First Do No Harm Read online

“Oh, shit.” A stranger’s voice, muffled and dreamlike, came from behind her, and Cassidy had trouble sorting reality from fantasy.

  “Sorry…Margot…we were just, uh, leaving.” Pierce cleared her throat and smoothed her hands down her scrubs, so much quicker to come down to earth than Cassidy seemed to be.

  “No worries, you two.” Margot smirked and then walked toward her locker.

  “I’ll see you around here tomorrow then, Cassidy?” Pierce straightened her shoulders and cleared her throat again.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Pierce.”

  Margot smiled at them again and left, Pierce following quickly. Cassidy was left with a staggering need that was far from being met. She ran a hand through her hair and forced out a gust of hot air. But the heat between her legs would be a persistent reminder for the rest of the night that Pierce wasn’t going anywhere.

  Chapter Nine

  “I want to talk about sex.” Pierce had nearly exploded through Galen’s office door the following afternoon.

  “What do you think this is, Game of Thrones?”

  “Gross. Not sex with you, idiot.” Pierce welcomed herself in and sat without pretense in her usual chair across from Galen.

  “Okay.” Galen sighed. “Is this going to be another one of Pierce’s exhausting, head-spinning diatribes about love? I just want to know how much espresso I’m going to need.”

  “I’m serious. I need your help.”

  Galen looked at her for a long time, tipped her chin, and loaded the nearby coffee machine. “Sounds like a double to me, then.”

  “At least.” The espresso machine hissed one final breath of steam, and Galen plucked the tiny ceramic cup from beneath it. “You want one?”

  “I’m usually more of a black-coffee kind of person,” Pierce said.

  “So was I, when I was your age.”

  “Are we really doing this ‘when I was your age’ bullshit again?” Pierce rolled her eyes.

  “I’m thoroughly enjoying it, actually. Now,” Galen closed her eyes, kicked both feet up on her desk, and took a long, dramatic sip, “you were saying something about sex?”

  Pierce knew Galen well enough to be certain sex was one of her favorite topics of conversation, and usually somewhere in the forefront of her brain at most times when she wasn’t in the OR. But she also allowed Galen the guise of not being all that interested in what she had to say. Because, truth be told, she needed Galen’s wisdom. Or, at the very least, her vast experience.

  “My second date with Cassidy is tonight.”

  Galen stared at her, eyebrows raised expectantly. When Pierce didn’t continue, Galen nodded thoughtfully and smiled. “And you’re planning on getting lucky.”

  “I…No! I mean, I would never plan on that. Did you? Plan on getting lucky? With all those other girls before Rowan?”

  Galen chuckled with just the smallest hint of boastfulness Pierce could tell was left over from another time, another version of her cousin. “I didn’t have to plan on it. It always just sort of happened.” She shrugged, and Pierce looked for the slightest hint of longing in her eyes for a life Galen had left behind. But she saw none. Galen focused on Pierce with the eyes of an addict who’d finally found sobriety and never looked back. For some reason, this gaze settled Pierce from her core all the way out to her limbs.

  “Of course it did. Have you ever struggled with self-confidence for even a second, Galen?”

  “All the time! But this isn’t about me. This is about you. What are you so worked up about, anyway? Aren’t you excited about seeing Cassidy again?”

  Excited wasn’t the right word. Excited was how you felt when your Little League team was up six to five in the bottom of the ninth. Excited was Christmas Eve night, in your pajamas, by the tree. Excited was a beach vacation, or a surprise party, or a visit from your best friend. Pierce didn’t even have vocabulary for this. Elation, maybe. That was probably as close as she could get unless she invented a new word. This feeling was so upheaving Pierce wanted to crawl out of her skin. It was like taking Adderall with a side of cocaine, followed by a shot of heroin just for the dopamine effect. At least, that was what Pierce imagined. A “speedball,” they called it in the ED. It was deadly but probably one fucking hell of a way to go.

  “I’m elated,” Pierce said. That was as close as she was going to get outside of her own speedballing brain. “I’m also petrified.”

  “Of what? Sex?” Galen was clearly trying to grasp what Pierce herself couldn’t even process. What was she afraid of? Sure, sex was part of it. The idea of being naked with a girl like Cassidy Sullivan was enough to send her cowering in a corner until her days ran out. But also the simplest of things left her shaken and uncertain. She wanted to say the right things. She wanted to make Cassidy laugh. She didn’t want her to catch on to the fact she was so far out of Pierce’s league, Pierce was in the stands picking up hot-dog wrappers after the game. So many baseball analogies, Pierce thought. Get your shit together.

  “Of everything. She’s all I can think about. I can hardly focus on work. And when I’m not at work, I can’t find enough to do to keep myself busy enough so I’m not incessantly texting her, talking to Margot about her, making playlists for her on my Spotify account.” Pierce immediately regretted this last one, even before Galen had a chance to hold out her hand, accompanied by a cacophony of laughter.

  “Wait a minute. You really made a playlist?”

  Pierce groaned, wondering how someone with such horrendous ADD made such a great surgeon. “Focus, G.”

  “Right. Sorry.” Galen’s eyes—which so strongly resembled her own when she looked in the mirror—went soft and dreamy. “I remember those days. It’s like you’re on drugs.”

  Pierce felt her face relax. Maybe Galen understood her better than she thought. “Exactly.”

  “As for the drugs, I will say this much. Hang on and enjoy the ride, my friend. Because if you’re asking me how to safeguard your heart, there isn’t a way. I almost lost the love of my life once. And then she came back to me. And not a single minute of that was in my control.”

  “I had no idea doctors could be such fatalists.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. But every time you love, you risk. No way to have one without the other.”

  The sentiment oddly comforted her. Galen was right. There was a chance, maybe even a damn good chance, that things with Cassidy wouldn’t work out. The odds always favored the latter. “So, it’s out of my hands.”

  “Not exactly, no. You can always choose to be lonely. But what kind of life is that?”

  That wasn’t even an option. Pierce guessed, then, that soul-crushing heartache was the alternative, except for that quiet voice in her ear, telling her, “Maybe not this time. Maybe this is it.” And that was enough to keep her going, especially when that voice was talking about the apparent girl of Pierce’s dreams.

  “Great. So, that was largely unhelpful.”

  Galen laughed. “Sorry. They don’t pay me for my bedside manner.”

  “Said every surgeon ever.”

  “Are you done ragging on surgeons yet, or did you want to talk about something I might be able to be a little helpful with?” Galen smirked.

  “Sex.”

  “I am, as some might say, well-versed in the subject.”

  “Oh, believe me, I’ve heard how well-versed you are from just about every nurse in the ER, not to mention the few I’ve run into in the PACU and the cath lab.”

  Galen couldn’t seem to help but puff her chest out just a little. “Is that a fact?”

  “Don’t look so pleased with yourself, Burgess.”

  Galen deflated a little, and her smile softened. “Just a little side note here. I’d trade every single one of those girls for one night in with Ro watching The Great British Baking Show and eating Thai food.”

  Pierce returned her smile. “I know. I’m looking for my own days of Netflix and Thai food. Meaningless sex just feels, well, meaningless now. That’s what sca
res me.”

  “You’re scared of how much is at stake this time.”

  “Yes! I know it sounds crazy, but I already feel like if this didn’t work out, I’d be heartbroken.” It was the first time Pierce had put words to the fear. She was already invested in Cassidy, and it was only going to get worse from here.

  “And sleeping with her is going to be like putting that through a Xerox machine and blowing it up to 300 percent.”

  “Outdated reference, but okay, yes. I always get attached when I have sex with a girl. It’s ridiculous. I’ve known girls I had little to no interest in, and the second we put our clothes back on, it was like I suddenly saw sunset picnics and meeting each other’s families. It’s biology, I know.”

  Galen stared at her blankly. “Huh. I never experienced that.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Except with Rowan, I mean. I was already in up to my eyeballs before we had sex, but after? I was drowning in it. Obsessed. A lost cause.”

  Pierce took some relief knowing that even the great Galen Burgess could fall the way she seemed to be. “Let me guess. Nothing I can do about that one either, right?”

  Galen made her finger into a gun and pointed it at Pierce with a wink. “Right. So just—”

  “Sit back and enjoy the ride?”

  “I was going to say ‘buckle up.’ But you know, insert any cheesy 80’s movie catch phrase of your choice.”

  “Can you give me some tips on the mechanics, at least?” Pierce’s cheeks warmed.

  “The mechanics? Dude, don’t call it that. It’s sex, not assembling IKEA furniture.”

  “Again, you’ve been entirely unhelpful.”

  Galen tilted her chin and inhaled, clearly pensive. “Do you know what makes someone good in bed, Pierce?”

  Pierce thought about it for a second. She really had no idea. Panic engulfed her, swelling from her feet up to her throat, until the room seemed to heat up to one hundred degrees. She had no idea! Oh God, what if she was horrible in bed and didn’t even know it? She desperately scrolled through her mental black book of lovers, trying to remember anyone who might have said she held any kind of skill whatsoever under the sheets.

  “Okay, first of all, stop doing that,” Galen said.

  “Doing what?”

  “That. Overthinking everything. Sex isn’t about thinking. In fact, if you’re doing it right, the thinking comes before, and after. But not during. Everything during sex is feeling, and acting. That’s it.”

  “Feeling, and acting.” Pierce parroted her.

  “Good. You need to remember only two things.”

  Pierce pulled off a Post-it Note from Galen’s desk and picked up a nearby pen.

  “Two things, Pierce. You don’t need to write this shit down.” Galen gently pulled the Post-it away like an intervention, and Pierce took a deep breath. She was worked up, even for her. Speedball, she thought.

  “Right. Go on.”

  “Pay attention to her. Listen to her noises, her breathing, her voice. If something makes her breath catch, do it again. If something makes her tense, do it again. Every woman’s different. No one likes the same things. But if you’re really tuning into her, you’ll figure it out so quickly she won’t be able to say your name fast enough.”

  Pierce liked the way all that sounded. “And what’s the second thing to remember?”

  “Let go,” Galen said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s like what I said about not overthinking. Let your body, your mind, your heart, your…soul, or whatever, connect however it sees fit. Remember, so much of this is out of your control. At least let this be the fun part of that.”

  Pierce nodded. “Not so entirely unhelpful after all.” She smiled, said good-bye to Galen, and left her office. She had a lot of letting go to do before that night.

  * * *

  Talking about the beginning of Pierce’s courtship with Cassidy made Galen all kinds of sentimental. It wasn’t hard to remember the kind of pure, unfiltered pining Pierce displayed. Every time Galen looked at Rowan, even years later, she still saw the same surgical intern with the glasses and high bun whose presence hardly seemed to fit in her tiny frame. And with that sight came the same longing and downright appreciation Galen knew she would never stop feeling, no matter how many decades or centuries passed between them.

  “Baby?” Galen opened the door to their apartment only to be greeted by a bombardment of Walk the Moon coming through the small Bose speaker in the corner.

  Rowan came dancing around the corner from the bedroom, wearing one of Galen’s button-down shirts, open at the collar, over lace panties. She flashed sultry eyes at Galen as she dropped her ass to the ground and ran her hands down her thighs, then quickly shook her head to the beat of the music until her hair was flowing like cotton on a line. Galen laughed heartily and dropped her briefcase, sidling up to her and taking both of Rowan’s hands. In one smooth motion they’d practiced many times in their very own living room, Galen twirled Rowan under her arm, catching her around the waist and dipping her back until her wild hair brushed the floor.

  The music was still too loud for either of them to speak, but Galen didn’t mind. She grabbed Rowan around the hips and swayed with her, looking into the eyes that felt like home. Pure, unfiltered home.

  “Marry me,” Galen shouted over the final cadence of the song.

  “What?” Rowan stopped, finally hit pause on her phone, and laughed. “Sorry. I got caught up in my own dance party here. Suzy hated it. What did you just say?”

  Galen smiled, keeping her gaze locked hard on Rowan’s and still grasping her hips. “I said,” she paused, wanting to slow the words down as much as possible, “marry me.”

  Rowan wound her arms around Galen’s neck and kissed her. “Anytime, anywhere. You know that.”

  “I’m serious, Ro.”

  “So am I. But I want a real proposal, Dr. Burgess.” Rowan moved her hand to Galen’s cheek and moved with a deliberately torturous pace, finally brushing her lips against Galen’s until Galen’s own head felt as if it might detach from her body.

  “You deserve the greatest proposal in history,” Galen said, once she could catch her breath again.

  “And don’t forget a very, very large ring.” Rowan winked and slapped Galen softly on the ass.

  “You’ve become very spoiled, you know that?”

  “Hey. I’m not going to marry you for your good looks.”

  “What about my intellect? Or my skills in bed?” Galen pouted, trailing behind Rowan, who was already heading for their bedroom.

  “I’ll have to think about that last one. But I might need a little more evidence.” Before Galen could even get to her next thought, Rowan had stripped off the shirt she’d stolen from Galen, revealing nothing but her smooth, pale skin stretched over her naked body, and those very lacy, very black panties that barely covered a thing.

  “You can have all the evidence you want.” As she had to do so often, Galen forced herself to slow down, brushing her fingers up Rowan’s bare torso and then through her hair. Even after all this time, she wanted Rowan with a hunger that felt like lifelong deprivation. It took everything she had not to devour all of her as soon as she was allowed. “As a matter of fact, you can have whatever ring you want. I’ll buy you ten rings. Or maybe just one really, really big one.”

  Rowan curved her fingertips between the buttons of Galen’s shirt and pulled it open the rest of the way, softly biting Galen’s bottom lip, then her earlobe, and finally the nape of her neck, until Galen was dizzy with need. “How about I just get you? Forever.”

  “You have me,” Galen whispered. “Forever.”

  * * *

  The sun was long down by the time Galen gathered enough strength to nudge Rowan awake. Rowan didn’t get many chances to sleep, which always racked Galen with guilt when she had to wake her.

  “You should eat something, baby,” Galen said. “It’s after eight.”

  Rowa
n stirred and smiled, her eyes still puffy and her lids half closed. “I’m okay. I promise.”

  “Mhmm. And what did you have today?” Galen pulled Rowan’s head onto her chest and stroked her hair.

  “Some saltines. Two ice-cream bars. And…a bunch of mini Snickers bars?”

  Galen laughed. “One cannot survive on carbs alone, my dear.”

  “I’ve done all right so far!”

  Rowan wasn’t far off, given that her youth and a particularly boisterous metabolism allowed her to eat like a toddler and still look like a Greek goddess. Still, Galen couldn’t help but want to take care of her. “Let me make you something. How about an omelet? Extra cheese?”

  Rowan’s face lit up and she pecked Galen’s cheek. “I’d love that. Thank you.”

  “Anything for you.”

  “What’s gotten into you today? You’re usually a hopeless romantic, but this is a little something extra…I can’t remember the last time we had evening sex and omelets in bed. Not that I’m complaining.”

  Galen got out of bed and covered herself with her discarded undershirt she found near the door. “Talking to Pierce today about Cassidy just reminded me how lucky I am.”

  Rowan feigned displeasure “Talking about Cassidy has you like this?”

  “Stop it.” Galen walked back over to the bed and flung herself on top of Rowan until she was straddling her, Rowan’s hands pinned behind her head. “Talking about the beginning, about finding that one, the one…I still feel that way about you, Ro.”

  “You promise?” Rowan’s eyes twinkled with the hint of vulnerability Galen loved so much.

  “Pinkie promise.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you. More than you could possibly know.”

  Galen released Rowan’s wrists and kissed her forehead. “Let me get to those omelets then.”

  “And when you come back, I want to hear all about the last of Pierce’s love stories.”

  Chapter Ten

  It had been the longest two days of Cassidy’s life. Each minute of the forty-eight-plus hours seemed to drag by in excruciating seconds, as if she were staring at a clock whose hands just wouldn’t move. For a few brief moments she could avoid thinking about Pierce. But these were usually in the ED, and usually when she held a patient’s life in her hands and didn’t have room in her brain for much else. Still, the instant the crisis settled, Pierce was back in her head, threatening her focus, and mostly, her sanity. After a couple of days, just the memory of kissing Pierce shouldn’t feel so much like slipping into warm water. But it did. As she fumbled through her closet trying to decide on what to wear, she ached and writhed in the same pleasant way she had every time she imagined her lips against Pierce’s again.