“Um, hello?” the now agitated patient called from the table. I wasn’t sure if she was more upset that I was doing something abhorrently disgusting or that my attention was no longer focused on her, but either way, I couldn’t say I blamed her.
My new nurse made big eyes before trying to play it off with a pat on my shoulder. Three pats, in fact, each more awkward than the previous. What she didn’t do, however, was shake my contaminated hand.
For fuck’s sake, Will. Pull it together.
Grabbing the glove at the collar, I ripped it off my hand so that it flipped inside out, and I tossed it in the garbage quickly. Moving to the sink and turning on the tap to wash my hands, I spoke rapidly, taking advantage of the fact that I didn’t have to look either one of them in the eye.
“So everything seems good, Alyssa. It’ll take a couple of days to get the results back on the pap smear, but we’ll get in touch with you if anything comes back abnormal.”
“Nurse, uh…?”
“Melody,” she answered for me.
“Melody, yes.” Fucking hell. “Let’s step outside.”
Please, please, get me out of this room.
I was starting to get concerned that my new job was actually the Twilight Zone of weird, absurd, and comedically awkward.
I’d been hired on the spot after arriving late to the interview for some insane reason. A reason that appeared to revolve around the fact that I wasn’t applying for the position to get inside of Dr. Cummings’s pants. Then, on my first official day on the job, instead of getting a normal, new-hire orientation of the inner workings of the office, I was told by an old nurse named Marlene—who bore an uncanny resemblance to Grandma Moses and literally gave zero fucks—to go into exam room one.
It’d gone something like this:
“Are you Melody?” she spat out with an irritated sigh.
“Yes,” I responded with a smile. “Hi. It’s very nice to meet you.”
Marlene ignored my proffered hand and grabbed a file from the desk. “Well, what are you waiting for?” she questioned with a raise of her brow. “You’re Dr. Cummings’s new nurse, and he’s already in exam room one.”
She’d given me no time for questions. No welcome to the office basket or encouraging smile. No tour of the break room or where to find the supplies—or even helpful pointers about the best places to hide and cry.
Just her, cantankerously telling me to get the fuck in there, basically. That was that. My official orientation.
Unfortunately, Marlene’s list of undiscussed topics didn’t end there. No, she’d also failed to mention that inside exam room one wasn’t just Dr. Cummings. It was actually Dr. Cummings in the middle of a pap smear.
Now, I’d had no issue with the pap smear itself, just the fact that my official introduction to my new boss had occurred while he was wrist-deep inside of a vagina.
And funnily enough, that hadn’t been the worst part of the situation.
No. The awkwardness had reached its climax when Dr. Cummings had pulled his hand out of a vagina and then promptly held that gloved, vaginal-fluid-covered hand out toward mine to shake.
Uh… thanks, but no thanks, Doc. I’d never been the type of girl to shy away from bodily fluids, but I’d also never been the type to embrace bodily fluids without the proper protective equipment.
As I followed Dr. Cummings out of the exam room, I honestly wasn’t sure where else this could go. And if I was being frank, I kind of wanted to strangle my mother for thrusting me into the insanity that was my current place of employment. Who are these people?
“Let’s head into my office for a minute,” he said, glancing over his shoulder and gesturing toward the end of the hall.
“Sounds good,” I lied. Because yeah, it was a lie. Absolutely nothing sounded good at this stage in the game, especially not several more minutes of awkward as fuck interaction between me and anyone in this office. I’d have much rather been relegated to dealing with only the patients, as I still held out hope for their normalcy, via access to the outside world.
As I glanced up at the ceiling, I wondered if maintenance needed to come check for poor air quality or carbon monoxide contamination. Anything to explain the oddities of the people inside this office.
At least it’s getting close to lunch time, I thought to myself and glanced down at my watch for confirmation. When the numbers 9:01 a.m. glared back at me, I groaned internally. It was a bad, bad sign when you felt like you’d worked for five hours, and nary an hour had passed. Not only was I in the Twilight Zone, but it was an alternate dimension of the Twilight Zone where time stood still.
Holy screaming goats. This day is never going to end. I will literally die in this place.
Dr. Cummings opened the door to his office and gestured me inside. “Please, take a seat,” he instructed and I complied. I didn’t have much choice in the matter, but as I sank into one of his old leather chairs, I thanked circumstance that if I was going to be consigned to hell, at least the seating was comfortable.
Good design work, Satan.
“Good God, that was awkward,” he said and moved around his desk. My eyebrows lifted in a statement of yeah, fucking obviously while his back was turned, but as he shrugged out of his white exam coat, my brain made a U-turn from its route to a well-deserved mocking and straight back toward arousal.
His muscles flexed and moved beneath his well-fitted dress shirt, and his waist was lean without seeming skinny. With the way his muscles stood out in stark relief—through the freaking fabric for kittens’ sake—he didn’t need any more bulk. Dr. Cummings was a man who made the statement less is more ring true.
Believe me, it was more. Oh boy, was it more.
My traitorous gaze moved down his shoulders to his back and landed on his perfectly firm ass.
Sweet baby pigeons in a kayak, my new boss was an Adonis.
I wonder what he looks like naked. That perfect ass…those wide shoulders…his trim hips that no doubt hold that sexy as hell V…
Holy hell. Was I just fantasizing about my boss? The very boss who’d no less than five minutes ago attempted to shake my hand with a glove covered in more than just latex?
God, what was it with this place? It was like I’d stepped onto the set of the medical version of The Office. The only difference was that this boat of crazy wasn’t commanded by Captain Michael Scott. It was Dr. Awkward Adonis.
I cleared my throat nervously and watched as Dr. Cummings threw his exam coat haphazardly across the back of his chair and sat down. He rested his elbows on the mahogany wood of his desk and ran a frustrated hand ran through his golden-brown locks. I fought my brain’s urge to daydream about running my own hand through those sexy tresses and gave my best attempt at professionalism, crossing my legs and sitting up straighter in my seat.
Eventually, his gaze met mine, and he offered an apologetic smile, blue eyes crystal clear with unpretentious sentiment. “Can we have a do-over?”