Pulse by Liv Hayes Page A

less so.
    But I
hadn't   come in two weeks, which was
starting to smart at this point. And it all felt completely ridiculous – why on
this expansive, green Earth would I bar myself from one of man's most simplest
and primitive pleasures? And why would I sit around waiting for a patient that
was never going to be mine?
    My little
fox. My sweet, doe-eyed little fox.
    I straightened
my tie, exhaled loudly, and moved right along.
    At the
end of the afternoon, before making my way to the office, I had lunch with Dr.
Weisman at this hole-in-the-wall restaurant around the corner.
    “You took
a girl home,” he said, leery. “So how are you feeling after having the chance
to blow off some steam?”
    I bit
into a piece of summer squash, swallowed, and wiped my mouth.
    “I
actually didn't blow off any steam,” I told him. “She fell asleep, and I put my
blue balls to bed.”
    He
laughed. I chuckled, too.
    “Are you
going to see her again?”
    “No,” I
said quickly. “I didn't even think I was going to take her home.”
    I watched
him for the better part of a minute as he cut into his steak-tip salad, then
added:
    “How was
the student?”
    “Student?”
    “Yeah,” I
said. “From the other day. The one you were meeting with for coffee, to talk
about whatever it was you had planned to talk about.”
    Weisman
took a bite, swallowed, then glanced around. As if someone were watching the
two of us. As if I were some kind of confidant that he could trust. And sure,
he could. I didn't particularly like Weisman, but he was company.
    Was that
pathetic? Maybe.
    “I fucked
her in the back-seat of her little Mini Cooper. My joints still ache,” he said.
“Elaine is taking the kids to Naples this weekend, to visit her mother. I think
I might have her over.”
    “That
sounds like one of the worst ideas you've had in awhile, Nick,” I told him.
“She's a co-ed. How old is she? Nineteen, twenty?”
    “And
you've never snuck a look at one of your pretty young patients?” he quipped.
“You know, Grace told me about that girl of yours – I don't know, I guess she
was dealing with anxiety, chest pains – and how she'd walked in to the sight of
you ogling the floor as if a giant hole had opened up, and you were about to
get swallowed.”
    “I'm not
sure why,” I mused. “I see younger patients all the time. This isn't a
novelty.”
    I began
picking at a paper napkin, feeling Dr. Weisman's wandering eye watching me
carefully. The key: appear nonchalant.
    “She also
added that you'd taken it upon yourself to remove her EKG line,” he said, this
time more softly. “Why not let a nurse do it? God knows I've never known you to
get your pretty hands dirty.”
    “She
wanted to leave,” I said, my skin prickling. “I was expediting the process. You
know how limited our nurse staff is. She could have been waiting around for a
decade before someone wandered in to take care of her.”
    I tilted
my glass of wheat-colored ale back, taking a sip. When I set the glass down,
Weisman was smiling.
    “Well,”
he said. “I guess that goes to show what a kind, concerned doctor you are, Dr.
Greene.”
    I threw a
crumpled fifty on the white tablecloth, and pretended to seem amused. If the
first step was to play it off as if you could give literally zero shits, the
second rule is to play along. People never suspect those who give them nothing
to pick at.
    “And
that's why there's always a hot cup of coffee waiting for me,” I grinned, slid
into my Porsche, and waved him off. “Take care, you terrific bastard.”

 
 
    At
quarter to four, I was practically trembling. So much so, that Rebecca, one of
the CNAs, even poked around the corner to ask:
    “Are you
sick or something, Dr. Greene?”
    “Hm?” I
mumbled. I was seated behind my desk, which was substantially empty and void of
things like family photos, because I had not yet achieved a family. Looking
past her, I lazily stared at the diplomas that hung across the
cranberry-colored