Page 62 of Clinically Awkward

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Quinton

By the time I made it home, I was running on fumes and spite.

The ER had finally stabilized around 10 PM. Julien had disappeared into surgery. Vivian had avoided eye contact for the remaining three hours of my shift. Nathan had spent the entire time grinning at me like he’d won the lottery. And Fitz—Fitz had texted me approximately forty-seven times with increasingly unhinged suggestions for how to break the news to Julien.

Fitz: Hire a skywriter.

Fitz: Get him really drunk first.

Fitz: Fake your own death and move to Argentina.

Fitz: Tell him via interpretive dance.

I blocked his number around message thirty-two.

Now I was home, showered, and approximately three seconds away from collapsing face-first into bed when there was a knock at my door.

I didn’t think. I should have thought. I should have looked through the peephole, assessed the threat level, and made an informed decision about whether or not to engage.

Instead, I opened the door.

Fitz, Gabriel, Nathan, and Hayden stood in my hallway, all four of them grinning like they’d just won the lottery.

“No,” I said immediately.

“Quinton!” Fitz said too damn brightly. “So lovely to see you! We brought beer.”

“No.”

“And snacks,” Gabriel added, holding up a bag of chips.

“Absolutely not.”

“And moral support,” Nathan said.

“Get out.”

I tried to shut the door, but Fitz’s foot shot out, blocking it. “Now, now, old chap,” he said, pushing the door back open with alarming ease. “Is that any way to treat your best friends?”

“You’re not my best friends. You’re vultures.”

“Vultures who brought beer,” Nathan corrected, holding up a six-pack.

“I don’t want beer. I want to sleep. I want peace. I want⁠—”

“Details,” Fitz interrupted, pushing past me into the apartment. “We want details.”

Gabriel followed, then Nathan, and finally Hayden, who at least had the decency to look apologetic. “I tried to stop them,” Hayden said.

“You drove,” Nathan pointed out.

“Only because you wouldn’t tell me why we were coming here. I thought it was an intervention.”

“It is an intervention,” Fitz called from the kitchen, already helping himself to my fridge. “An intervention for Quinton’s complete and utter lack of judgment.”

I closed the door and seriously considered jumping out the window. It was only the fourth floor. Probably survivable. Definitely preferable to whatever fresh hell this was about to become.