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When Perlah gets her attention with “got a friendly in North 4 for you, Dr. Mohan,” a few frequent flyers spring to Samira’s mind: George waiting for his usual D-Dimer, maybe, or Jamie again in need of buprenorphine mid-withdrawal.
She enters the exam room to an unfamiliar voice saying, “Well, I don’t believe we’ve met before,” however; and no, they haven’t, because she would certainly remember him, all hazel eyes, high cheekbones, and dark red curls well on their way to silver. He’s broad in a way that communicates discipline, and she finds herself lingering for a moment too long on the expanse of his shoulders before narrowing in, finally, on the flecks of dried blood in his stubble and down the front of his shirt, the same hue as his hair.
“Hi there, I’m Dr. Mohan. And you are?”
“Jack Abbot,” he drawls. “Pleasure.”
Samira is good at keeping her expression neutral in front of her patients, even those like Jonathan “Jack” Abbot, 46, O-neg, who dial the charm up to one hundred. But she feels her eyebrows climb as she skims his medical record: last seen a month ago for a facial lac that needed stitches; seen two months before that for a cracked rib; before that, a suspected concussion; and so on. Past surgical history: arthroscopic labral repair in right shoulder, below-knee amputation of right leg.
Huh.
“And what brings you here today, Mr. Abbot?”
He smiles then, and she gets her answer.
“Ouch.” Muscle memory has her reaching for a pair of gloves without glancing away from the gap in his gum where a front incisor is missing. She steps in close, gestures at his mouth. “May I—?”
“Please.”
His gaze bores into her as she leans in and gently pulls his bottom lip down to get a better look at the avulsion. The socket is clean, but that’s little reassurance, and she breaks out her penlight to study the interior of his mouth for fragments or lacerations elsewhere.
She’s been on the receiving end of more than her fair share of unpleasant and even antagonistic stares from patients before, but Jack’s is nothing of the sort. He is - deferential, rather than simply cooperative. One look at his swagger and build—the entirety of him, really, down to and perhaps especially the camo joggers he is sporting—and she’d frankly expected something totally other than this complete handing over of the reins. But that is what she gets as she palpates his gums, his cheeks, his tongue.
He’s good for her, she thinks, unbidden.
Samira clears her throat of the sudden intrusion. Watches as Jack swallows thickly in turn, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“And how did this happen?”
From where she’s taken her spot at the computer station in the corner of the room, Perlah chimes in. “Mr. Abbot here is a boxer.”
Another smile. “Guilty,” he says, his voice a little huskier than before.
“Ah. Your record suddenly makes more sense.” So do the muscles in his forearms, the scarring on his knuckles. She’s never like this with patients, yet Samira can’t resist the jibe: “You know, I’m pretty sure they make something called a mouthguard for this exact reason.”
Jack chuckles, clearly pleased by her volley. “I obviously need a better one, huh? You should see the other guy, though.”
“Will I? Be seeing him?” She hooks her stethoscope in her ears and presses the chest piece to his skin, her lip twitching when he reacts to the chill of the metal. “Deep breaths for me.”
He obeys. Says in between, “Nah, he’s got terrible decision-making skills, so he probably went to Presby.”
Samira laughs despite herself. Good breath sounds bilaterally, she reports to Perlah, but—”Do you know where your tooth is?”
“Only that it isn’t where it’s supposed to be,” he admits.
She hums. “Well—the good news is I don’t hear anything concerning. The bad news, though, is that that doesn’t preclude the possibility of your tooth being in your lungs if you’re unlucky.”
Jack leans back a bit in the raised bed and crosses his arms over his chest. He’s nonchalant as he appraises her, as if there’s nowhere else he’d rather be, then says, “Oh, I don’t know, I’m feeling pretty lucky tonight.”
Behind her, Perlah makes a gleeful noise that Samira steadfastly ignores even as she’s certain that elsewhere on the floor, Princess and Trinity have felt a disturbance in the force. She can feel her ears burning already.
“Is that so?”
“Sure. I have you as my doctor instead of Dr. Langdon, don’t I?”
And then—the audacity—he fucking winks.
Really, it should make her scoff or at least roll her eyes, yet the most she musters is a shake of her head to go with the laugh that again bursts out of her, and even that is more for the purpose of breaking through the pleasant warmth that has begun to fuzz her brain. Like the Etch A Sketches she coveted at her parents’ sides in supermarket checkout lines, shake to erase.
“Perlah, can you please call up for a chest x-ray? Soft tissue neck, too, just in case.” Back to Jack: “Everything looks and sounds good externally, but I can’t let you out of here before we make sure you didn’t swallow or aspirate the tooth. Any other injuries? Any dizziness, confusion, loss of consciousness?”
“I don’t think I have a concussion, no,” he preempts, but he sits forward again when she once again pulls her penlight from her scrubs.
“Bright light for a moment,” she murmurs. His pupils are equal, reactive, another good sign. Terrible, though, to see them this close and in such detail, whorls of green and brown and gold like the atmosphere of some lofty planet.
Jupiter, she thinks.
“How long have you been into boxing?” she asks, forcing herself back to Earth. “Or would I be able to guess based on your chart?”
“Coming up on ten years.” There’s a beat, and his flirty patina lifts briefly to reveal something softer and more mellow underneath. “I was in a pretty bad place after losing my leg. Started drinking, then couldn’t stop. My therapist recommended a more . . . controlled way to get my aggression out, so after dragging my feet some—well, foot, I suppose—I joined an MMA gym. The rest is history, alcohol included.”
“Boxing with a BKA, huh? That’s pretty hardcore,” she says, quieter now; and even though she’s done with her examination, she still finds it difficult to step back.
“Don’t count me out, Doc,” he says breezily.
Samira opens her mouth to reply, but the words catch in her throat when she glances up and sees Robby across the floor, who taps pointedly at his watch.
With a sigh, she tucks her penlight back into her pocket, her girlishness back down beneath professional detachment. “Alright, Jack. Perlah here is going to show you to Imaging so we make sure your lungs are tooth-free.”
“What happens after that?”
“That depends. If your images are clear, you’ll be discharged; if not, you’ll be admitted into surgery.”
“I wouldn’t come back here, though, would I?”
There’s disappointment in his eyes when she meets them again. Maybe even some anticipatory regret. “No, you wouldn’t,” she says with a knowing smile.
“Damn.” He brings a hand up to scratch through his hair, resting it at the back of his neck. His confidence has come at a price, she’s gleaned, but he’s showing her a different side now. A boyishness, footing unsure. “Well, I’d be a fool not to at least try, but can I take you to dinner some time?”
Samira blinks.
He’s - kidding, right? She’s arms-deep into a double and surely looks like it, with that wired affect she gets from downing a Celsius too quickly and curls frizzing out of her clip and some bodily fluid or another Jackson Pollock-ed across her scrubs.
And yet, the way he’s looking at her—
“You sure about that concussion?”
Self-deprecating humor, that classic defense mechanism of the perennially lonely. But Jack doesn’t laugh. “Positive.”
Yes yes yes, her tachy heart thuds, even as she knows what her answer has to be.
“I don’t think I can do that, Jack.”
He nods solemnly, a good sport. Teases, “It’s the tooth, isn’t it? Gimme a week or two.”
She chuckles. Ruefully elaborates, “Unfortunately, there are rules about this kind of thing.”
Jack, however, latches onto her ‘unfortunately’ like a life-preserver. “Understood. But if you ever find yourself wanting to bend said rules . . .” He rises and strides over to the far wall to grab the first pamphlet that catches his eye: the red one, on stroke prevention. Scans it for a second before deeming there to be sufficient blank space and asking, “May I borrow your pen?”
When he returns it to her, it’s clipped onto the bifold beside a scrawl of his name and number, and a crude drawing of a tooth.
Samira holds his gaze as she tucks the paper into her breast pocket for safekeeping. Strange, how readily she finds that she likes the weight of it there. “I hope I don’t see you soon, Jack,” she bids fondly.
“Funny,” he says over his shoulder as he’s escorted out. “I hope I do.”
The flowers come a week later, a tasteful arrangement of billowy white and yellow blooms in a shallow, round bowl that brightens up the Hub. The card nestled in the center reads:
Dr. Mohan,
In case you weren’t updated, they did find a tooth fragment in my lungs. Told me I’d be dead in a week if not for the brilliant, gorgeous doctor who sent me up, so thank you for saving my life - I owe you one. You know how to reach me if you ever feel like collecting that debt.
JA
“Secret admirer?”
Samira turns to find Trinity waggling her eyebrows.
“Just a patient who came in last week,” she says casually, like Jack hasn’t been on her mind every day since. “Apparently he’s here all the time because of boxing injuries—”
“Oh, Abbot?”
“Wow, has everyone treated him before but me?”
“Pretty much. He’s hot,” she adds a beat later, Cheshire Cat grin betraying her innocent tone of voice.
Samira’s cheeks and neck grow noticeably warmer. “All yours.”
“Gross,” Trinity deadpans. “You know I don’t swing that way. You, on the other hand, have got to get back out there. I saw the death glare you gave Cassie the other day. Felt it, actually. I think the temperature on the floor went down a few degrees.”
Samira glares. “I’d rather not be reported for violating the Code of Ethics, believe it or not.”
“Who’s going to report you? Clearly not this guy.”
Samira is well aware that her argument is feeble; she’s so used to denying herself what she wants that she does so reflexively now, without always interrogating if said denial is necessary. Still, she barely resists the urge to look around the floor for Robby. As if she can read her mind, Trinity chimes back in with, “Look, I’m sure you’ve heard that the anti-vax mom from PittFest is suing over the spinal tap. Between that and . . . Langdon’s whole thing, the last thing Robby wants is more drama, so he’s not gonna rat. Not that he would have any grounds to, anyway; all the AMA cares about is that nothing happens during the patient-physician relationship, but you’re not his doctor anymore, so you, my friend, are free to jump on that. Figuratively and literally.”
“Except he’s here all the time. What if next time is a more serious emergency and I’m the only one available to treat him? Trinity, I have an ethical obligation—”
“—ethical obligation to get laid, I agree—”
Samira barks out a laugh, equal parts bemused and mortified. “Don’t you have patients?”
“No patience at all, actually, as I’m told all the time.”
“Central 10, please, or the next C. diff case is all yours.”
Trinity gives her a lazy salute. “Yes, ma’am, Chief Resident, ma’am.”
Loath as she is to admit it, Trinity does have a point.
If she were normal, and well-adjusted, and had done this—whatever this was—more recently than medical school, Samira would simply text him. But she isn’t, and has no idea what she’d even say anyway, so she finds herself at a boxing club south of the river instead, her impulsive search query of “Jack Abbot + boxing + Pittsburgh” still open in a Safari tab on her phone.
They’re already four rounds into the ten-round match by the time she arrives, but despite that, and despite the thicket of nearly two hundred bodies teeming like an electron cloud around the ring, Samira manages to maneuver to the front in time to see Jack land an uppercut that has her certain the other boxer is seeing stars.
It’s - terrifying, watching him work. Enthralling, too, and more than a little hot, and she has to adjust her stance as the rounds fly by and the gusset of her underwear grows damp.
He’d just been so kind and charming when he was her patient, but here, a different part of him has come alive. Not so different that it feels uncharacteristic, though; she may not know him, not really—not yet—but there was an intensity to his attention that day in the Pitt that she sees thrumming through him now as he tracks his opponent, baits him into arrogance and capitalizes on it, and then, in a single fluid movement, lays him out.
The other man has been down for five full seconds when Jack looks up in her direction. She knows he’s actually seen her because he grins wide around his mouthguard. He’s already gotten his tooth replaced, she notices—then it’s been eight seconds, nine, and the bell dings, declaring him the winner.
The crowd erupts in cheers.
Jack is swarmed almost instantly. There’s his corner man speaking animatedly as he plies him with water and a towel, the ringside physician looking him over, someone else asking for photos for socials. He entertains them dutifully, but not undistractedly, his gaze constantly roving the crowd until it finally lands on her once more.
Samira finds herself tugged forward as if by a hook behind her navel as he ducks under the ropes and closes the remaining distance between them.
“Now this is a pleasant surprise.”
His voice is lower than she remembers it, no doubt from exertion; he’s still breathing hard as he towels off, his chest rising and falling in a quick staccato. Samira feels absurdly jealous of the towel on its path over his pecs and around the thick trunk of his neck, and if the expression on his face is any indication when she lifts her eyes to his, she thinks he can tell.
“Congratulations,” she chirps.
“Thank you,” he says. “I think you might be my good luck charm, Dr. Mohan. I might have to keep you around.”
“How about you start with a drink?”
He smiles, a slow canine split to his mouth. “I can do that.”
There is, in fact, a lot that Jack can do. Samira learns as much as he walks her backward through his apartment, heady gasps tasting of gin and beer from the bar he’d taken her to traded between their mouths. She has no idea how he does it—in her defense, she’s been more than a little distracted by the slide of his tongue against hers—but her shirt and bra hit the floor before she’s even felt him toying with the buttons and clasp.
His shirt is next, tugged over his head from the back of his collar to expose a network of faded scars interspersed with fresh bruising. Samira can’t help herself and fits the pads of her fingers over the new red blooms. Though her touch is light, Jack exhales hard at the sensation, grows more desperate in the way his hands grip and push at her waist, and Samira realizes with a gasp that he likes it. Tests her theory again and is rewarded with the world tilting on its axis as her back finds the mattress.
“Do you make a habit of seducing your doctors?” she manages when he crawls up the length of her body. She hopes it sounds sultry to his ears instead of as self-conscious as she feels.
“There’s a first time for everything, I suppose,” he says, his voice gravel-rough.
She must look incredulous because he replies, “You’re something else, Samira. Singular.” He punctuates the word with a scrape of his teeth along her jugular that she arches into. “Remarkable.”
“You don’t even know me,” Samira counters cheekily. But maybe he does. Maybe they’re not so dissimilar, two buoys finding purpose in the fray.
“I’d like to,” Jack replies easily. “Will you let me?”
She wants to answer with some quip like “so long as emergency dentistry isn’t always involved,” but what falls from her mouth instead is a “yes,” repeated as glove-calloused fingers strum her clit, then again as he pushes into her one torturous inch at a time. He has this look on his face as he does. Punch-drunk, her brain supplies, and then her brain isn’t supplying much of anything at all because she’s coming and coming, seeing stars of her own.