Page 123 of Clinically Awkward

“Sit down, Quinton.”

It wasn’t a request.

I sat as Julien walked slowly, too slowly, around the conference table, his hands clasped behind his back like a professor about to deliver a lecture on the philosophical implications of my imminent demise. “You know,” he said conversationally, “of all the doctors who work at this clinic, I’ve always considered you to be the most responsible.”

Oh no.

“The most dependable,” he continued, still walking. Still smiling. “The one I could count on when things got chaotic. The one who understood the importance of professionalism, discretion, and maintaining the reputation of this practice.”

Oh no, oh no, oh no.

“Gabriel’s brilliant, but he’s distracted by fatherhood. Nathan’s competent, but impulsive. Hayden’s experienced, but he’s set in his ways. And Fitz—” Julien paused, his smile tightening. “Well. Fitz is Fitz.”

I was sweating. Actually sweating.

“But you, Quinton.” He stopped directly across from me, his hands still clasped behind his back. “You were the one I trusted. The one I respected. The one I believed would hold down the fort while I took one—one—week of vacation.”

His voice was still calm.

Still measured. Still absolutely terrifying.

“One week,” he repeated, his tone sharpening just slightly. “Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight hours. I wasn’t asking for a month in the Maldives. I wasn’t requesting a sabbatical to find myself in the Himalayas. I wanted one glorious, quiet, peaceful week with my wife and our newborn triplets. No interruptions. No drama. No phone calls informing me that my clinic had imploded in my absence.”

He leaned forward, bracing his hands on the table.

“Is that really so much to ask?”

“No,” I blurted. “No, that’s totally reasonable. Very reasonable. Extremely.”

“And yet.” He straightened, pulling his phone from his pocket. “Imagine my surprise when I’m sitting in my living room this morning, enjoying my coffee, reading the newspaper, savoring what I believed to be the last peaceful moment before returning to work, and I see this.”

He held up his phone.

On the screen was a photo of the New Haven Journal’s front page.

Our front page.

The bar brawl front page.

“Five doctors,” Julien said, his voice getting firmer now, each word precisely enunciated. “Five respected medical professionals from my clinic. Arrested. For brawling in a sports bar like a pack of drunken fraternity brothers on spring break.”

“Julien—”

“I’m not finished.” He set his phone down with deliberate care. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to explain to my wife, who is already convinced that modern medicine is a capitalist conspiracy designed to suppress natural healing, that the doctors you work with were arrested for fighting in a bar?”

“I can imagine.”

“She laughed, Quinton. She laughed. And then she pulled out her tarot cards and said the universe was teaching me a lesson about control and letting go.” He closed his eyes briefly, as if summoning patience from some deep, untapped reserve. “I don’t want to let go. I want competent colleagues who don’t end up on the front page of the newspaper.”

“In our defense⁠—”

“There is no defense,” Julien interrupted, his eyes snapping open. “There is no possible justification for this level of chaos. I left you in charge for one week. Seven days. And somehow—somehow—you managed to get arrested, make front-page news, and”—he gestured at my face—“acquire what appears to be a black eye and a split lip.”

I touched my jaw instinctively. “It’s not that bad.”

“It’s on the front page of the newspaper.”

“The photographer got Fitz’s good side,” I offered weakly.