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“What’s going on?” Samira had stepped out of a patient room only to find multiple people crowded around the door to the breakroom.
“Gloria’s ripping Abbot a new one for his low patient satisfaction scores,” whispered Javadi.
That couldn’t be right, Samira thought. The Abbot she knew was always pleasant towards her and popular with both patients and staff. Although, she had noticed that he had been a little more on edge ever since Robby had left for his sabbatical.
“Did you actually say, and I quote, ‘sir, we are going to get you more pain meds, but you need to shut your effing mouth’?” she heard Gloria ask him.
“I did not, I said ‘you need to shut your fu—’”
“That’s enough, Abbot. You’re skating on extremely thin ice. As I can’t lose another attending at the moment, I’m assigning someone to shadow you for the next week and make sure you behave.”
“I do not need a babysitter!” shouted Abbot.
Suddenly, Gloria opened the door, and everyone scuttled away.
Samira would have as well except Gloria called out to her. “Dr. Mohan, just the person I wanted to see.” She opened the door wider and invited her in before closing it shut behind her.
Samira had never felt more uncomfortable in her life. Dr. Abbot would not meet her eyes, and the CMO was looking a little too pleased with herself.
“Since you have the highest patient satisfaction scores on the floor, I’d like you to stick by Dr. Abbot this week whenever he’s with a patient. Observe him and help him…adjust his attitude if needed. I’m counting on you.”
“Dr. Underwood, I don’t know if this is such a good—”
“Fine,” said Jack, surprising everyone else in the room.
Gloria recovered first. “Good. It’s settled then. I know I can rely on you, Dr. Mohan,” she said before leaving them alone in the breakroom.
Samira still wasn’t sure what to say. “Dr. Abbot, you don’t have to do this; I can just tell her—”
“It’s fine, Mohan.” He looked up at her then with tired eyes. “You actually…help…bring out the best in me.”
She didn’t know what to do with that revelation. It sat heavy between them, a grenade that might explode at any moment.
“If you think it helps, then.”
The next few days were the strangest she had ever experienced at PTMC. If she wasn’t watching Jack interact with patients, he was watching her interact with hers. “Continuing education,” he had explained. Dr. Al’s two-attendings per shift policy helped.
Sometimes she’d catch him already looking at her with a fondness that he didn’t hide. Sometimes she caught herself looking at him just because she could. She got used to hearing his voice in one ear, his presence over her shoulder, and the increased frequency of his casual touches….
Their proximity at work may have been mandated, but she started to look forward to it. If it was true that she brought out the best in him, he was also bringing out the best in her. She no longer worried about taking too long with a patient because he was right there beside her without judgment. He would let her call the shots, even on the tricky cases, and her confidence grew tremendously.
And whenever she caught him about to swear in front of a patient, all she’d have to do is look at him and he’d notice and stop. Immediately. It felt like a power trip every time.
“Have you ever watched ‘The Good Place’?” she asked after one particularly trying patient.
“Is that a TV show?”
“Yeah, with Ted Danson? Kristen Bell?”
He just shrugged.
“Well on the show they can’t swear, so they say other words, like ‘motherforker’ and ‘bullshirt’.”
“And you think if I say ‘fork you’ to a patient that will improve my patient satisfaction scores?”
She laughed. “Maybe not, but maybe if you start thinking those words instead you won’t feel the need to say them?” He gave her an appraising look, and she just laughed again.
She knew she was going to regret it when the week was up, when they no longer needed to be attached at the hip. He would go back to flirting with everyone else, and she would go back to being the R4 with no life. Enjoy this while you can, she told herself.
On the last day, at the end of the shift, she found herself following him into a room. She was deep in her own thoughts about how this would be the last time they would be doing this, so she didn’t realize immediately that the room was empty.
“What’s going on?”
“You’ve always been honest with me, Mohan,” he said, standing a little closer to her than necessary. When she couldn’t meet his eyes, he brought a finger to her chin and tipped it up. “Have I been a good boy this week?”
What was he getting at? “Y-yes?”
His eyes flashed, and he took a step forward. “Would a good boy do this?” He closed the distance between their mouths. She saw it happening and still couldn’t believe it. Her eyes stayed open, even as he kissed her, right up until he brought one hand to the small of her back and the other to cup her head. Dr. Jack Abbot was kissing her, and she didn’t know what to do.
He noticed her hesitation and stepped back. “Fork, did I read this all wrong?”
She couldn’t help it, she laughed. In his face. “I’m so sorry. Laughter is my defense mechanism. I didn’t mean to laugh, it’s just…’fork’?!”
“I’ve been trying it out in my head, like you suggested. Samira, forget that. I need to apologize for what I just did. I’m so sorry; I never meant—”
“Abbot?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut your forking mouth,” she said as she pulled him in for a kiss.