Page 94 of The Doctors Will See You Now

Visions of a horrible scenario bloomed in my mind. What if, somehow, someone had gotten a picture of Melody yesterday on their phone and emailed it around to the whole office?

What if all of these women are fucking laughing at her behind her back?

Rage built inside me immediately, and I could tell by the throb in my hands that my blood pressure was through the roof.

Goddammit, I have to know.

Stepping forward and lowering my voice to a controlled growl so the patients in the waiting room couldn’t hear me, I dove headfirst into a grisly line of questioning.

“What were you looking at, Melissa?”

“Nothing, Dr. Cummings.”

I lowered the volume of my voice even further. “Don’t fucking lie to me.”

Her eyes widened in fear. “Okay, I’m so, so sorry.”

I prepared myself.

“Just show it to me.”

God, how am I going to break this to Melody? How am I going to deal with this? Am I going to have to fire everyone and just start all over? Jesus, what a nightma— Wait… Is that a cat with sixteen kittens wearing lipstick?

“What the…”

Definitely not a compromising picture of Melody. Just a BuzzFeed article about kittens.

“I’m so sorry, Dr. Cummings. I know I’m supposed to be working. I swear this won’t happen again.”

I froze, widening my eyes as I tried to figure out how to play this off.

Fuck. Okay…um…

“Good,” I muttered as calmly as possible. “See that it doesn’t.”

Backing away slowly, I didn’t even bother telling her to bring a patient back. I’d just wait for Melody.

Safely back in my office, I sat down in my chair and thought about the implications of telling the office about Melody and my relationship. If I’d been that fired up to rain hellfire on Melissa without even having confirmation of her crimes, I could only imagine what I’d be like if someone actually did something to Melody in the future. No one would ever trust me to be impartial, and to tell the truth, I didn’t even know what HR’s take on our relationship would be. Would she be allowed to keep working with me directly?

Fuck. Relationship aside, she was a brilliant nurse, and I didn’t want to lose her.

Maybe we shouldn’t say anything.

Melody stepped through the door of my office just then, a brown paper Starbucks bag in hand. “Is it safe to come in? I come bearing muffin.”

I rolled my eyes. “I guess they’re talking about me up there?”

“Yep. Apparently, Dr. Cummings hulked out in a rage this morning over a picture of kittens.”

I shook my head as I considered whether I should tell her the truth or not.

I couldn’t see a way out of it, so I went with it. “Yeah…I kind of panicked, thinking she had a picture of you from yesterday. That’s where the anger came from.”

Her face softened into a smile.

“Someone’s protective of me, huh?”

I shrugged. “More than I knew. Though, I’ll note I was nowhere near the Hulk. If you’ll notice, my clothes are still intact.”