Third Degree (28 page)

“Early thoughts?” Justin asks, but he knows me better than that. I’m not gonna start shouting out random diseases without having the complete workup. Not that I don’t have some ideas already. “Let me guess,” he continues. “You’re thinking rheumatic fever or maybe Kawasaki disease?”

“If by ‘thinking’ you mean that I haven’t been given evidence to eliminate them yet, then yes.” I lean over and dig through my bag, pulling out a Sharpie. Then I rummage in the desk for the hotel’s pad of paper and tear off several sheets, spreading them out on the table. “Have
you
eliminated them?”

“No history of group A streptococcal infection—”

“So no rheumatic fever.” I cross the scribbled disease name off the list I’ve quickly drawn up.

“And the patient’s been treated for Kawasaki disease,” he says, “The rash faded, but the fever, joint inflammation, and heart complications are still hanging around, so we’ve got no other option but to put our heads together and dig for some other similar, rare infectious disease.”

“Read me the full workup including patient history, labs, and everything.” I’m writing so fast my hand is cramping and letters are running together from the force of pressing a Sharpie so firmly onto thin paper. My heart is circulating blood almost as fast as it was doing a little while ago when Marshall pressed me up against the wall and gave me a sobbing orgasm. I’m like an addict who feeds off this chase, this search for the answer. It’s like my body shouting,
I’m alive! I’m really alive!

Twenty-five minutes later I end the call. I’ve got dozens of pieces of paper spread on the table around my dinner, and my thoughts finally return to the hotel room. I glance over at the bed and notice Marshall, stretched out on his back, wearing nothing but those sexy boxer briefs. And he’s fast asleep. My gaze travels to the nightstand where his soup sits, still more than half-full. I stand up and stretch, the Sharpie clutched in my hand.

I smile to myself, remembering him telling me he felt manly today and then lifting me off the ground. I have a strong desire to take the marker in my hand and write
I’m not Superman
across his chest so he’ll see it when he wakes up and stands in front of the mirror.

For a second, I think about crawling into bed with him and burying my face in the crook of his shoulder again—it’s such a perfect geometrical fit. But the papers on the hotel desk call to me in a way that I can’t ignore.

And then I bury myself in disease.

Chapter 22

I wake up with a start, jerking myself to a sitting position. My hands feel around, noticing the soft bed. I have no idea how I got here. Last thing I remember is writing the word
anemia
on the paper that had been lying in front of me.

“You look like you’re ready to operate on someone.” Marshall’s now standing in front of the TV, wearing jeans and a blue button-down shirt, his dark hair combed to a less-unruly state. He’s got a brown paper bag in one hand and a giant bagel in the other.

I shake out my messy hair. “How did I get here?”

“I woke up about two hours ago and you were passed out in a pile of diseases.” He smiles and then reaches into the bag, passing a blueberry bagel my way. “Kelsey wants us to meet her in the lobby in fifteen minutes. Something about finding a good spot …”

Suddenly I’m wide awake and fully aware of what’s going on. The bagel half-forgotten in my hand, I jump to my feet and rush over to the desk, scanning the rows and rows of paper. “You didn’t touch anything, right? Please tell me you didn’t touch anything …”

I grab my phone and read through the twelve texts from Justin over the last two hours. Answers to questions I’d sent him last night, and more updates like this from him:

Add nosebleed to the list. Couldn’t stop it. Had to cauterize and transfuse
.

Your dad just gave the “we’re going with lupus” diagnosis to patient’s parents
.

“It’s not lupus!” I shout at the phone.

“It never is,” Marshall says, causing me to look up at him, confused. “Sorry. Seen too many doctor shows.”

He’s wrong
, I text back.

The reply comes swiftly.
I know. Got anything?

No
.

I set the phone down and continue to stare at the words on the pages. “One tiny detail and I’ll have it.” I can feel the answer swimming around in front of me. It’s like a slippery fish I have to catch with only my hands.

“Kelsey’s going to murder us if we’re late.” He rests his chin on my shoulder. “And I just got removed from her blacklist.”

“Right, okay,” I mutter, still standing in the same spot. “Let’s go.”

Marshall sighs, a smile in his voice. I hear him moving around behind me, and then he’s lifting the T-shirt over my head, tossing it to the floor.
His
T-shirt. I continue sifting through the
list of infectious diseases, picking up where I left off in the
S
category. “Smallpox … snail fever …”

I look down a couple of minutes later and I’m wearing a lacy pink bra. My view of the papers is blocked by the long sleeved purple T-shirt being pulled over my head. There are socks on my feet and Marshall is holding out a pair of jeans from my suitcase.

“Oh my God,” I say, taking the jeans and stepping inside them. “Did you just dress me?”

“Unfortunately. But for the record, I much prefer the reverse activity.”

“Do me a favor and throw a towel over those pages before I go crazy.” I push up on my toes and kiss his neck. “You smell good. You always smell good.”

I spend four minutes in the bathroom taking care of my hair, teeth, and makeup. When I walk back into the room, I make Marshall shove me out into the hallway before I can reread notes my brain has already memorized. He’s still working on finishing his bagel, but he places his free hand on the small of my back, guiding us toward the lobby.

“Are you going to be okay? Do you need to work on whatever you’re working on …?”

“The not-lupus case,” I finish, shaking my head to remove the list of diseases floating around in there. “No, I’m not helping so far, anyway.”

He stops in the empty lobby and turns to face me. His lips touch my forehead. “You look hot when you’re all flustered and distracted. I’m completely tempted to force a new distraction on you. It’s an enticing challenge.”

I roll my eyes and point to his right hand. “Eat your bagel, Superman.”

He bites off a big chunk. “Do they really need your help? Even with a whole hospital full of doctors, plus the Internet and probably a library full of medical books …”

“Maybe not.” I shrug. “But diagnostics is kind of my thing, you know?”

“Don’t you want to be a surgeon?”

“Uh-huh. Lots of my diagnosing leads to surgery, so …”

“What diagnosing? Who’s being diagnosed?”

I groan as quietly as possible and wrinkle my nose, but only Marshall can see me. Kelsey and Shirtless Carson (who probably isn’t shirtless right now) are behind me, and it’s Kelsey who’s just spoken.

“Izzy stayed up all night creating piles of diseases,” Marshall explains.

“Well, that’s an odd way of putting it, but you guys are free to call it whatever you want, I guess,” Kelsey says.

“I slept,” I say, hitting Marshall on the chest.

“You slept through it?” Shirtless Carson eyes both of us. “Dude, I can give you some pointers.…”

Kelsey heads for the door, calling over her shoulder, “No, he can’t.”

Marshall snorts back a laugh. “I meant she’s been writing down lists of diseases on sheets of paper. Lots of paper. I woke up and papers were everywhere. She fell asleep on top of diseases beginning with the letter
H
.”

“I’m doing a consult for a patient back in Chicago.” I try to shove Marshall again, but he wraps an arm around my shoulders from behind and pulls me closer, kissing the side of my neck until I’m full of warm fuzzies.

Shirtless Carson walks ahead to hold the door open for all of us, his eyes glued to me. “So you’re here on a trip, like a vacation, and the hospital is calling you because they can’t diagnose a patient? You’re their last hope before he or she dies …?”

“What did I tell you?” Marshall whispers into my ear. “Novel plot. He’s gonna write about you. Only it will be someone named Trizzy Lenkins or something like that.”

The air is warmer in Nashville and the sun would normally be welcome, but my lack of sleep means the brightness causes a shooting pain right between my eyes. I pinch the bridge of my nose, and Kelsey must have taken that as me being annoyed, because she turns a glare in Carson’s direction.

“How about we focus on the music this morning and let Izzy relax?” she snaps. “No more doctor shit.”

Marshall’s lips touch my ear again. “Think he slept on the floor last night?”

“Well, apparently I slept on top of
H
diseases,” I remind him.

“True.” He reaches for my hand and laces our fingers together. “But then I got to carry you to bed. I liked that part.”

Yep. Superman complex.

“You really made this yourself?” Kelsey leans closer to examine my fake ID. “It’s perfect. Way better than mine.”

I comb my fingers through my hair in front of the bar restroom mirror. “I watched a YouTube video.”

We’ve listened to two bands already. Both weren’t bad at all. I think being a “novice musician” in Nashville means something completely different than it does everywhere else. Despite the warmer-than-home weather, it’s still windy out, and chilly enough to get cold after a few hours. Hence the need to escape to the nearest bar.

“So Marsh is okay, right?” Kelsey asks, tentatively. “I mean, health-wise.”

She’s been too pissed off these past couple of weeks to ask me for specifics, and I guess
that now that he’s off her blacklist, she’s worried. “He’s improving compared to where he was during fall break. But nowhere near a hundred percent. Just don’t tell him that. He’ll do everything he can to prove you wrong.”

“It’s insane, the things people can conceal,” Kelsey says. “Even when they live fucking ten feet from you and share plumbing and dining areas.”

I think about hiding my own identity and about the fears that I’ve stuffed away. “This is true. Very true. Now, tell me about Carson … is he really that bad?”

Kelsey snorts a laugh and pushes the bathroom door open. “Um, no, he’s not that bad. I just don’t want him to know that.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “You like him …? Holy shit, he’s a weirdo.”

“So are you,” she snaps.

“Also true.” I spot Marshall and Carson at the bar, both with a beer in front of them. I slide up next to Marsh and point to his glass. “You’re drinking?” For someone with Crohn’s disease, alcohol can feel like fire in the stomach.

He shrugs. “One beer. I had that big sandwich first, so it’ll sit better in my stomach.”

“You just wanted to use your twenty-one status, didn’t you?” I wave at the bartender, requesting one of whatever Marshall has.

“And according to Yelp, this beer is a must-try.” He gestures around the bar. “This place is fucking awesome. I want to get the full experience.”

The bartender delivers my beer. I take a sip and nearly spit it all over the countertop. “What the hell is this?”

Marshall grins at me. “PBR.”

“Pabst Blue Ribbon?” My nose wrinkles. “That’s not a must-try drink. That’s cheap beer. The cheapest beer, actually.”

He places a finger over my lips and leans in closer. “Shh … don’t be a beer snob here. They’re not fancy. They can spot a cocktail girl a mile away.”

He drops his finger and closes the gap between us, kissing me. I reach out and touch the back of his neck, holding his mouth against mine. “I promise not to embarrass you.”

Kelsey tugs on the hood of my jacket. “Let’s get a table before the music starts and everyone floods inside.”

After we’re seated at a small round table with high-backed chairs, watching the band set up, I turn to Kelsey. “I never would have guessed that you liked country music.”

“I don’t,” she says. “I don’t dislike it, either. I like culture. I’ve never really been anywhere, so I’m trying to experience everything I can.”

“I haven’t done much traveling, either,” I admit.

Carson’s face fills with surprise. “Why the fuck not? Your dad’s a heart surgeon. How
much does he make?”

Marshall smacks him in the chest, and Carson shakes his head. “Sorry, that was rude. So … no traveling, huh?”

I laugh, liking him about 2 percent more than this morning. “Guess it just never seemed appealing to me. I can learn everything I need to know about a culture from the Internet. And Google has better pictures than I could ever take myself.”

Both Kelsey and Marshall are gaping at me. “That’s just sad,” Marshall says. “Trust me, real life is a thousand times better than the Internet. It’s like sex—technically we can do it alone, so why does anyone bother doing it together?”

“Listen to him.” Kelsey points a finger at Marshall. “He’s been to something like three different continents. I’m still working on two. But I applied for a semester in London next year.”