Chapter 1
CHRIS
Working in a public hospital in New York City was a bit like playing Russian roulette. We never knew what we were going to get.
Some days, we hit the ground running and didn’t stop until an hour or two after shift. Since our hospital was chronically and severely short-staffed, those were the days we had the most of.
Every once in a while, like today, we caught a break. Time dragged by with little action happening to make it pass faster.
But like fight club or no-hitters, no one talked about it when we had a quiet day. Not unless that person wanted to inadvertently cause a massive accident, natural disaster, or some other catastrophic event.
Even the emergency department had only paged me once this shift for a quick resuscitation and I’d been told they could handle it from there.
As I waited for the ancient coffeemaker in our break room to spurt the sludge that passed for caffeine around here into my cup, I glanced down at my wrist to check the time. How has it only been three hours?
Another couple of minutes inched by until my mug was full, but then the process started over when I swapped it out for Hunter’s. My best friend and assistant had taken over some exercises with a physical therapy patient of mine when I’d been called away by the ER.
The least I could do was fuel his borderline addiction to this sludge. Then again, coffee was the lifeblood of our hospital. Even the bad stuff would do as long as it was potent enough, which the sludge was.
Which is probably why it’s so sludgy.
I carried both steaming mugs up to the PT center and paused in the doorway to see how my seven-year-old patient was getting along. Hunter was a giant of a man who’d once made a living performing in strong-man competitions. He’d since let himself go to the extent that even his shaggy red hair and ginger beard looked unkept most days.
Kids were almost always afraid of him at first until they realized he was a big teddy bear. Philip, the patient he was busy with, had been with us for a few months now. He’d come to adore Hunter, as most did, and was currently playing catch with him.
“Look at how far your gross motor function has come,” he cheered when Philip managed to catch the ball in his mitt. “Two weeks ago, you were struggling to move your hand with that thing on. Now you’re almost ready to go pro.”
Philip’s little chest puffed out, and he beamed when he saw me standing there. “Did you hear that, Doctor M? I’m almost ready to go pro.”
“Yeah.” I smiled and walked into the room, holding up Hunter’s coffee. “You’re doing great, Phil. I can see you’ve been working hard at your homework. I’m really proud of you, bud.”
Hunter pulled his mitt off and stuck it under his arm, grinning as he walked up to our patient. “Let’s see how much strength you’ve built now that we know how hard you’ve been working.”
He tapped his arm. “Give me a love tap.”
“A love tap?” Philip asked, his brow tugging into a frown.
“He wants you to punch him,” I said, going over to stand next to him and faking a stern look. “But don’t punch him so hard that you hurt him, okay? I still need him for the rest of the day.”
He giggled. “You got it. I’ll try my very best not to hurt him.”
Hunter let out a playful huff, shaking his head. “Take your best shot, big guy.”
“Here goes nothing,” Philip said, lifting his scrawny arm to do what he had been told to. As his fist connected with Hunter’s massive bicep, the big man made a show of falling over and gripping his arm.
I patted Philip’s shoulder. “I’d say that arm is holding up pretty well, but you need to make sure you keep doing your exercises, okay? We’ll see you next week.”
He nodded dutifully, smiling up at me. “I will, Doctor Matthews. I promise. See you next week.”
Once he had bounced out the door to meet his mother in our waiting room, I extended a hand to help Hunter up. “One of these days, you’re going to make that offer to a kid and they’re going to end up breaking your arm.”
He slapped his palm into mine and jumped to his feet with far more agility than one might expect from a man his size. He snorted as he reached for