Grace gives me a quick, nervous side-eye before she marches over to Oliver who is leaning against the wall beside my hanging diplomas. She stands before him and takes his hand but fails to say anything. Instead, she looks like she might pass out.
“Honey, you’re scaring the Jesus out of me. Whatever it is, just say it.”
She goes to open her mouth when Rina cuts her off with, “Oh my god, you’re pregnant.”
“How the hell did you know?” Grace hisses at Rina.
“I didn’t. I was kind of kidding. But what the hell else could it be?” Rina blinks, tilting her head. “Wait. I was right? You’re actually pregnant with Carter’s kid?!”
“Shhh,” Grace snaps. “Christ, Rina, say it a little louder, would ya? I don’t think everyone in the hospital heard you the first time.”
“You’re serious?” An incredulous Oliver pushes off the wall, standing tall over her. “You’re pregnant? With my brother’s kid?”
Grace swallows thickly and nods. “Yes. We. Um. It was certainly not planned, and still very early, but we wanted to tell you both. You know. So you know.” She shakes her head at that last part, but still manages to hold firm.
Oliver, meanwhile, is a statue. A stone casting of my brother. I don’t even think he’s breathing.
“Wow.” Rina hops off the corner of my desk and comes straight for me. “Wow,” she repeats. “That’s absolutely incredible. Congratulations. Are you happy?” she asks me. “You look happy.”
“Zip it, Rina,” Oliver clips out, still waging some sort of silent war with Grace.
“You zip it, Oliver. This is good stuff.” Rina twists back to me. “You are happy, right?”
“The happiest.”
“Grace?” Oliver pushes.
She places her hands on his shoulders, staring straight up into his eyes. “It’s crazy. Unexpected as hell. But we’re excited about it, and I hope you can be too.”
He blinks at her, stunned. “What about your epilepsy?”
“I saw my neurologist already and we have a plan in place.”
“So you’re pregnant. And you’re with my brother. Not just living together but together together and that means I’m going to be the uncle to your kid—not just in title, but for real—and once Carter mans the fuck up and marries you, you’ll be my sister, again for real.”
Grace gnaws on the corner of her lip, trying to hide her amused smile. “Yes. That about sums it all up.”
“I wasn’t asking. I was telling you. That’s what’s happening here, Grace.”
Now she laughs. “Slow your roll, Uncle Oliver. That’s what happening. Minus the whole marrying me thing. It’s far too soon for that and truly, a woman does not need to be married to a man in order to have his child. It’s a patriarchal, archaic notion, not to mention misogynistic.”
“Agreed,” Rina chimes in.
“And yet you all cry like fucking babies when we get down on one knee and put a ring on it.”
“You’d know,” Grace snorts at him. “Is that what Amelia did?”
“Damn straight. And I haven’t even done it for real yet. Admit it,” Oliver says, undeterred. “You love us. You need us. You just don’t want to.”
“I think that goes both ways, don’t you?”