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“You’re all set to go. Come back in next week so we can remove the stitches, okay?” Mel said, peeling off her gloves and depositing them directly into the waste bin. Santos did the same thing except she threw them from where she stood halfway across the room. They stuck their landing, earning a laugh from the patient on the bed.
Mel’s cheeks flared pink at the familiar sound against her better judgement. “Alright, darlin’. I’ll be back in a week.” The patient on the examination table shot both of them a cheeky grin that was all straight teeth and pearly whites, picking up the hat—an honest to god cowboy hat— that sat next to him. Mel watched that unfamiliar hat sit near perfectly on top of an unruly mop of curly black hair.
Santos had in fact shown improvement on her bedside manners in the past fifteen months that the two of them have been working together. And yet, even despite the improvement, she was never…this attentive. Yes, Mel had to admit that Trinity had come a long way from cherry picking only the most ‘badass’ cases but her affinity for sticking around and chatting was rare.
If Mel was not acutely aware that Santos swung so far in the other direction she would have suspected that the younger doctor was flirting with their patient. But no, that was significantly impossible given all the facts.
Santos handed off his discharge papers with a barely concealed smirk. She did not even try to hide the fact that she was bluntly checking the patient's backside as he stood up to shrug on his jacket. Judging by the matching smirk on his face he clearly noticed. Even worse, he noticed the thumbs up Santos flashed her in approval, which was so unprofessional it was a miracle Gloria did not manifest out of thin air and write them both up for sexually harassing an innocent patient. To make it clear, Mel was not checking out the patient. It would be a bit redundant to do so.
As Mel pulled the curtain back she stepped away as he moved to leave. She already handed out the printed out paperwork but felt it necessary to nail to fill the exceeding awkward silence that was filling up the room. “Um,” Mel craned her head back slightly to smile up at the patient, “ just take it easy with that hand.”
The patient flashed a grin. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to keep my fingers away from the knife this time around."
Before Mel had the chance to fully step away, calloused coated fingertips reached out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Mel shivered at the way his finger lingered on her ear lobe, hooded green eyes looking her up and down from head to toe. “It was nice seeing you again, Mellie.”
The nurses station was usually a hub of conversation but at the moment it was dead quiet. When she looked away from the patient—Eli Anderson, 29 year old male with a three inch gash on his palm from a cooking related accident—and caught on to just how many people were staring at them, she unconsciously covered the ear he touched and caught a glimpse of Javadi, Whitaker, and Langdon openly staring at the three of them. Javadi had her mouth popped open, the string of a Twizzler caught on the hook on her mouth, like she was in the process of taking a bite and stopped in her tracks at the sight of Eli’s frame towering over both Mel and Santos. God, he was so tall, Mel could still feel a phantom crick in her neck from how straining it was to kiss him.
And then Mel shook her head because that was a thought she did not need to be thinking about. She smiled one last time at Eli and then booked it to the nurses station, nearly tripping over her feet when she caught a glance at the storm clouds in Langdon’s striking ocean blue eyes that flashed and disappeared so fast Mel thought she was seeing things.
Langdon was sitting in the front of a computer, clearly catching up on his charting, but now his gaze was locked on her, following every move she made. Santos caught up to her before she could make it to the desk, slinging an arm around her shoulder. “You dirty little—“
Mel pushed Santos arm off of her shoulder, gently, trying to turn in the opposite direction. “I should get Earl another sandwich. See you later, Dr. Santos.”
Santos tsked loudly but didn’t try to touch Mel again, thankfully. “Nice one. Earl is not even here today. We should talk.”
“No,” Mel shook her head, plastering a smile on her face, “I should head back to chairs. I’m sure Dr. McKay I will need my help…with something?”
They made it to the nurses station and Santos docked her iPad, leaning against the counter with a grin. “I know how superstitious everyone is with the Q word being spoken out loud, but it really is Q right now, McKay will be fine without you for a few more minutes. We’re friends, are we not Meloxicam?”
Mel smiled. It was a genuine one that she often did whenever she realized that her efforts at forging friendships here at PMTC did not go to waste. “Yes.” And then that smile fell away as Santos kept on talking. “Okay, so as your friend, shouldn’t we talk about the fact that your ex-boyfriend is—“
“That was your ex?” Javadi squeaked out, confusion evident in her voice. Her brown eyes were wide as saucers when she realized just how that sounded. “I didn’t mean it like ‘oh, that was your ex-boyfriend’ as in…it’s unbelievable that someone like you—not that there is anything wrong with you but—um.”
Mel leaned across the counter just enough to softly pat the younger girl on her hand. She was spiraling at that point, vomiting word after word that only made the situation worse, but Mel understood where Javadi was coming from. Her relationship with Eli Anderson during their first few years of undergrad was the subject of quite a bit of scrutiny. Which was fair, Mel surmised, Melissa King was Melissa King and Eli Anderson was Eli Anderson. Her acceptance of the fact had little to do with her being insecure but more to do with the fact that their personalities and demeanors were so far apart from each other that even Eli’s parents were completely baffled when he brought her home during Thanksgiving break the first year they were dating (Mrs. and Mr. Anderson eventually came around after Mel visited a few more times. They were actually very kind toward the end, finding her more endearing than outright weird—Mrs. Anderson still messaged Mel on Facebook every major holiday, and also on Mel and Becca’s birthday. Mel should get better at doing the same!)
Mel snapped out her thoughts by Langdon tapping on the keyboard with more force than necessary.
She furrowed her eyebrows and tried to catch his gaze but he was pointedly only interested in the computer monitor in-front of him.
“How long were you together? What happened between the two of you?” Santos asked, way too eager to know the answers. “Because the general vibe I was getting is that you broke his achy breaky heart and he still has not quite gotten over it yet.”
“How can you tell?” Mel quietly asked. She fingered the tail end of her braid, trying her best to keep her hands busy.
Whitaker shot one glance at Santos before he stood up, walking away, like he clearly knew where this was heading and wanted zero to do with it. Javadi stayed, as did Langdon, although the latter didn’t even seem to be paying attention.
“Oh my god. How can I tell? I don’t know, Mel, maybe it was when he said you didn’t have to listen to his heart with your stethoscope because it was beating all ‘nice and strong’ when you smiled at him.” Mel watched as Langdon looked up from the computer, lips downturned into a frown, “Wow.” The tone of his voice was hard to decipher—it was flat, that single word practically spitting out of his mouth which was confusing. It was a bad attempt at flirting, but it didn’t warrant that much vitriol.
“And the whole entire time you stitched him up he was all like—“ Santos put on a purposely thick southern accent, “Oh, shucks, Mellie. How have you been sugarplum? How’s Becca? Wanna see a picture of my big Dick—“
Robby took that moment to walk up to the nurses station. Without saying anything, he only sighed and walked in the opposite direction, snagging Whitaker by the shoulder and pushing him into central 7.
“What the fuck did he ask her?” Langdon snarled, square jaw so tense Mel wanted to reach out and sooth away the corded veins under his jaw with her fingers.
“His. Dick.” Santos emphasizes the word slowly, accent still in place. “Are you okay, Mel?” Javadi asked. She looked genuinely worried.
“Uh? Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“That’s clearly sexual harassment!”
“No it wasn’t…” Mel's words came out unsure. Javadi looked downright ready to go report the patient to HR—Langdon had a death grip on the mouse. His knee was bouncing rapidly up and down, like he was buzzing out of his skin as anger radiated off of him like waves. “It wasn’t.” She insisted. “Dick is his horse. He has…a horse…that’s called Richard but Dick is his nickname, which I never understood, but Santos, he showed you that picture too!”
Trinity rolled her eyes. “Yeah, alright I’m fucking with you. It was a very respectful picture of whatever breed of horse it was that was unfortunately nicknamed after a certain appendage.”
Langdon sent Santos a glare, hands moving fast over the keyboard and mouse before he closed whatever program he was. He stood up, strong arms leaning against the counter. “Real mature, Santos,” Langdon bit out, “you know what? Why don’t you go help one of the new MS4’s with draining Mr. Davenports infected back cyst? And maybe when you get done you can swing by HR and file a report on yourself for being grossly inappropriate with your coworker.”
It wasn’t like watching a tennis match sometimes when Langdon and Santos bickered like this—Mel knew that there was no true animosity between the two of them, and that they used similar coping mechanisms, which meant they butted heads more often than not. Santos didn’t look that upset about the patient she was assigned. She let out a snort while she narrowed her eyes at Langdon. “Sorry, Mel,” the apology Santos gave didn’t sound that sincere but Mel still nodded in thanks, “Anyways, bye sugarplum. We’re still on for O’Malley’s after our shift?”
“Yeah.” Mel nodded, wrinkling her nose at the name. Eli never called her sugarplum. He called her…sugar…but sugarplum was a little too sickly sweet even for Mel. “Samira said she’ll meet us there later since she has to talk to Dr. Abbot about something after the shift change
“Yup, I’m sure the two of them will be doing plenty of talking.”
Langdon cleared his throat loudly. “That abscess is calling your name, Santos. Go. Shoo.”
Trinity faked a salute and left them in the dust. Some of the annoyance on Langdon’s face melted away, and when Mel offered him a smile, his shoulders visibly sagged in relief. “You okay?”
“Of course? Are you okay, Dr. Langdon.”
“I’m just peachy, Mel.” He didn’t sound peachy, not at all, but his smile had turned soft around the edges. Mel bid him a quick bye and then headed back to see how Dr. McKay was doing with chairs.
What she was unaware of was that Perlah and Princess had caught and heard the whole conversation. That, coupled with the fact that Robby caught a few choice words from Santos, meant that even after the wave of patients that showed up from a four car pile up, the gossip train was barreling through the pit at full speed.
Everyone was looking at Mel. Or it certainly felt as everyone was. Some of the braver ones outright asked exactly what Mel’s exboyfriends’ horse looked like (she was well aware everyone assumed it was a euphemism of some sort…but it wasn’t, and even when Santos felt a twinge of regret and tried to set the story straight, McKay and Dana didn’t believe her. Their concern was borderline motherly, but Robby’s concern was a lot more…uncomfortable.)
Plus, Dr. Langdon was being atypical with Mel. Distant, purposely avoiding her unless she had a question or two about a patient. She went to find him after he stabilized one of the car crash patients, hoping that they could swing by the break room and split a box of Whoopers, but he politely told her no thank you, he actually already promised to eat lunch with Cassie instead.
Mel strangely felt like she was transported back into grade school when Dr. Garcia, who was standing right next to them, started saying something about how Mel should just ignore Langdon because he was only upset that ER Barbie used to play with Cowboy Ken.
She wasn’t hurt that he rejected her idea, though. Why would she be offended? Langdon hung out with McKay—and occasionally Collins—just as much as he hung around Mel. She flashed him a smile and then went on her merry way to the break room, pushing in her earbuds as she stretched out on the floor, back against the wall and Whoopers crunching faintly in her mouth.
The quiet of the break room and the cold tile seeping in through Mel’s scrub pants was grounding, in a way. When she walked into the empty room, she had flicked the lights off and made herself comfortable, setting a 10 minute timer on her phone.
Seven minutes lost to the countdown and two and half songs off of Mel’s playlist later, the door opened, light momentarily flooding in before Langdon firmly closed the door behind him, shutting all that out.
Mel offered a silent wave with the box of Whoppers in her hand. Langdon stood there for a second, staring at Mel, and then he walked over and lowered himself into the empty space right next to her. Mel fumbled for her phone to hit pause on the song. Pulling the earbuds she placed them back into the case.
There was little to do with her hands right now. She felt a rush of deja vu, sitting shoulder to shoulder. No dog was in between her spread legs, so she had to settle mindlessly picking at her cuticles. “Mind if I steal a few?” Langdon asked, a sheepish smile on his face. “Thanks. How are you doing?”
When Mel winced when Langdon crunched a little too loudly on a whopper, he shot her an abashed grin, mindfully eating the rest with far less force. It was hard to not feel warmth trickle down the length of her spine at his quiet consideration.
“I’m okay, Dr. Langdon.”
He nudged her shoulder with his own. “You can call me Frank too, you know. That is my name after all.”
“I know. No one else really calls you it here though so it feels a little weird, still.”
“Why is it weird?” Langdon—Frank—asked. “You don’t mind calling me Frank when we hang outside of work together. You’ve seen the state of my kitchen cabinets, I’ve seen the state of your bedroom, I think it’ll be okay if you went around here calling me Frank sometimes.”
He had a point there. “Okay.” A pause, “Frank?”
“Yes?”
“Where’s Dr. McKay?”
Frank had leaned more of his weight against Mel. He was leaning his head against the wall, similar as she was, but instead of looking forward, his head was tipped to the side. “She’s on the roof, screaming at Chad on the phone. Apparently he wanted to take Harrison skateboarding again.”
Mel grimaced. “Oh. He does not have…the best ideas, sometimes.”
“He sure doesn’t.” Frank reached over to take the box of candy from Mel, and for a split second his fingers brushed against her palm, gaze transfixed when Mel pushed into his touch rather than pull away.
“How long did the two of you date? Sorry, you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.” The question came so out of left field that Mel only stared blankly at Frank. “I don’t mind telling you. We dated for three years. Almost all of undergrad. Why?”
“I was just curious,” he said. “So, I guess it was pretty serious huh?“
Mel shrugged. She thought back to Eli, the apartment they shared—Becca lived there too, and she remembered Eli giving up the biggest bedroom for Mel’s sister. She remembered the whispered I love you’s—the way Eli had no qualms in admitting that whenever they graduated, he was going to propose, because she was it for him. But then Mel also remembered breaking things off with him, a few weeks after his confession. She knew his feelings were genuine and it made her feel like a terrible person for only feeling a fraction of it back for him. Both of them were too caught up in the heat of everything, too young and desperate for simple human connection, that they believed it was easy to juggle everything. Mel was headed off to a different state, most likely juggling multiple jobs just to fund Becca’s day centers on top of med school. Eli was headed back to Wyoming for law school, so he could be closer to his parents.
They were headed in two very different directions, paths that barely merged together. So, Mel ended it. It was a logical and mutual decision at the end of the day, and the two of them kept in contact throughout the years.
Mel held back on telling him all that. Instead she just nodded. She took a deep breath, wanting nothing more than to tell him how she felt more nostalgic than upset at seeing him, and how the whole time he was openly flirting, Mel was wistfully thinking of a chin dimple and the crooked grin that goes with it.
“Do you find it hard to believe that someone like him would end up like someone like me? Because that’s what everyone here has been saying?” That’s not what she had intended to say but it was kind of there at the tip of her tongue.
“Well yes,” Frank reached over, voice barely above a whisper, thumb swiping at the corner of Mel’s mouth. He pulled it back to show a bit of melted chocolate there. And then he stuck it in his mouth. Mel snapped her gaze to her lap, heart pounding so hard she wondered if Frank could hear it from he sat. “Shit, that came out bad. No, everyone has it wrong. You’re the one out of his league, Mel. By a long-shot.”
“You can’t possibly know that. You never talked to him before.”
“I actually did. He forgot his phone in the exam room, came back to grab it a little bit after you went to the chairs.”
“The two of you talked?” Mel asked. Frank nodded. He smiled again, but it was more of a grimace than anything else. “He’s…too nice to dislike. Which sucks. I wanted to hate your ex, you know, by default. It would have been so much easier if he wasn’t so friendly and charming.”
“He is very charming.” Mel admitted. A strange buzzing sensation settled low in her stomach. “…and he’s very married too, by the way.”
“No, shit.” Mel couldn’t understand why she wanted to stress that part—that Eli settled down with his high school sweetheart and that he would flirt with, like, a lamp post, if given the chance, so he definitely was not coming on to Mel while she was in the middle of stitching his hand. The smile he gave her nearly undid Mel completely. “I went to his wedding last year, actually.”
Frank let out a low breath through his nose, the sound somewhere between a laugh and a concession. “Well,” he said, leaning his head back against the wall again, “that makes me feel…marginally better. For reasons I’m not entirely proud of.”
Mel didn’t catch the weight behind it. If anything, she latched onto the softness of his voice, the way he stayed instead of leaving, the way his shoulder pressed just a little more firmly into hers. She bumped the Whoppers box against his knee in a silent offer. He took a few, the cardboard crinkling between them, and she smiled down at her phone as she opened her lava lamp app again—slow blobs of neon blue and pink drifting lazily upward. It felt like something she could breathe to.
“Do you want the left or right ear?” she asked, already tugging one earbud free.
Frank didn’t answer right away. He just leaned closer, close enough that his arm brushed hers, close enough that their thighs touched through thin scrub fabric. “Dealer’s choice,” he said, and when she passed him the right earbud, his fingers lingered a fraction longer than necessary. Mel pretended not to notice, even as her pulse jumped.
They sat like that, sharing sound and sugar, Frank scooting incrementally closer until it felt natural, until it felt like this was always how they sat. His knee shifted, settling against hers. His pinkie, resting between them, slowly—almost accidentally—curled around her own. Mel’s breath stuttered, but she didn’t pull away. She just kept her eyes trained on the screen, on the slow, molten glow, on the soothing pink noise, sneaking glances instead at that single finger like it might vanish if she stared too hard.
If her heart was doing something reckless and hopeful, well. That was between her and the lava lamp.
The timer on her phone chimed softly before either of them spoke. Frank groaned under his breath. “Break’s over already?”
“Unfortunately,” Mel said, though she didn’t make any move to stand just yet.
Frank did, though, popping up with a stretch before turning back to her and offering his hand like it was the most casual thing in the world. She took it, letting him pull her up, her fingers warm where his had been.
As they headed for the door, he cleared his throat, tone easy. “Hey, uh—how do you feel about Thai tonight?” A pause, a sideways glance. “I was thinking about takeout. If you’re up for it.”
Mel’s smile came fast and bright, entirely unguarded. “Yeah,” she said. “That sounds really good.”
Frank nodded, already reaching for the door, a smile never leaving his lips as he held it open, gesturing for her to walk out first. (And if Mel floated back onto the floor a little lighter than before, pinkie still tingling like it had been promised something, she told herself what she was feeling was nothing. Absolutely nothing at all.)