First Do No Harm Page 7

  “And, um, girlfriend?” Rowan said, leaning over her elbows intently.

  “Now whose gift is subtlety?” Galen asked, teasing her.

  “What? I’m just trying to get to know our new friend better!”

  Pierce threw her arms dramatically up in the air. “Guys…really?”

  “No.” Cassidy laughed. “No girlfriend either. But how did you…”

  Rowan raised a hand boastfully. “I actually have the world’s best gaydar.”

  Pierce and Cassidy looked at each other, befuddled.

  “She’s right,” Galen said.

  “But…you’ve only been out for, like, five minutes! How is that even possible?” Pierce asked.

  “Excuse me. I’m going to pretend that remark didn’t offend me. And I don’t know how. It’s a gift, I guess.”

  “I knew you were gay too,” Galen added.

  “You did not,” Pierce said.

  “Well, I had a hunch at least.” Galen glanced at Pierce, then at Cassidy, and winked. Shit. Had it been so blindingly obvious in the coffee shop that she was checking Pierce out? Did that mean everyone they worked with could see it too? Oh God. Maybe she’d have to quit and find another residency? How could she? She’d just started there! No one had ever switched residencies twice! Oh God, oh God, oh God…

  “I guess that femme invisibility can’t fool you two,” Cassidy said, smiling coolly.

  “Are you kidding?” Rowan said. “I’ve been the poster child for femme invisibility since I came out. Do you have any idea how many times my male colleagues hit on me? I’ve found myself on more—”

  “—accidental dates?” Cassidy answered.

  “Yes! Accidental dates! You too?” She laughed.

  “Constantly.” Cassidy looked across the table again at Pierce and Galen, who stared blankly at each other.

  “That’s a problem I’ve never run into,” Galen said.

  “Same,” Pierce added.

  “Thank God for Galen, or no one would have any idea I was queer. She’s like my little gay calling card. I walk down the street with her and, bam, rainbows.”

  Galen turned to Pierce and grinned. “Guys hate it,” she whispered.

  “But really. No girlfriend?” Rowan grew more serious. “That’s really interesting. You know, Pierce is also single.”

  Pierce jumped from the table. “Rowan! Jesus! And here I was thinking Galen would be the one whose mouth I’d have to suture shut!”

  They all laughed, and Cassidy couldn’t help but notice just how much she liked the husky pitch Pierce’s voice took on when she was just a little embarrassed.

  “No more. I promise.” Rowan brought her index finger and thumb to her lip and mimed a zipper closing.

  The conversation moved forward, but Cassidy’s mind couldn’t. She’d been hoping Pierce was single. But she didn’t see how that would be possible. Now she was torn between the thought that Pierce was clearly available, and the thought that she’d clearly made no advances. The deduction of reason led only to the path that Pierce just wasn’t interested.

  * * *

  Dinner had run late into the night. In spite of the fact that all four had to get up early for various callings at the hospital, they’d spent the evening laughing and drinking and talking, until Rowan finally insisted everyone disperse to get some sleep. Pierce’s phone had gone off half a dozen times from her pocket. It was most likely Victoria, but she was enjoying herself far too much to pay any attention. Cassidy had fit in seamlessly with Rowan and Galen. It was as if they’d all been friends for years.

  Pierce lay in her bed sometime after one a.m. She scrolled through all Victoria’s unanswered texts, which sounded more and more frantic as they progressed, but she didn’t respond. She couldn’t think about anything but Cassidy and the ease of her laugh across the dining-room table as she looked at Pierce with something Pierce couldn’t quite parse out. Was it longing? Curiosity? Fondness? She wasn’t sure. But whatever it was, it was intense. And it pulled Pierce in with such a force that her eyes couldn’t move—didn’t want to.

  Victoria was a nice girl. Pierce liked her well enough. They had potential to go somewhere. Cassidy was just a coworker, or maybe a friend at best. She saw no point in dredging up the impossible.

  * * *

  Cassidy walked to the locker room, nearly delirious from a ten-hour shift that had quickly become a fourteen-hour shift after two of her patients took turns for the sicker. It was after midnight, and she wished she could teleport home somehow to avoid spending one more minute awake. She was so focused on collecting her things and leaving that she almost didn’t see the one other person in the room, her broad back and square shoulders turned to Cassidy, struggling to get her keys out of her coat pocket.

  “Late night for you too, huh?” Cassidy asked.

  Pierce turned, a smile already painting her face at the sound of Cassidy’s voice. “Yeah. Let’s just say Fast Track wasn’t so fast today.”

  “Any more head bleeds?”

  “Nope.” Pierce shut the metal locker with a clunk and tossed her backpack over her shoulder.

  “Then I’d call it a success.” Cassidy pulled off her stethoscope and shook out her ponytail, trying hard to stretch the taut muscles in her shoulders.

  “How about you? Why are you here so late?”

  “Hmm…a septic guy who needed a central line about twenty minutes ago, and a status epilepticus I had to intubate.”

  “You love this shit, don’t you,” Pierce said, laughing sweetly.

  Cassidy shrugged. “I can’t help it. I really do.”

  “It’s a sickness. Really, I get it.” Pierce paused awkwardly and shifted back and forth on each foot for a minute. “So, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “I’ll be here,” Cassidy said, all too eagerly.

  “Great. Well…bye.” Pierce raised her palm in the air, then turned quickly and moved toward the door. Before she opened it, she stopped again, spinning around to face Cassidy as if she’d just changed her mind, or maybe forgotten something important. “Hey, listen. Are you hungry?”

  Cassidy’s heart began to vibrate in her chest, and her palms grew clammy. “Starving. I haven’t had a chance to eat since breakfast.”

  “You, uh, want to get a burger or something?” Pierce’s gaze never left the floor.

  “Sure. I mean, yeah. A burger would be great. Know a place?”

  “There’s a sports bar down the street that’s pretty good. If that’s okay…”

  “Sounds perfect.” Cassidy pulled on her jacket and zipped it shut, trying to contain the fountain of nerves bubbling out of her.

  Pierce smiled and opened the locker-room door for her. “I’ll drive.”

  * * *

  Mike O’Leary’s had been a favorite of Pierce’s since she got to Boston, partially for its proximity and partially for its ten flat-screen TVs always playing a different sporting event. It wasn’t the ideal place to take a girl on a first non-date, but it was the only place she knew that was still open, and she hadn’t exactly had much time to come up with options. Pierce was not planning to ask Cassidy out. Not by any stretch of the imagination. But as she got ready to leave the locker room that night, she looked at Cassidy’s long, blond hair and green eyes that were a little bit lonely and a little bit curious, and the words just tumbled out.

  It wasn’t a date. Of course it wasn’t. First of all, she’d never take a date to Mike’s. Especially not someone as smart and sexy as Cassidy. Second of all, there was Victoria. Pierce reminded herself as they drove away from the hospital that she and Victoria had gone out only a couple of times. They’d slept together. They’d had fun. But they hadn’t made any promises. Still, she found herself wracked with gratuitous guilt, even on a non-date date. Stupid. Cassidy surely didn’t consider this a date anyway.

  “Ugh. I’m so bummed I missed the home opener tonight,” Cassidy said, glancing up at one of the massive televisions in the corner.

  The corners of P
ierce’s mouth curled involuntarily. “You’re a baseball fan?”

  “Huge. All sports, really. But especially baseball and football.” Pierce must have been staring, because Cassidy laughed and reached across the table, tapping her playfully on the shoulder. “What? Never seen another girl who likes sports before?”

  “Not one that looks like you.” The words left Pierce’s mouth before she had time to rethink them, which was not an altogether uncommon problem for her, and Cassidy looked away coyly. Pierce certainly didn’t want Cassidy to find herself on another accidental date, thinking she was just getting an innocent burger and then being bombarded with unreciprocated affection and flirtation.

  “Thanks,” Cassidy finally said, still smiling. “And I bet you didn’t know I was gay either.”

  “Honestly? I had no clue. But in my defense, I have terrible gaydar. You essentially have to look like me or actively try to kiss me for me to have any idea you’re interested. I mean, not you, you. I meant like, you in the general sense. Not you in particular…” Pierce rested her forehead on the tips of her fingers in defeat. “Never mind.”

  Cassidy laughed and leaned closer. “I knew what you meant.”

  “For the record, I don’t think Rowan would have had any idea either. And Galen’s spent her entire life just assuming everyone’s gay, since they all end up wanting to get in her pants anyway.”

  “You know, I did try really hard to look less ‘straight’ at one point. I had an edgy haircut and everything.”

  “How edgy are we talking here?”

  “Oh, very. The entire left side was cut short, but the right was long and choppy. I was going for a whole Portia De Rossi thing, but really, it was just awful.”

  “I don’t believe it.” Pierce laughed.

  “No, really! I did!”

  “I don’t believe you could possibly look terrible.” Stop it, Pierce. Stop flirting. You sound like an idiot.

  Cassidy didn’t answer but glanced down at the table and pushed her menu around a few times before finally looking up at Pierce over the tops of her glasses with a shy grin. Was Cassidy possibly finding this conversation endearing?

  “How did you end up a Red Sox fan, anyway? You didn’t grow up around here, right?” Pierce asked.

  “No. I was an army brat. We moved eight times before my parents finally divorced, so I didn’t settle anywhere until high school. But my dad is a huge Boston sports fan, so I grew up with an onslaught of Adam Vinatari and David Ortiz until, luckily for my dad, it stuck.”

  Pierce had only been half joking when she said she’d never met a sports fan who looked like Cassidy. Every girl she’d ever dated had despised sports or, at the very best, tolerated them. Stereotype or not, she was more than slightly surprised.

  “Is it true?” Cassidy asked, after the conversation had slowed and a comfortable silence had fallen over the table.

  “Is what true?”

  “What Rowan said the other night, about you being single. I find that hard to believe.”

  Pierce’s pulse accelerated, and she gripped her knees under the table. “Definitely true. And how about you? How are you possibly single?”

  Cassidy laughed. “You’re kind of charming. Did you know that? Anyway, I got out of something toward the end of med school. And when that ended, I decided to sort of throw myself into my residency. So…I’ve been a doctor. And that’s about it.”

  Pierce realized that Cassidy was directly addressing a subconscious and fleeting thought Pierce had had since their dinner with Rowan and Galen; Cassidy had no time to start a relationship. She shook her head, trying to remind herself that that was so far from mattering it shouldn’t have even crossed her mind.

  “But…I think I’m ready to change that…” Cassidy smiled shyly, and Pierce’s legs trembled a little as they brushed Cassidy’s. “Are you, you know, seeing anyone?”

  It took a lot for Pierce to think anyone was interested in her. But Cassidy was sending signals about as subtle as flare guns and traffic-cone orange. Maybe it was the beer, or just the epic fatigue from an endless day. It was impossible, but something seemed to be happening between them.

  “I suppose I should call it a night,” Cassidy finally said, once the waitress had cleared away the final nacho crumbs and empty glasses. A sinking disappointment swamped Pierce at the thought of leaving her.

  “Same. What time do you work tomorrow?”

  “Seven a.m.”

  “No, really.” Pierce was certain she was joking.

  “I’m serious…I have to be back at the hospital in about…five hours?”

  “I’m so sorry! You should have said something. I would never have kept you out so late.”

  “You didn’t keep me out.” Cassidy reached across the table and brushed Pierce’s thumb with her index finger for the briefest second. “Besides, usually when I give the seven a.m. start line, it’s an excuse to get out of a date. Or, if I’m really nervous, I’ll fake a page.”

  “I can’t help but notice you haven’t gotten any pages since we’ve been here,” Pierce said, curling the corner of her mouth into a wry grin.

  “Didn’t even take it out of my bag.”

  Their eyes locked for several seconds, the energy that had been pulsating between them now thickening into a firestorm of questions and possibilities and all kinds of things Pierce hadn’t felt in the longest time, until the waitress came to pick up the check, only partially breaking the spell they’d been under.

  “Do you want a ride home?” Pierce asked as they approached her waiting car.

  “Actually, I’m only a few blocks in the other direction…” Cassidy bit her bottom lip as if she’d just been found out, and Pierce silently noted that she’d made the walk with her just to have a few extra seconds.

  “So, I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

  “Absolutely.”

  They hovered on the street corner, both of them seeming to dare the other to leave, or stay, or maybe even move closer. Pierce stood just near enough that if she took a step toward Cassidy, she would be in her arms. But Pierce wasn’t thinking about kissing Cassidy. She wasn’t planning to do anything more than say good night and walk away. Kissing her had never entered her mind. Yet, completely possessed by the same magic that had been engulfing them all night, she somehow found herself taking that single step, until her hands rested on Cassidy’s hips and her lips lingered just in front of Cassidy’s lips. Slowly, but without a hint of apprehension, Pierce brushed her mouth gently against Cassidy’s. Once again, like so many other kisses before, no spark ignited. An explosion occurred—a combustion of cells and matter and energy and something that even science and God couldn’t put words to. And it was nothing like so many other kisses before.

  It wasn’t until she finally broke away that Pierce noticed her legs had been shaking. Her whole body, actually, vibrated as if everything inside her had suddenly woken up. The cold night air had turned hot and dreamy, like the warmest week of the summer with a hint of an ocean breeze. She couldn’t explain it, but the world looked different.

  Chapter Seven

  That kiss. Oh my God, that kiss. It was now sometime before four a.m., and Cassidy lay on her back in bed, wide awake, staring at the crack in her ceiling. She was never going to get to sleep. Not if she kept replaying that moment with Pierce in her head like a crazy person. She couldn’t help it. She loved the tumbling in her stomach and the tightening in her belly whenever she remembered. She loved feeling like this.

  Was Pierce thinking about it too? Or was she home fast asleep, like nothing had ever happened? Maybe it was nothing to her. Maybe she kissed a lot of girls like that. Cassidy picked up one of her pillows and pressed it over her head. A designated devil and angel were perched on either shoulder, one prompting her to wonder what kind of dress she’d wear if they ever got married, the other reminding her she was being nothing short of certifiable. Then, she would grow angry with herself for getting so many miles, states, continents ahead of where sh
e should be. She finally picked up her phone, carefully, strategically drafting the skeleton of a text message that she didn’t plan to send for several hours.

  Hi you! Just wanted to say that I had such an awesome time on our date.

  She quickly deleted the word date. Pierce hadn’t asked her on a date. She’d asked her to share a plate of nachos at a sports bar after their mutual shifts ended. It was nothing but an impulsive outing without pretense. Then again, Pierce had kissed her…

  Hi you! Just wanted to say that I had such an awesome time last night. I’d really like to see you again. You know, outside of work. PS. May or may not have spent a significant amount of time so far daydreaming about that kiss…

  It was bold, for sure. And Cassidy wasn’t sure if she’d ever actually send it. Still, maybe putting it out into the universe like that would help her relax a little. Once she laid her phone back down, she tossed from side to side, unable to shake the feeling of Pierce’s hands on her waist. And she watched any hope of sleep vanish into the night, knowing whatever was happening was unlike anything she’d ever known, or anticipated.

  * * *

  Pierce wasn’t expecting to hear from Cassidy. At least not for a day or so. The night had been amazing, but Cassidy was a resident—a doctor. She worked day in and day out and probably wouldn’t have time to think about petty things like first kisses. That was why when her phone went off sometime after nine in the morning, she was surprised to see Cassidy’s name. Surprised and, admittedly, ecstatic.

  She read the text carefully, taking in each word like rays of sunshine after the winter thaw. And when she finished, she read it again. And again. Until she basically had the entire message memorized. So Cassidy had been thinking about the kiss after all. And, from the sound of it, she’d been thinking about it a lot. Pierce smiled to herself with a smile so big anyone who’d walked into her bedroom would have thought she was high. In a way, she was high. That kiss. Oh God, that kiss. The moment played on repeat in her head, each time making it harder and harder for Pierce to go another second without kissing Cassidy again. She made her way into the bathroom and splashed some cold water on her face, patting it dry with a towel and staring in the mirror.