I’m not. I figured you’d be hungry. So am I.”
“Shut up and sit down. Of course you’re not buttering me up. Besides, I just finished.”
Tess grabbed her own cheeseburger. “You did? That’s great. And even earlier than you thought you would.”
Carmen took a long sip of the chocolate milk, letting its sweet goodness slide down her throat before answering. “Yes. I’m so happy to have that done with.”
“I can’t even imagine how tedious that project is. And then you have to actually do the evals with each nurse. Ugh. We’re all such pains in the ass, too.”
Carmen laughed. “This is true.”
They ate while Tess updated her on the status of their unit.
“Pretty quiet today, all in all. We had a patient come in obviously looking to score drugs. Complaining of a sore shoulder, said it was an ongoing thing from a previous injury and said some pain meds should take care of the problem. No insurance, refused X-rays or an MRI. Doc said his range of motion was fine. Dude didn’t even wince once during physical examination.”
“So what did you do?”
“We sent him on his way with a referral for physical therapy. And no pain meds.”
Carmen took another bite of her cheeseburger, then smiled after she swallowed. “Bet he was pissed.”
“He wasn’t happy. Told Dr. Lange to go fuck himself.”
Carmen laughed. “Not the first time Lange has heard those words.”
“True. You don’t make it to ER attending without pissing off a few patients. And other doctors, too.”
“Lange can handle it, though. And he didn’t toss the punk out on his ass, so there’s that.”
Carmen’s phone pinged with a message, so she took a quick look. Her heart did a dance when she saw it was from Rafe.
Still thinking about our kiss. Want to see you tomorrow.
She sucked in a deep breath.
“Wow,” Tess said, emptying her glass of milk. “Who was that from?”
After reading the message about five times, she lifted her gaze from her phone. “I’m sorry, what?”
“You are lost in that message. Love note?”
“It’s a text from Rafe.”
Tess gave her a smirk. “So it is a love note.”
“Not a love note.”
“Right. You were breathing so heavily it got ten degrees warmer in here. What’s going on with you two?”
Carmen shrugged and picked up her glass of milk, sucking the liquid up in her straw. “Nothing much, really.”
Tess tilted her head and shot her a look. “You are so lying. Tell me.”
“Fine. We kissed yesterday.”
“Is that it?”
She frowned. “It was a really good kiss, Tess.”
Tess shrugged and leaned back in the chair. “I’ll be more impressed when you see some action. Like actual sex action.”
“I don’t disagree with you there. Sex would be nice. We were headed in that direction, but my grandfather came home.”
“You should go to his place next time. Then you won’t be interrupted by returning grandpas. Or at least I assume you won’t be.”
She laughed. “He lives with his brothers.”
Tess stood and started piling up their lunch leftovers on the tray. “Then I assume his brothers don’t interrupt his sex action.”
“I would hope not, though I have no idea what goes on over there. His older brother lives with his girlfriend. I would think they respect each other’s privacy.”
“Good. Go over to his place and jump on that hot man. Then tell me all about it.”
Carmen shook her head. “I’ll give it some thought. Thank you for bringing me lunch.” She took out her purse and handed money to Tess.
“No, my treat.”
“You can buy me lunch when we’re not on duty.”
“Okay.” Tess slid the money in her pocket. “And you’re welcome. I’ll see you out on the floor.”
After Tess closed the door behind her, Carmen picked up her phone and read Rafe’s text message again. Her fingers hovered over the keypad, uncertain how to reply.
She typed out, See you tomorrow? No, that wasn’t right.
Delete.
Maybe, I keep thinking about that kiss, too.
No, that was terrible.
Delete.
She blew out a breath.
Maybe she should just put it all out there with a Hey, how about we have hot sex tomorrow.
Ugh. Delete, delete, delete.
She laid her head in her hands. Nothing felt right. Why was she so bad at this?
She shook her head and typed her response.
Want to see you, too. And that kiss . . .
She ended her text with a fire emoji.
She half smiled at her reply, then hit send before she changed her mind—again.
Perfect.
She tucked her phone in her pocket, then went back to work.
CHAPTER 15
“OH, BY THE WAY, I NEED YOU GUYS OUT OF THE HOUSE tonight.”
Jackson