“Why would I wanna know that?”
“I think you like her. A lot.”
“I think you’re stupid. No, scratch that. I know you’re stupid. I wasn’t asking about her, and for your information, London is a fucking thorn between my ass cheeks. She’s nosy and doesn’t listen to a fucking thing I say. She’s not invited anyway, no one knows her.”
“You’re very wrong, my friend. People know her and absolutely love her. She helps all the nurses with their tasks, she takes time to talk with the patients. Yesterday she held the door to the elevator for me...and she wasn’t even going in the elevator. I’m telling you the girl is building a fan club fast, and most of them are dudes.”
I wanna yell in his face that I don’t fucking care, that London can go and rub her pretty little French curves on whoever the hell she wants. But I can’t, damn it! Everything he said makes me wanna hit a wall. Why does she go and help other nurses? She should spend her free time around me, giving me more time to make her life hell. It’s just fair after she made me walk with a hard-on every day since she landed in this city.
Frustration starts building up in my chest. This woman came out of nowhere with her golden locks and weirdly blue eyes, she talked to me like I was just a no one on the street using that fucking adorable accent and turning my guts into one gigantic knot. My balls are burning and I expect my dick to start dragging me in her direction and beeping like a metal detector at any moment, and at the same time whenever she talks, I think about throwing her out a window.
I can’t stay away and I can’t come to close to her. How is that fair?
I swore to never get close to a woman again. Fuck women? Sure, but never let one get in my head and fuck up my life because it just isn’t worth it. But here I am now, having a whole interior conflict about a girl who doesn’t even like me and to whom I made a point to not give a shit about her existence.
And when you think it cannot get worse...
“Hello, motherfuckers!”
Emanuel - Emmy - Shaw. Or how I like to call him, piece-of-not-so-well-digested-
shit. Shaw and I were hired at Chicago Mercy General on the same day and it’s been a testosterone competition ever since. The problem is, my man over here likes to play dirty and is a sore loser. He still hates me because I made head of Cardio and he’s still on fellowship. Oh, and I might have slept with his girl the same day I got his dream job. In my defense, they were just fucking, and I gave her a better option.
“What do you want, dick?”
“Why so defensive, Zachary? Can’t I enjoy a drink with my colleagues without looking for trouble?” Yeah, sure.
“We were enjoying ourselves just fine so don’t let us keep you.”
I give Sullivan a nod to start walking and go past Shaw, pushing him in the shoulder. I hate his guts so he better not be testing me. I’m waiting for a reason to send him to the ER.
We get three steps away when I hear him behind me:
“I’ve met your nurse.”
This makes me stop dead, and James turns to face him.
“So?” I ask, trying to look as disinterested as possible.
“She’s cute. I wanted to talk to you about her. We really hit it off the other day so I don’t think you, jerk, would mind if I start getting busy with her.”
I stop my fist from launching at the last second. I can’t believe London was stupid enough to let this guy charm her.
“Look, idiot, she’s there to do the job and you’d better be letting her. If I see my scrub nurse looking to the walls and daydreaming with her vagina all day, she’s out and you’ll have a problem with me.”
“Oh, come on, pall! You stole my intern, it’s only fair for me to do the same.” He needs to learn to let go!
“Go fuck yourself, and stay the hell away from my staff while doing it.”
I walk away speeding towards the bar. I need another fruity drink, or I’ll go back there and snap his neck.
Slamming my hand to the bar, I order, and Sullivan catches up to me.
“And you say you don’t like her?”
“Can you shut the fuck up?”
The night is too damn hot and if I keep sitting here pretending to sleep, I’ll lose my mind. My head booms from all those Pina Coladas and Cosmos I poured into my mouth after Shaw fucked my Zen last night and my eyes are bloodhsot because I couldn’t sleep.
Well, I could, but in the first ten minutes dreams of London invaded my head. That’s not new, but her fucking another guy in my mind woke me up like an alarm, and in protest, my body just refused to let me fall asleep anymore.
I get up and walk to find the remote for my blinds to let the dawn shine through my floor to ceiling windows. The sun rising over Lake Michigan is one of my favorite things to watch and I have a front-row seat. It’s one of the reasons I bought this apartment in Gold Coast.
My house used to be a safe place. My problem-free place. Now I can only think about how hot it would be to have London slapped on the window wall, naked and ready, moaning my name...pronouncing the ”r” in Zachary with her French accent.
I am going crazy. I am. I have to find a way to control it, or I’ll find myself in a deep hole full of all kind of shit.
Not that I’m not already there. My dick is pulsing in pain, begging me to find a cure. In my mind, I go over all the contacts in my phone and think about who’d be game for a quick fuck in the morning. A couple of names pop up but then I remember the day with Thelma Kawasaki and how it didn’t help at all. And Thelma knew her way around a man’s penis, take my word for it.
Fuck!
I decide there’s not much to do except to go run a few laps around Goudy Park and blow off some steam. Man, I could blow off enough steam to open a public sauna.
Yeah, I’ll go run to tire my body out and take some time to think about all the ways I can keep London so busy she won’t even think about getting things on with Shaw. Because it’s not happening. Not on my watch, with me standing there.
“I’m telling you; he is the worst. Remember that bunny I had when we were ten? The one that got rabies and tried to kill everyone? That bunny was ten thousand times more agreeable than him.”
Paris pops a popcorn bag and jumps onto my bed next to me. It’s my first weekend off and we decided to have a chill movie night but couldn’t decide on the movie so now we’re on our third popcorn bag with a side of me complaining about what a dick Zachary Ford is.
“But he’s hot?”
“It doesn’t matter!” I say, stuffing my face with popcorn to mellow my irritation. “All he does is boss people around like it’s his own hospital. Like he invented the damn scalpel. And I hate him.”
“You hate him, or you’re turned on? That’s a very fine line, you know?” I gape at her unable to say much so Paris goes on.
“There’s is no feeling there? No primordial need to crawl up his naked, sweaty body? Any kinky stuff?”
“I...n...ugh...no...how...oomph!”
Yes, that’s a very compelling argument. I’m very proud of the verbalization of my feelings.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“No! I’m not attracted to him. I mean he is a beautiful man. Gorgeous, actually. You should see him, Paris, there is no way to not stare at him, but I wouldn’t let him touch me with a two-meter stick. You should see how he looks at me, like I disgust him. Oh, I wanna punch him in the testicles!”