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***
Dr. Brendon Park was misunderstood by most of his colleagues and several incorrect assumptions about him circulated the PTMC. One, that he hated the nickname ‘Shark’.
He did not hate it. He didn’t feel strongly about it one way or the other, ‘Park the Shark’ wasn’t clever and the rhyming scheme felt like a playground taunt, but being called ‘Shark’ had the connotations of something formidable, perhaps intimidating, and impersonal. For a nickname, he considered it a net positive.
Another assumption that was rampant in the surgery department was that he hated Dr. Shamsi and was after her position.
Despite what the other doctors in the department thought, Doctor Park had nothing personal against Doctor Shamsi. She was an excellent surgeon, a professional, and he appreciated that she didn’t indulge in inane chatter. It was also a simple matter of fact that she was sixty years old and that came with a decrease in motor function, steadiness in the hands and vision. The same would happen to him eventually.
Shamsi did not offend him. The opposite couldn’t be said to be true, but her opinion of him did not matter. She had tenure and so she could make complaints about his bedside manner or cutthroat tendency to poach cases, but it had never been a genuine risk to his position. He had been headhunted from Boston and he was the highest earner in Orthopedics.
He did want her position as Head of Surgery.
It was nothing personal, it was simply a matter of space. There was only room for one apex predator in the same ecosystem.
If events followed a sensible trajectory, he wouldn’t have any complaints. When Shamsi retired, the board of directors would nominate a shortlist of candidates before selecting the new Head. He would undoubtedly be in the conversation and he was confident that he would secure it.
But the nurses’ station had an uptick in gossip recently, because a certain MS4 was going to be joining their department on her surgery rotation soon.
Shamsi had created a miniature version of her, one she wouldn’t shut up about it, and it behooved Park to consider the possibility Shamsi’s plan was to be succeeded by family. Nepotism was rife in the medical world.
So when Victoria Javadi reported for her first shift in general surgery, Park took notice. Special notice.
His first impression was that she was tiny. Diminutive. He knew she was young, but she was so short and slight, she looked like a child scrubbing in at the wash station. This only made her eyes seem even more enormous, round and wide and permanently startled. It looked like a stiff breeze would knock her over.
Hilarious. A child might be able to excel in a school setting, but once she became a resident and had to be elbow deep inside of a body – she would fail.
She sanitized and then gloved up, her gown hanging from her shoulders as she struggled to get the gloves – too large for her – tightly around her elbows. She was joining Shamsi in an exploratory biopsy under anesthesia, something simple to start her off.
Park stopped, took the ties at the back of the gown that she couldn’t reach, and fastened it for her. Her head whipped around and she had to look up, doe-eyed and caught in headlights.
“Are you trying to follow in your mother’s footsteps, Baby Shamsi?”
He meant to intimidate her, not aggressively, just let her know that he knew what her presence in surgery meant, and then move on.
But what he didn’t predict was the way her eyes shuttered, darkened with some bitter irony, and she murmured under her breath, “Not even close.”
Interesting.
***
Park couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason why, but after their first interaction he didn’t feel it was appropriate to call her ‘Shamsi’, and mentally switched to ‘Javadi’.
He had expectations of her in regards to performance and interpersonal dynamics. It was almost annoying how she eschewed each one. Shamsi wanted to hover over Javadi, shepherd her precious baby girl and show the younger how everything was done. Javadi resisted all familiarity – “please, call me Dr. Javadi or Victoria in the hospital” – and sought distance. When Shamsi was critical, scolding, finding some fault with Javadi’s performance, the younger went blank and tuned her out. Didn’t offer resistance but simply became a stone wall, which only frustrated Shamsi more. Shamsi wanted closeness, even if it engendered friction, seemingly unaware that all of her efforts only served to drive more distance between them.
Away from Shamsi, Javadi was still quiet…withdrawn. Tried to make herself even smaller somehow, an impossibility, and looked uncomfortable in Surgery. Park didn’t know why, he had seen Javadi’s school records, she had grades higher than nepotism could buy. He concluded she was by-the-book. Performed best when everything was a case study and theoretical. Disappointing.
He hated to be predictable, but Park was increasingly annoyed – and intrigued – when he found out Javadi had her first ED rotation on the day of the Pitt Fest MCI.
“The urine bag chest tubes were your idea?” He smirked, a short gust of laughter through his nose was his version of a laugh. “We heard about it on the floor for weeks.”
Her mouth tightened into a tight, defensive line. “It worked.”
“It was acceptable given the circumstance.”
She threw him a strange look, a little too unguarded in how sharp her puzzlement was. Why was this man speaking to her, why was he paying her any attention? What was his ulterior motive?
She had bite. A little bite, but she was little.
“Do you still have your wisdom teeth?” He asked, which only surprised her more.
She chewed the inside of her lip, debating on whether to answer him.
But then he was being called for a consult and he left without a further word.
***
“God, I don’t feel like playing nice with nepo baby today.”
Garcia complained nonstop and Park found most of her demeanor largely performative. She grated on him. She wanted his approval, understandable, but she spent too much time in the ED where jockeying and brashness were how people asserted their status. Park didn’t know why Miller enjoyed it, but he had recommended Garcia be given a fellowship in Trauma – he didn’t want her in Orthopedics.
Garcia waited, expecting him to chime in. Instead, Park said loudly enough so Javadi would hear him.
“Javadi. Scrub in.”
Those deer-in-headlights eyes widened at him. “What?”
“This is a teaching hospital. You’re going to observe a C4 and C5 cervical spinal fusion. Let’s go.”
Javadi had to jog a bit to catch up to him, he was already halfway down the hallway towards the operating theater, and Garcia watched them leave with a bewildered expression on her face.
***
The gown dwarfed Javadi, and with the full cap, mask, face shield and gloves – the one feature that stood out were her large, brown eyes. Shining through sterile fabric and catching the strong work lights in the operating theatre.
Her eye twitched at the first incision, when blood ran down the patient’s neck.
“Suction.”
She quickly brought the suction tube over. If she had been in triage during a mass casualty, Park found it peculiar that she still reacted to the sight of blood. But after that initial jolt, she was focused.
Once the patient was open, Park didn’t allow any mental distractions. He worked clean. Efficient. Delicate. He didn’t rush, he took his time to do everything correctly, and that often resulted in faster than average surgery times anyway. He didn’t fill up the theater with unnecessary chatter, his team knew that he liked to keep talk to an as-needed basis. There was music playing, softly, and it was all instrumental. Lyrics were too distracting.
The patient’s cervical disc was replaced with an artificial one, a fusion cage fit between the C4 and C5, and a brace placed over the vertebrae.
Park placed the first screw, then handed the drill to Javadi.
“Slowly. Make sure to drill straight.”
Her large eyes blinked up at him, but then she was at patient side, drill ready. She neatly fit into the space between himself and the table, so he could observe her work without needing to be at an awkward angle in order to establish line of sight. He placed the screws, she drilled them in, and then she returned to a spot out of his way so he could clean up.
“You can close up.”
Her sub-cu was neat and secure. She wasn’t timid about taking big bites, and placed her scissors and suture kit back onto the metal tray when she was finished. He approved and left the operating theatre, stripping off gloves and gown as he headed to the wash station.
Javadi emerged fifteen minutes later, hands freshly washed with the sharp scent of the hospital disinfectant, and pulled on her lavender hoodie. Park leaned over a computer, writing up his report.
“You’re steady, that’s good,” he commented without looking up from the monitor, “operating time was four hours, twelve minutes. You need to eat something or your blood sugar will crash.”
She deliberated on whether that was a friendly suggestion or an order, and responded with, “I’ll grab something from the cafeteria.”
Park scoffed and handed her his phone.
“Add your order to the Doordash. The cafeteria food isn’t edible.”
She was surprised, then smiled shyly to herself as she scrolled through the open app where the rest of the surgery team had already put in their dinner requests. She tapped on the screen a few times before holding his phone back out towards him.
***
Later, they sat in the break room with some of the other team members to have dinner. The lead nurse liked to eat at his desk while he continued to work and the anesthesiologist was already gone for the day.
Javadi had ordered a vegan protein bowl and a sparkling water.
The break room door opened and Shamsi popped her head in. She had been looking for Javadi.
“Oh, Victoria, I was seeing if you wanted to get dinner.”
Javadi smiled stiffly and gestured to her takeout bowl. “I’m fine.”
Shamsi checked her smart watch, frowning, and shot a suspicious look in Park’s direction. “Your shift is over.”
“I’m just wrapping up my notes from surgery today. I’ll see you later.”
“I’ll wait if you need a ride—“
“No.” Javadi’s eyes were trained on the break room table, but her tone had gone from artificially pleasant to grit teeth. “That’s okay, I will see you later.”
Eventually the door closed and Shamsi retreated, unsure how to respond. A small frown had settled between Javadi’s eyes as she stirred her salad with a fork. It was an awkward exchange, Park noted that some were avoiding Javadi’s gaze.
“You don’t like Shamsi.” He stated.
Her eyes flicked up towards him. Still frowning. “It’s a bit more complicated than that.”
Park conceded with a shrug. That was an honest response, at least, only somewhat of a copout. But he didn’t care about learning how complicated Javadi’s relationship with her mother was, he was fine to leave it at that.
“She doesn’t like you,” Javadi said, a little wickedly, smirking to herself for flirting near gossip.
“I know.” Park then grew curious, “What has she said?”
“That you’re a shark.” Javadi smirked again when she saw him roll his eyes at the nickname. “You care more about results and your record than with helping patients. You’re ruthless.”
Park laughed again, an amused gust of air as the corner of his lip turned up in a sneer. “Shamsi’s viewpoint is narrow, and that’s putting it generously.”
“You don’t think she’s a good doctor?” Javadi asked, torn between feeling defensive and conspiratorial.
“She’s a good surgeon,” Park would never distort facts because of his personal feelings, “she is old.”
A strange thing happened on Javadi’s face, as she tried to bury a shocked laugh that snuck past her.
“Do you want to place in Surgery?” Park asked, feeling the ice beginning to thaw around them, enough that he could circle a little bit closer.
Javadi’s lips twisted, it seemed she pondered this question a lot, and still had no clear answer. “I haven’t decided. I’ve been thinking about Psychiatry, and even though it was intense I did like my Emergency rotation.”
Park scoffed, loudly now, unafraid to make his distaste clear. “You should place your hopes higher than being stuck in the meat grinder.”
She bristled, looked offended on the Emergency Department’s behalf, and it made her eyes bug out so much he wanted to laugh. Still a medical student and that war zone had inspired some fanatical loyalty in her.
“There are great doctors in the ED, it isn’t fair to call it a meat grinder—“
“Who.” Park laid down the challenge.
She stumbled, feeling put on the spot, and he could see her mentally fumble around as she stammered, “Dr. Robby—“
“A dinosaur.”
There was a glimmer of delight in Javadi’s eye, despite the way her mouth fell open in surprise. Did she like hearing someone be brutally honest for once?
She tried again, “Dr. Langdon?”
“Erratic.”
Abbot? Cavalier. Shen? A space cadet. They spent a few minutes going through all of the attending and senior residents that Javadi had encountered, with Park giving his unfiltered opinion – usually in the form of a one word, negative review.
She was smiling by the end, as most of the team had finished their food and were putting away their garbage, drifting back to their workstations to finish their notes and clock out. Park also rose to his feet as he checked the time. He would log forty-five minutes overtime.
“I’ll drive you home.”
Javadi looked up askance, but there was no one else that could have been directed towards. It didn’t sound like a question or even an offer, but a statement of fact.
***
They rode the elevator together to get to the staff parking lot. Javadi had an overstuffed backpack slung over her shoulder, which was also a pastel purple color.
She did a double take as they neared his parking spot and his car automatically beeped to unlock once his key came within range.
“You drive a Lamborghini?” He thought there was a hint of judgment in her tone.
He frowned. “It’s an SUV. It’s practical.”
She couldn’t hide her amusement, not with those saucer-round eyes, and she admired the red leather interior of his car as she slid into the passenger seat. Later he would admit to himself that he preened internally as they pulled out of the parking lot and merged into evening Pittsburgh traffic. Most people were impressed, he had the Urus Performante line in Verde Ermes with a pearl finish – the closest shade to British racing green.
But Javadi laughed when his phone connected to his car and his music began playing. He glanced over at her, perplexed, and she caught herself.
“Sorry, it just wasn’t what I expected.”
The car system had auto-played his most recent playlist, which was his go-to music for working out, a blend of early 00’s alternative rock.
“What did you expect?”
She looked sheepish, squirming around in the leather seat, looking swallowed up by his big frame and his beast of a car – and still somehow laughing at him.
“Some Hannibal Lecter stuff. You do know most people at the hospital…” She faltered, eyes bright and beginning to panic, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Hannibal Lecter had a surgical background and he was a clinical psychiatrist, so he would have held a medical license. I suppose the comparison isn’t unfair.” Her mouth fell open again in surprise, as he continued, “What? Do you think I have no sense of humor?”
He had a completely dead expression on his face, halfway between a resting bitch face and a scowl, and she laughed again. This time uncontrollably, even as she tried to cover her mouth with her hand, it took awhile for the giggles to subside.
“I don’t get it,” Javadi finally said, as he turned onto her street, “I thought you had it out for me. And you don’t offer rides to anyone in Surgery, and I’m brand new…”
He slowed in front of her house. He knew where Shamsi lived, of course, he had attended a few dinner parties and ‘work social’ functions there before.
The front door opened immediately at the sound of his engine idling outside and they could see Shamsi standing by the doorway. Shamsi blanched at the sight of Javadi opening the passenger door. It was obvious whose car she was stepping out of.
Park answered her question with one of his own, “Why did you accept a ride from me, instead of leaving with your mother earlier?”
They exchanged a knowing look. Javadi looked quietly appreciative, as if he had turned some expectation of hers on its head – strange, to be on the other side of someone’s evaluation. Usually he was the only one making calculations of everything. But she thanked him with a smile, closed the door and walked up to her door.
Park only stayed long enough to get one more look of Shamsi’s face, before roaring down the street, chuckling.
***
The nurses were chatting at intake, as Park grabbed discharge instructions from the printer. He wouldn’t normally bother with a paper copy, but his patient had been willfully ignorant, so Park was scribbling orders onto the sheet and slashing multiple underlines beneath ‘NO STANDING OR STRENUOUS ACTIVITY FOR 48 HRS’.
“The ED is throwing Javadi a party. Continuing the time honored tradition when someone turns twenty-one.”
“That would be?”
“Getting them so inebriated they wind up in the back of a police car or ambulance.”
Garcia came up to intake to drop off paperwork, smoothly inserting herself into the chat. “Where are they doing it, Murphy’s?”
He piped up, without looking over, “Glitter, the nightclub on Fifth.”
Garcia looked at him incredulously. “You were invited?”
There was a scandalized chorus from the nurses, who all looked very interested in his response. He finished marking up the discharge notes.
“Obviously.”
“And you’re going?” Garcia laughed in disbelief, which he didn’t dignify with a response, already pushing open the office doors and striding out to get back to his office.
He had been invited, if that’s what getting sent a Partyful link counted for these days. But he had no intention of using his precious free time to be crammed in an overpriced nightclub with his co—workers.
But Shamsi did not know that, and he had seen her listening from across the floor, brow knit together in a furious frown.
***
“Are you trying to poach Victoria?”
Shamsi ambushed him, eyes narrowed. She was a political force in the hospital and looked ready to use all of her resources to crush him if she saw reason to.
“No,” he scoffed, which was true, “she’s squeamish about blood. Not a fit for Orthopedics.”
“Then why are you pulling her into all of your surgeries?”
“Because it annoys you.”
Shamsi let out a disgusted sigh, “You’re an ass.”
She thought he was being facetious and withholding his real agenda. He wasn’t, but most people misinterpreted him, usually to his advantage. He found when he was being too direct, everyone assumed he wasn’t being honest – no one else could be truthful or upfront, so they saw it was an obfuscation. He was hiding in plain sight.
His main motivation for pulling Javadi onto his cases was to get under Shamsi’s skin, but he wouldn’t have allowed Javadi in his theater if she wasn’t competent. Park didn’t think he had underestimated Javadi, merely recalculated. Even though her rotation was for General Surgery, her academic supervisor was thrilled she was getting experience in Ortho so there were no complaints when he ‘borrowed’ her.
She didn’t annoy him, which was key, and what other students and even residents had failed at. During surgery, she didn’t pester him with inane questions, didn’t balk at any instructions he gave her, and when he randomly quizzed her she always fired back with the correct response. She earned his trust to participate in more complicated cases, and now he included her in the schedule for surgeries that were booked outside of her schedule. That was a rare opportunity afforded to no medical students before, as these were the procedures papers were written about.
It was one of these operations, they were already six hours in, when Park knew the instrument tray was going to fall a few seconds before it did. It wasn’t a sixth sense or a preternatural ability, he was simply good at knowing how a sequence of events would play out. They were all bound to the laws of physics and probability. The tray had been knocked off balance by the anesthesiologist, it was going to fall on the right side where the clamps weighed the most, and that would send their collection of biohazardous waste spilling onto Javadi.
There were no blades on the tray, so no risk of a laceration. But if the waste spilled on Javadi it would break sterilization and she would have to leave the OR. Meaning she would either be replaced by Shamsi or Garcia, and Park didn’t like either of those options.
Needing only that split second to evaluate his options, Park made a decision and grabbed her around the waist and lifted her up into the air. He physically moved her two feet to the right – just as the tray clattered to the ground and spilled everywhere.
What Park didn’t anticipate was how her waist fit so snugly in his hands, and the way her breath hitched as he gently squeezed her. There was a sudden, upsetting frisson that knowledge sent shooting down his scalp.
Her eyes were wide, rounder and larger than he’d ever seen before, taking up the majority of her goggles.
“Jesus, Shark, even you know you can’t manhandle someone like that,” Walsh snapped from across the table.
He simply let Javadi go and proceeded with the operation.
“Blade.”
Javadi handed him the ten blade and hung back, whatever moment that had passed between them remaining unspoken and un-catalogued.
***
After the surgery was complete, nine hours and forty-seven minutes, he found Javadi by the lockers and did something very few people had ever witnessed.
“I apologize for grabbing you in the OR. It was inappropriate.”
Somehow, her eyes are able to grow even rounder, though there was an incredulous huff in her voice. It could almost be a laugh. “Are you worried I’ll report it to HR?”
The thought had briefly crossed his mind, but he wasn’t worried. “No. Any complaint you made wouldn’t result in any punitive action on my end.”
She gaped at him. “Is that a threat?”
“No.” It is simply what would happen.
She chewed the inside of her lip, a habit of hers, as she debated how to proceed. Then closed her locker door with a ‘bang’, some decision made.
“Look, maybe it’s just that I’m exhausted after that, so I’m not going to word this right, but I don’t know what this is.” She gestured between them. “If you don’t feel the need to apologize, then don’t go out of your way.”
He liked these moments when her mask slipped. Exhaustion did shorten people’s fuses, they tended to be a little more raw when they ran out of patience, and he found that Javadi close to the nerve was sharper, snarkier and more ready to pick a fight. She was like this more and more with Shamsi’s hovering too.
He smiled, just the left side of his mouth curving up, most would call it a friendly smirk. “I wasn’t worried about disciplinary action, I felt the need to apologize, so I did.”
“Oh.”
She played with the strap of her knapsack. With her ever-present hoodie, all of her belongings being a similar shade of purple, and her hair tied back in a low ponytail, she could have blended into any school campus.
So his smirk deepened into a smug little grin, when she looked him in the eye, jutted her chin out, and declared, “Well an apology is empty without some course of action.”
“I’ll buy you dinner. Thursday I’m free after seven.”
She gave him a coy smile, like that was exactly what she wanted to hear.
“Pick me up at seven-thirty.”
He let out an amused huff as she walked away with a spring in her step, both feeling like they had tricked the other into doing what they wanted.
***
No one hovered by the front entrance when Javadi walked out the front door, but from the self-satisfied little smile on her face, he sensed that her dinner plans had been announced. She was dressed nicely, but not in a dress – thank god – in a blouse and wide-leg pants. A colleague dinner meeting, not a date.
When she buckled into the passenger seat, he noticed she had lined her eyes with a dark brown and put on mascara. Her eyes seemed even larger somehow, and smokey now too. It looked good.
She made some snarky comment about him using valet parking when they arrived at the restaurant. He was tempted to ask her how Shamsi reacted to learning she was out to dinner with him tonight.
“I’ll do the rainbow trout, please.”
He tilted his head, curious. “I thought you were vegan.”
“No, but I don’t eat red meat.”
She giggled a little again as he continued to stare at her, perplexed. “You look like you’re trying to figure me out and it’s giving you a headache.”
He took that in stride. He hadn’t considered it, but it didn’t feel wildly off the mark. “You keep doing the unexpected thing.”
She smiled nervously, fiddling with her water glass. “I’ll admit, a lot of people were surprised that I’m spending time with you, especially outside of work.” Her eyes went wide and she quickly tried to amend, “I didn’t say anything, it’s just the nurses, you know—“
He shrugged, indifferent. “They gossip about anything.”
She ate with neat little bites, but had an unapologetic appetite. She cleaned off her entire plate and ordered dessert too. Their conversation flowed smoothly the entire time, which she seemed surprised by, but Park found her interesting to talk to. He learned more about the politics of the Emergency Department than he was interested in, but he gleaned just as many insights into how the Shamsi-Javadi household ran.
They swapped intel and speculation about the hospital administration, who on the board of directors had helped out their favorites, which wheels to grease – and throughout dinner she snuck glances at him through her dark lashes. She was giggly and bashful and excited, all at once. He found that whenever he showed her some direct attention – refilled her water glass, pulled out her chair, or offered her a taste of his meal – she grew flustered and pleased. A young girl with a head full of romance, as she hotly discussed the biases in the latest medical journals on best practices for resuscitation.
Something about that contrast made his guts twist with anticipatory notice.
“—I wasn’t able to roll the patient over without help.”
He suddenly cut in, “You need to do strength training. It’s part of our jobs as physicians to keep ourselves in good condition.”
She looked puzzled and then jokingly pinched her own arm. “No amount of exercise is going to make me grow another foot or turn me into a bodybuilder.”
He noticed her eyes lingered over his arms when she said that, before quickly snapping away.
“You don’t need to be a bodybuilder, but you do need to be able to lift at least your own weight. An applied regimen would improve your grip strength, stability, your posture.”
Her mouth fell open. “What’s wrong with my posture?”
“You can train at my gym,” he threw out casually, “it’s near the hospital, just sign in as my guest.”
“Oh.” She looked like she wanted to refuse at first, but grew intrigued the longer she thought about it. “Okay.”
“Give me your number.”
He didn’t expect her to snort when he pulled out his phone, expecting her to hand over her number.
“No,” she laughed, then said, “add me on Insta.”
She laughed again at the bewildered look on his face, took his phone from his hand and brought up her Instagram page. He was shocked by the number of her followers – why the fuck did a med student have almost one hundred thousand – but added himself before pocketing his phone.
When they got back into his car, she looked nervous and like she was trying to build up the courage for something. He turned on his car, then took his time to flip through music to give her a chance.
He asked, “I’ll take you home?”
There was another half to that question, dangling in the air.
She sucked in a breath, hands fiddling, and asked, “Are you trying to sleep with me?”
“No. But I could be.”
She hit him with those perfectly circular doe eyes, looking oddly innocent and alluring with the edges smoked out in dark makeup. “Isn’t that, like, wildly inappropriate?”
He let his arm lean on the steering wheel, thoughtful and methodical. “In what sense?”
“I’m a student—“
“You aren’t my student.”
She stumbled, grasping for the next thing, “I’m a lot younger than you.”
“You are twenty-one and less than a year away from completing medical school. You are an adult in full control of your faculties. Any legal and medical professional would deem you fit to make your own choices.”
She let out a frustrated little huff, annoyed that he was being so literal. “That’s not the point – it would be an HR nightmare and we would get in trouble.”
That was true, and he gave it his fair consideration. “There is a risk beyond the expected when engaging with a sexual partner for the first time. For myself, there could be some disciplinary action, a note in my personnel record, perhaps the hospital would separate us from working shifts together, but from my observation it would not extend beyond that. I don’t have a pattern of harassment or predating on students, so it would remain an isolated incident. I would be comfortable in assuming that risk. The risk to you is different and I can’t speak for you.”
She looked quietly stunned and sat back into the seat, taking in all of his measured and rational bullet points. She expected him to deny his intentions and pretend this was an innocent dinner, or to aggressively pursue and seduce her. Instead he laid out the situation as he saw it, in an organized fashion, like the surgical instruments on a tray.
“Feels clinical when you put it like that.”
He frowned, he heard a note of disappointment in her voice and he didn’t understand it. Or like it. “Sex with me isn’t clinical.”
She blushed. And snapped back, with teeth, “Well you certainly negotiate like it is.”
“I’m not negotiating,” he bit back on an irritated snarl, getting more worked up than he expected and needing to remind himself to calm down, “It was an offer. And now I’m going to take you home.”
She was silent for the entire drive, which he didn’t mind. He felt strangely off-balance from that quick exchange, it had gone out of control in a way he couldn’t fathom. Was this what it felt like, when someone got the upper hand on him?
Javadi didn’t look like she was preening or crowing over some ego victory, but deep in contemplation. When he parked outside of her house, she hesitated, her hand on the door.
She suddenly leaned over the console, coming so close to him that he could see where her eyeliner had begun to just blur at the edges. He could smell her sweat and the hint of the shampoo she used – bright and citrusy.
His eyes lowered of their own accord. A shark flipped upside down, slipping into a state of paralysis, an apex predator temporarily neutralized.
But then she reared back, eyes wide and startled, and the car door opened and she stepped out. She closed it behind her without saying goodnight and left behind only the lingering question of whether she had meant to kiss him goodnight.
***
If Park thought her Instagram follower count was noteworthy, he wasn’t prepared to see she had over a million followers on Tiktok. He resented the idea that he ‘snooped’ through her Instagram, when she had asked him to follower her and communicate with her via that platform, but he did scroll deeper through her backlog of pictures than he’d readily admit.
She had a reel of her holiday in Belize, candid snaps of sun-soaked streets, colorful drinks with condensation sweating on the glass, that same shimmer on her brown skin like melting sugar, street signs, snorkeling in the ocean and a series of pretty sundresses.
One of the comments left underneath was a puzzling, ‘omg Doctor J I LOOOOVE your tiktoks!’
Curious, Park searched for her and quickly found her Tiktok page. She filmed in the hospital, he recognized the stairwell, the ambulance bay, and he was floored by the number of comments and people liking her videos. He watched a couple, they were inane in terms of the depth of education or messaging being shared, but he found them compelling for another reason. Javadi spoke with a lightness and confidence he hadn’t seen on the floor, addressing the viewer like they were friends, like they could share everything…
The familiarity, warm and affectionate, made him feel strange.
His first message to her on Instagram was a simple ‘Dr. J?’
She sent an emoji. He frowned at it for awhile until he realized it was supposed to be a person holding their hand to their face in embarrassment.
Then, she sent ‘she’s an influencer’ with a series of star emojis trailing after it.
He didn’t know what that meant or how to respond, so he didn’t.
As he was scrolling through more of her photos, he got an app notification that Victoria.J had liked a picture of his. He tapped the preview and saw that she had liked a photo of him taken at last year’s charity ball. He was wearing a slate grey suit and had a drink in one hand.
She was looking at his old pictures too. It made him feel like he’d received tacit permission to keep scrolling.
A minute later and he got another notification, which he eagerly tapped to view. She had left a comment on a photo of him at the beach, having just come out of the water, hair slicked back, shirtless and only wearing dark swimming trunks. The comment was simply the eyes emoji.
The first like could have been played off as polite, following the social code of online interactions, the equivalent to waving ‘hello’ to someone. Eyes on a picture of him shirtless? She made that public. She wanted him to see, did she want other people to see—
Park put his phone down for a moment, realizing his thoughts had started to race. Speculation was pointless, he would never know what her thinking was, he could only control his own actions.
A moment later, he was looking at her pictures again, now scrolling with some instinctual purpose, following a drop of blood in the water. There was a picture of her in a bikini, with a colorful wrap around her waist. He saw the golden-brown gleam on her stomach, her bellybutton was an innie, and she had a carefree smile on her face.
He slipped his hand under his pants and palmed himself above his briefs.
There was another picture of her in a little black dress, black high heels, lounging on top of a bed. There was something playful in her exaggerated pose and expression, flirting and funny. Her heels on the bed, her arm following the curve of her hip, the lace front of the dress covering yet revealing the dip in her cleavage…
This had gone beyond gathering information out of due diligence, but he was alone in his condominium and he didn’t care. Park reached underneath his briefs and stroked himself enthusiastically, flipping back and forth between the two pictures that he liked best, imagining Javadi speaking to him in that easy way, looking up at him with those big eyes just starting to glisten, the way her breath hitched at his touch, the little bites she took – out of her food and out of his ego.
Park came with a muffled grunt, letting his hand slowly glide up and down until his penis softened and his breathing returned to normal. He stripped out of his soiled underwear and threw it in his laundry hamper.
***
Though their interactions at the hospital remained curt and professional, Park found his gaze sought her out. There was no preferential treatment in terms of extra time he spent with her, social graces he allowed or boundaries crossed. But if preference could be given by subconsciously looking for someone, then Park was guilty of it every time he entered a room.
Javadi finally took him up on his invitation to join him at the gym. She tried to keep up with the routine he showed her, those bird frail arms trembling as he increased the weights, and he let his gaze linger on the sweat glistening on her skin. Her strength would improve with repetition.
She took the work out as an opportunity to post a short video to her stories – not taking the chance that it would live forever on her main page, but be a quick ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ Easter egg for the lucky few. It was a shot of the gym mirror as he was doing press-ups shirtless on the floor, with her sitting cross-legged on his back and looking rather pleased with herself.
His face wasn’t visible, but within fifteen minutes someone left a comment “is that SHARK???” and Javadi deleted the story immediately.
Gossip spread through the hospital like wildfire, as gossip tended to do, and Shamsi cornered him on his next shift. She was almost spitting, she was so furious, “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but if I find out you’ve done anything inappropriate with Victoria, I will have you fired faster than you can blink.”
He felt a smirk tug on his lips. Sharks didn’t blink.
***
“You make your cut along the anterior wall, leave an inch on either side of the opening.”
Javadi was always focused in the operating theatre, but there was a noticeable tension along her shoulders. Shamsi was performing an open clamshell to remove a foreign object and had her ‘teaching’ voice on.
Park didn’t think anything was wrong with the setup. Shamsi was an experienced surgeon, she had the support of a well-coordinated team, and while the procedure looked dramatic, it did not require the fine motor control that she had begun to lose due to aging.
But Javadi looked uncomfortable for the first time in the OR since she had begun shadowing Ortho. Park knew something Shamsi didn’t or chose to ignore, which is that Javadi had also participated in open cavity procedures several times already.
“You’re going too quickly, sweetheart—“
Javadi snapped, “I know how to make this incision. Clamp.”
Shamsi pinned her with a deadly stare, the kind that would have most people quaking in their shoes. “Then by all means, Dr. Javadi, do the rest of the procedure yourself.”
Park let out a disapproving huff, his arms crossed against his chest. He was watching the surgery from the viewing room through glass. Now they were letting their personal problems interfere with the procedure, with Javadi’s education – it was childish.
Javadi placed her clamps, the area now ready for removal, and waited patiently for Shamsi to retake the lead. Through her eye protection, he could see that her eyes were shuttered – the wall was in place.
“I expect better from you, Victoria,” Shamsi got a final dig in and it landed on Javadi like a fatal blow.
Shamsi continued with the surgery, using forceps to get a grip on the broken piece of wood stuck in the patient’s soft tissue. Javadi robotically went through the motions, like a light that had been dimmed.
“Blade.”
Park saw a glimmer in Javadi’s eye as she held out the scalpel to Shamsi – blade first.
Shamsi blindly reached for it and let out a sharp hiss when the blade knicked her palm through her glove. The blade clattered to the floor and Shamsi held up her hand, blood spilling bright and red down her gown sleeve.
“I’m sorry,” Javadi stammered, big eyes blinking in shock.
Shamsi scowled, but then stormed out of the operating theater, calling for a nurse to assist her with wound care and a blood test. One of the nurses placed a hand on Javadi’s shoulder, reassuring her that it was an accident.
But Park caught Javadi’s eye through the glass. He knew.
“Dr. Park, we need you to scrub in.”
He nodded at her through the glass before heading for the wash station.
***
“I didn’t know you drink.”
The door to the club swung open, momentarily he heard the cacophony of noise inside, before it slammed shut again – the wind ripping it out of Javadi’s hands.
“It’s New Year’s Eve, everyone is drinking. Why?” He asked.
“Because you’re like,” she waved a hand in the air, trying to conjure up the words, her limbs loose and a little wild, “all work, work, work. Clean eating, clean living, no carbs, just protein shakes and working out. Thought drinking might be beneath you.”
He smirked around his glass of bourbon. Perhaps he was drinking it neat, precisely because he was avoiding the sugars of mixed drinks.
“How many drinks have you had?” He asked, noting the slight glaze to her eyes and how bright and chatty her voice was.
Instead of answering, she let out a ‘brrr’ and rubbed her bare arms. She had slipped into a sparkly cocktail dress, a shimmering purple, that hugged her ass and showed off her legs. It was too little clothing to brave the oncoming January night chill.
“How are you not cold?” She complained, shivering.
He took off his dinner jacket and draped it over her shoulders. “I’m cold blooded.”
“Funny.”
She turned her nose into the lining of his jacket and smiled appreciatively. He didn’t know what he felt at the knowledge that she liked the smell of his cologne.
“You should get back to the party.”
She shook her head, wrapping the jacket more tightly around herself, still trembling. “Do you have a cigarette?”
He suddenly frowned. “No. You shouldn’t be smoking.”
She rolled her eyes, her smiles coming so easily, so carefree, as she waved her hand at him. Like a princess dismissing her royal guard. “Oh puh-lease don’t lecture me, I get enough of that from my mother. You know I started med school when I was sixteen? Do you know how hard she has been riding my ass, for my – for my whole life!”
She was inebriated. He pursed his lips, held up his finger in front of her face and moved it left to right. She tracked the movement easily, though she looked confused and then swatted at his hand. “What’re you doing? Stop it.”
“I don’t smoke. Go back inside.”
She pretended to think about it, then said, “No.”
She leaned up against him, even wearing a pair of strappy heels, she needed to look up in order to meet his eyes. “I want a midnight kiss.”
She was giggles and smiles and teasing, but Park found this as serious as a heart attack, looking at her intently. “Why?”
Her hand crept up his arm, her doe eyes were the hypnotic gaze of a moth, confusing birds of prey and pinning them to the spot. She said in a loud hush, like she was whispering a secret to him, “It would piss my mom off so bad.”
That wasn’t a bad reason.
“That’s childish.”
She sighed, annoyed, hand briefly squeezing his arm as she steadied herself – her grip burning him through his shirt. “So what? I just want to be stupid and do something irresponsible and dumb. Being me is so exhausting. Everyone else gets to fuck up. I have the world’s biggest Type A breathing down my neck, making sure I never put a foot out of line. All I ever wanted was to like, have a shitty boyfriend in high school. Sneak around and under age drink with girlfriends. Get a belly button piercing.”
He was surprised into a laugh at that. “A belly button piercing?”
“Yes,” she dragged out that word, whining with enthusiasm, “I’ve always wanted one, they’re so pretty, but my mom would kill me if I ever got one, I am not allowed.”
She was practically falling onto him, and Park set down his drink and pulled her in closer. Her eyes snapped up to his, bright and alert. He wasn’t sure if she was really that affected by the alcohol and atmosphere, or if it was an excuse. She looked up, doe eyes wondering, hopeful, her hand so slender and slight against his chest.
Park checked his watch, it was set to the atomic clock so it was always correct, and waited twelve seconds before it officially became midnight.
He then leaned down and kissed Javadi, firm and warm, a taste of something sweet and rich.
She looked a little dazed when he pulled back.
“Do you only want to have sex with me because it would make Shamsi angry?”
She blinked in surprise. He felt her breath hitch, the way he felt the entire movement of her body pressed against his torso.
She shook her head.
***
Park was a literal foot taller than her, so once they got inside of his condo he picked her up and sat her on his kitchen island so he could kiss her properly.
She made little breathy gasps when he touched her. It took her a little time to relax and get comfortable, and he waited patiently for her anxiety to turn into excited nerves. She roamed her hands appreciatively along his arms and chest, her eyes glittering with hunger.
He guided her to straddle on top of him when he brought her to his bed. His hands circled her waist, his fingers could almost touch and it made an electric jolt shoot up his spine and his hips rock upwards into her. She was perfect, this tiny girl that he towered over, pushing him down onto his back, riding his cock and fucking him the way she wanted, all that power and force compressed into a small package – like a bullet.
“Do you,” she bent over him, her hair draping over his face and he moaned into it, “do you want to be on top?”
No, no, he didn’t – he shook his head, hands squeezing around her waist and she bit his neck before rearing back up and slamming down onto him – and he saw stars.
***
“Do you want to sign this card? It’s for Javadi.”
Park took the offered pen and scribbled his name among the dozen other signatures, his penmanship an illegible scrawl. Despite the nepotism allegations and the awkward tension that came whenever she had to work with Shamsi, Javadi had endeared herself to the surgery department. It was her last shift before she began her rotation in dermatology.
There was no surgery booked for the shift, so other than consultations, he was only on call for incoming traumas. With that space to breathe, he gestured for Javadi to come over.
“I have something for you. Meet me in exam room 1.”
Javadi had a puzzled look on her face when she came into the exam room and saw that he was setting up a kit.
“Close the door, then sit on the bed.”
She looked at his work tray, curious. No blades but Lidocaine, wipes, and what looked like a curved needle.
“What is this?”
He didn’t like having to repeat himself and irritably jerked his head to the exam bed. Javadi finally got the hint and hopped up onto the edge.
“You said you wanted a bellybutton piercing. Lie down and lift up your shirt.”
Her eyes went wide. “You’re kidding. Do you even know how?”
“I watched a video and read through a procedure manual.”
She was still looking at him incredulously.
“Would you rather have some twenty-year old making less than minimum wage in a tattoo parlor do this, or have me?”
She pursed her lips, trying to hide a smile, before lying down on the bed. She wiggled and pulled up her scrubs, revealing her mid-riff.
Park enjoyed seeing the goose bumps suddenly peak on her skin when he wiped down the area with alcohol. He rattled off, “Any allergies to medication, or to any metals?”
“No.”
“A prick and some burning.” He injected the Lidocaine in two spots on either side of where he was going to make the piercing. He watched her ribs shift as she held in a breath, tensing a little at the needle and keeping her gaze on the ceiling.
After a moment, he rubbed the spot gently with a gloved finger. “Numb?”
She nodded.
He placed the clamp on the section of skin above the divot of her belly button. He thought it was cute, small and round like its owner. Once he was satisfied with the placement of the clamp, the curved needle was placed through the opening and pushed through. Piercing was very simple.
He threaded the barbell with the needle as it rotated through and was removed from her skin, replaced seamlessly with the training jewelry.
“All done.”
“Really?”
Park stripped off his gloves and deposited all the garbage into the biohazard waste, as Javadi sat up, wiping a stray tear from her eye with a sniff and looked down.
The curved barbell was silver and winked in the work light. She beamed.
“Oh, it’s so pretty,” she cooed, admiring his handiwork.
“Rotate the barbell a few times a day, clean with disinfect solution, don’t go swimming for at least twelve days.”
She thanked him by hopping up and pressing a kiss to his cheek. He found the gesture odd, but not unpleasant.
“Congratulations on finishing your surgery rotation.”
She couldn’t take her eyes off the piercing, still smiling at it happily. “Oh my mom is going to kill you.”
He looked at her askance. Shamsi had a more compelling reason to want to murder him than a body piercing, surely?
“If I do want to go into surgery, would you recommend me to Ortho?” Javadi asked, finally letting her scrub top down and then looking up at him play-innocently. She even batted her lashes.
“Yes.”
She furrowed her brows, vigilant. “Only because it would piss off my mom?”
He stared down at her, cold, bloodless, with the stony dead-eyed gaze that had earned him the nickname ‘Park the Shark’.
Then sighed, and shook his head.