"What are you staring at? Smettila di comportarti come una statua! If you want something, ask." I grumble at the intern who's name I can't even remember. For him, his obstetrics rotation is just something he has to do, he refuses to learn anything new. Come to think of it, none of the new interns are interested in my field, not even with once-in-a-lifetime surgeries happening during the mandatory rotations. No, all they care about is trauma. Inseguendo l'eccitazione.
I raise my eyebrow at the intern and even Dr. Wilson feels the tension coming off of me in spades. "Dr. Kwan. An attending asked you a question." The new doctor's cockiness wavers when I grind down on my teeth in irritation. "Uhm, Dr. Hunt asked if -" Dr. Khan gulps when I growl at him as a warning to not finish his sentence. Only one of the five interns are on track to complete their rotation within the required timeframe, exactly because of this reason. Trauma keeps stealing my interns.
The way I aggressively click my pen does little to help with Dr. Khan's stuttering. "Do I need to remind you that you are the intern with the least amount of hours in OB, and you only have one more week to complete your rotation or you won't even get to write the residency exam." I point my pen at him and roll my eyes when I see the reality set in his eyes. Jo coughs on her laugh when his pager goes off again and I demand that he hands over his phone.
INCOMING TRAUMA
Any available assistance required
I raise my eyebrow at the sneaky doctor and turn my phone to show Jo the message that he claims to be a personal request from the head of trauma. "I would advise you to not lie to your attendings in the future. But I'll do you a favor. I'll go down to the ER to make sure that your absence doesn't negatively impact the patient since I'm the only one available on this floor. And you can clock some OB hours by relieving the nurses for the next round of nappy changes. Sounds like a plan, no?"
I ignore the death glare he rewards me and wait for him to thank me for my generosity before I allow him to leave for the nurses' station. Mia madre mi ha sempre insegnato a conoscere il mio posto. Jo falls into step beside me, looking over her shoulder at the scolded intern with a smirk on her face. "Not that I don't love torturing the interns, but what crawled up your ass?" Her smirk falls from her face when I turn my vengeance on her and she quickly falls back into our professional roles, sensing that this is not the time to be friends.
I instinctively feel bad when I see her smile drop and bite back on my foul mood. "My apologies, Dr. Deluca. Is there anything you need from me?" The ball of frustration I've been walking around with for the last week, lessens its load off my shoulders and offers me a retrieve to see the affect my mood has had on my friends. "Mi dispiace, Jo. I'm just grumpy." The tension leaves her shoulders, and she gives me a questioning look, not prying, but giving me the opportunity to get whatever is bothering me, off my chest.
"I think the universe is conspiring against me. Maya and I are completely out of sync." Jo presses the button for the elevators to take us down to the ground floor. "I thought you guys were doing well. Or is the rumor mill mistaken?" I shake my head at her and groan at the mere thought of my incredibly sexy wife sleeping in my office. "Things are going magnificent. It would just be better if we could actually spend time together. Our schedules haven't aligned since the weekend of our date."
As we walk into the elevator, Jo gives me a sympathetic smile. At least when her and Alex's shifts are different, they can still sneak a peek or a touch in the hallways. "We even have trouble finding the correct time to text or call each other, because if she's not on a call or I'm not in surgery, then one of us is taking the ample opportunity to catch up on some sleep or paperwork. Mi manca mia moglie!" Jo starts laughing when I stomp my feet in the elevator like a petulant child not getting enough attention.
It is probably unfair to complain about our lack of attention, when Maya has gone out of her way to try and get a text to me every morning when I wake up, every evening before I go to bed, and even just random messages stating that I'm not the only one in agony. How she survived being ignored by me for months when she only wanted to say hello is beyond me, because this was absolute torture on my soul. My own shift ran late yesterday and when I finally found the time to call Maya, she was just about to leave for her own shift.
It doesn't help that her job is so unpredictable, that when I send her a text now, the chances are, she'll only reply in a few hours. She was a captain when we met, and I don't think it was ever this hard to find one hour to spend time together back then. It might have been easier seeing how I was either at her place or she was at mine whenever the other came home from whichever shift we were on, and a goodnight or good morning kiss was more than enough to get me through the day.
Now we're in some kind of awkward limbo where neither of us knows how to behave around the other. Chi lo sapeva niente sesso significava niente contatto fisico. After we agreed to hold off on having sex, it felt like we entered uncharted territory. We were both incredibly shy and uncertain when we talked and to be completely honest, our new beginning was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. It was thrilling to get to know the real Maya each time she opens up, but terrifying in the same breath.
With each layer she allows me to peel away, it's not just new information and feelings that it unlocks, but also emphasizes the numerous ways I hurt her that I never even considered before. At this stage, my therapy bill alone was enough to keep Dr. Hilliam in business since I have no other choice but to request a new session after every conversation with Maya. Especially after Maya called me out on my shit at the pier and a new fear got unlocked that I might actually still lose her if I don't get to the root cause of what's anchoring me to our past.
"Have you run the whole marriage counselling idea past her yet?" We start making our way to the ER doors and greet the people we know as we pass them. "Maya in therapy is a touchy subject. I didn't want to address it over the phone." Jo gives me a side eye like she knows better, and the sigh I let out kind of proves her point. "Okay, okay. I'm scared, sei felice? Every time I've asked her to get help, we've ended up breaking up. I just want us to be happy for once."
She squeezes my arm and stops me from walking through the sliding doors. "I know we've talked about this during ladies' night, so I'm just going to refresh your memory, okay?" I take a deep breath and square my shoulders to look her directly in the eye. "You are a little obsessive and direct, and Maya is a little uncertain and closed off. You need to find a way to reach middle ground on communication or your happy ending will be very short lived."
I roll my eyes at her, because I know she's right, just like the rest of my friends were when trying to convince me of the exact same thing. It was a really shitty feeling when my friends took it upon themselves to point out a few of my flaws and how they affected my relationship with Maya. Clearly, she's been holding out on me because as it turns out, my jealousy isn't my only red flag. Apparently, I can add obsessive, narrow-minded, a little selfish, and a whole lot controlling to the ever-growing list.
"And can I just add, as your friend, you need to have this conversation soon because you are getting increasingly difficult to work with." I jokingly shove her against her shoulder and roll my eyes at her. She starts laughing while pressing the button to enter the pit. I pinch my fingers at her face and groan. "You are aware that I hold the power to end your career, right?" I crab onto her lab coat to drag her through the doors. "Dico sul serio, one bad review note on your work and..."
I stop dead in my tracks when the unmistakable pull can be felt in the deepest parts of my gut. The pull that I only have with the invisible string to Maya's soul. I stand on the tips of my toes to look over everyone's heads in search for the person who awakens every fiber in my being. "Ooh joy! I'll let Dr. Khan know your mood is about to be lifted exponentially, if he'd like to offer up an apology." Jo winks at me and tilts her head to the gurney being pulled into the trauma bay by the sexiest woman alive.
Dio, she looks hot in that uniform, especially when she looks up at the perfect moment to meet my smile with a blinding one of her own. My feet carry me to the trauma bay before I think about doing it. "...went into asystole on route..." Her lips are magnetic as they move with words I should know but can't comprehend. My eyes are glued to her mouth and all I can think about is how much I want to kiss her again. Giuro che posso assaporarli semplicemente leccandomi le labra.
"... has been responsive since." Maya helps Dr. Hunt and Dr. Griffith to lift the patient onto a trauma bed while she rattles off the last of the information necessary for the patient's care. I still can't take my eyes off her as her arms flex from easily doing their work, and I can feel myself swoon. When she catches me looking at her, she winks at me with that cocky smile on her face. Dio, I'm so in love with this woman.
She takes a step backwards to meet me in the doorway as the doctors take over her patient's care. My breath hitches as her hand gently and subtly brushes the back of mine and awakens the butterflies in my stomach. "Dr. Deluca, Dr. Wilson, did OB mistakenly get paged down here?" I force my mind to clear itself so I can address Dr. Hunt like I intended, even when Maya is so close. "No, Dr. Hunt. I just assumed you needed an OB since you keep paging the interns on my service. So, I rushed down here with the whole cavalry seeing how you are severely understaffed in your own department."
Dr. Hunt stops cutting open the patient's shirt to glare at me, and I keep my very sarcastic smile and tone in place. I know for a fact that I'm not the only department head who has complained about Trauma stealing the interns on our service. I also know that he and the chief got into it since Teddy ended up crashing on our couch because of that particular fight. Alcuni uomini non riescono a gestire il potere delle donne. I lift my eyebrow at him when he lets out an annoyed sigh, which he quickly swallows.
"I apologize for not investigating the schedules of the interns when asking for help in the pit. As you can see, we're very busy." Both Jo and I bark out a laugh at his clipped tone. I swear the people who claim surgeons act like gods, have only met trauma surgeons. "And yet when we need extra hands on an emergency procedure, every department is required to submit a request through the appropriate channels. Since trauma is one of those departments, I would assume the algorithm discerned that an OB consult was necessary, so where do you need us?"
Dr. Hunt growls at me before he hands over his instruments to the nurse, taking her tablet out of her hands in the process. He types a few things into the tablet and hands it back to the nurse. A few seconds later the alerts of a few pagers come through loud and clear. "Alright, everyone. If you did not get paged for this case, please head back to your assigned departments." The intern that just pushed her way through the space between Maya and I, lets out a groan of annoyance at his request. "I can scrub in, Dr. Hunt. I cleared it with Dr. Langley."
He narrows his eyes when I don't move from my spot at the door before turning to the intern. "You will be paged if a plastics consult is needed." It looks like she wants to fight to stay but quickly picks up on the atmosphere in the room and leaves. "Take the patient up to CT and page neuro and cardio down here for a consult." Dr. Griffith jumps into action by lifting the bars on the cot to wheel it to the elevators, while Dr. Hunt requests the labs on the tablet the nurse hands him. He turns to glare at me one last time, but his lips lift in the corner. "Are you satisfied?"
I slap him on the back as he moves past me and wink at his annoyed glare. "Just to be clear, you don't need an OB consult then?" Adoro vincere. He side-eyes Jo when she snorts on a laugh before rolling his eyes. "Well played, Dr. Deluca." The smile on my face stretches even wider when Maya squeezes my hand before she turns to walk out of the room with Dr. Hunt, presumably to fill in the reports at the nurses' station. My hand following the heat of her until she's out of reach.
"Go steal a minute alone with her. I'll page you if anything important comes up." Jo gently pushes me in the direction Maya just walked to, so I'd follow her. My wife looks up when she realizes I'm on her heels and she quickly pulls her partner for the day to the side for a chat. When she meets my eyes again, I tilt my head to the door that leads to the back of the ambulance bay, where we'll have some privacy. She nods her head my way before she practically runs out the sliding doors.
I count to thirty in my head before following her, not wanting to get her into any trouble with the station she's working with today. The disappointment overwhelms me when I don't immediately see her, and I frantically start looking around for her. "You in pink scrubs is my hottest fantasy, but you won't believe how wet I am from watching you school the head of Trauma in them." I turn around to see her casually leaning against the wall with her knee bent and foot tucked in under her ass.
I stalk towards her, wanting nothing more than to press my body against hers and see how serious she's being, but find a way to stop a few feet away from her. We're both in uniform, so to speak, so we need to keep our hands to ourselves. "Are you telling me, this..." I seductively open my lab coat to show off my pink scrubs underneath. "...has the same effect on you as your turnouts have on me?" Maya's eyes darken, but to my surprise her cheeks don't blush. Instead, her soft smile turns into a sneaky grin as she crosses her arms over her chest.
Damn, the power in that stance is something that instantly makes my libido come to life. "Trust me, baby. You in my turnout jacket had the same effect too." She looks me up and down while licking her lips and the voice in the back of my head is yelling at me to take her now. She wipes her bottom lip with the pad of her thumb before meeting my gaze again. "So. Fucking. Sexy." The way her voice becomes lower with every syllable has me breathless. I feel the need to cool myself down from the intensity of her gaze and remind myself why we're holding off on ripping each other's clothes off.
Time to change the topic of conversation to something safer. "How did you end up on shift? I thought you're working tonight?" All I want is to kiss the smugness of her face when she takes my change of topic as a well-deserved win. She pushes herself off the wall, only leaning against it now. "I was supposed to, but one of the lieutenants had a family emergency last night, so I had to step in to cover for him. It was easier to get someone to cover for me than for him." I reach my hands out to her, asking her to close the distance between us.
Her features soften when she sees how badly I need her physical touch, no longer in the mood for teasing. She easily slips her hands in mine, tucking me closer to her until there is only a small space between us. "È pazzesco quanto mi sei mancato in questi ultimi giorni? (Is it crazy how much I've missed you these last couple of days?)" It's clear how much effort she has to put in, to hold back from slipping her arms around me. "Not nearly as crazy from how badly I want to kiss you right now. I've never hated being in uniform more than this moment." Her face turns down into a scowl, filled with agony, while she stares at my lips.
I pull her away from the wall to the side of the rig, parked furthest away from the ER entrance. It doesn't provide complete privacy but does take us out of the cameras' view. I bite my lips when her eyes lock onto them once more and relish in the way her breath becomes shallow. "Please tell me that you being here now, means you're not working tonight?" She squeezes my hands in hers to pull my attention away from the pulsing vein in her throat. When I meet her gaze again, she shakes her head at both my question and the desperate need we clearly have for each other.
Maya looks over her shoulder to make sure we're still alone before she tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. "That's exactly what it means, but..." When she sees how excited I get, she quickly clears her throat. "I'm working another twenty-four in the morning, though." Regret fills her eyes when she thinks she's disappointing me again because of her work. All of the sudden, the importance of being in uniform no longer matters. I walk her back against the ambulance, still leaving enough distance between us to not freak out my absolute rule follower of a wife, but close enough to make my intentions clear.
I press my pelvis against her, relishing in the heat from her body, but keep my hands pressed against the metal on either side of her head to keep her at arms' length. "I get off at five. We don't have to go out. Maybe just do a relaxed dinner at home?" She smiles widely at how well I understood the reason she brought up her next shift. We both want the same thing, which is to just spend some quality time together, so I don't care how we go about doing that.
"What do you have in mind?" I slip my hands behind her neck and smile when her hands fall on my hips without an ounce of hesitation. The move brings my body flush against hers, fitting with each other in every curve and bump. The only reason I can't get closer to her is because the rig behind her back, prevents me from pushing deeper into her. My eyes droop from the lust of feeling the pulsing need mirrored in her, as it beats in me. Maya clears her throat and repeats the question before I can moan in pleasure.
"Well, I could pick up some food on my way home and I wouldn't object to you stopping for a bottle of wine on your way over..." I leave the idea in the air for her to either add to or stop in its tracks. She licks her lips once more when my eyes fall on them, but her smirk only lights up the sparkle in her own. "We could finally start watching that show Jack and Isobel won't shut up about?" When she meets my gaze, only anticipated happiness shines through in them.
I pull her head closer to me at the mere thought of being cuddled in her arms, on a couch that won't cause any bodily harm like the one in my office. Just because we're refraining from making love doesn't mean that I can't get away with some kissing and touching as if we're teenagers sneaking around. It could actually end up being a lot of fun teasing her beyond reason. Maya leans back when I try to get closer to her, groaning loudly in the back of her throat. "You can't look at me like that when I'm minutes away from having to go back to work."
I pull her back to me with her shirt to give her a quick peck against her forehead, keeping my arms loosely hooked into the gap between two of the buttons. "Allora, abbiamo un appuntamento? (So, we have a date?)" She straightens out her uniform shirt, tucking it back into her pants. Neither of our smiles waver for even one second while we keep staring at each other. "If you get me potstickers at that small hole-in-the-wall restaurant, then I'll totally let you kiss me right now." I laugh when she wiggles her eyebrows at me, dodging my lips until I agree to her terms.
"For you, my lieutenant, I'll even order some of that brown sugar drinks you're obsessed with, even though I've made peace with not getting lucky tonight." Her mouth falls open and a blush creeps up above her collar to take residence over her entire face. I run the tips of my fingers over her collar to see exactly how far the blush stretches. "You must really love me if you're willing to use your secret weapon without a single ulterior motive." Her blush becomes even darker, and she starts sweating above her eyebrows, which makes me smile even more.
The memories of what I could get her to agree to with that exact order must be flickering through her mind. Yeah, maybe misusing my most effective seduction technique for a simple date isn't the best idea. "I do really, really love you, bambina. But I think it's best to just get the potstickers for now and keep that particular ace up my sleeve for when we're both ready for what it will inevitably lead to." Her smile turns incredibly soft, and her eyes fill with more love than I've ever seen.
"I hope that doesn't affect my chances of still getting that kiss?" Maya wraps her arms fully around my waist to pull me into a hug, resting her forehead against mine. "God, I need you to be the strong one here, because I don't know how to say no to you." I trace my thumb over her lopsided grin and lean in for that long-awaited kiss. When I feel her breath on my lips, both our eyes flutter closed. Just as our mouths inch closer to each other, the sound of the static as her radio sparks to life, leads us to jump apart.
I take a big step away from her, putting some much-needed distance between myself and how irresistible she looks in her navy blues. Her lips set into a thin line as she waits for dispatch to come through the radio clipped to her chest, while she simultaneously takes out her vibrating phone from her back pocket. She mouths an apology to me before she types out a reply to her partner for the day, letting him know where he can find her.
"AID CAR 23
Backup requested on the corner of 4th and University.
Any available EMT units, please respond."
"Aid Car 23 responding. Please reactivate our rig after our last call." As Maya talks to dispatch, she starts walking to their aid car, still searching for her partner. "Can I get a raincheck on that kiss, please?" She grins as she looks up from typing away on her phone. I shake my head at how forward she's being, absolutely loving this confident side of Maya. "That call probably came in at just the right time. I mean, we're in a very public setting and I haven't felt your lips against mine in what feels like the longest week of my life."
I grin even wider when the blush returns to her cheeks. "Maybe you should get something else to eat for tonight then? Keep the temptations to a minimum?" I nod my head through my smile at her reasoning. We both decided that waiting is what's best right now, but if we factor in how quickly our make out sessions can get heated, she definitely has a point. Her phone vibrates again, which makes her groan. "I really hate leaving you to go to work."
I kiss her forehead while whispering that I understand how important her job is to the people who need help. Besides, I was technically the one attempting to steal her away while she's on shift. She rests her chin on my shoulder as she hugs me tightly. I can hear her inhaling my scent, which leads me to do the same. How did I ever survive without Maya in my arms like this? I can't believe I almost lost her forever.
"Just come home to me, sì? That's all I want from you, understood?" I can feel her nod against the crook of my neck before she pulls away completely. "My shift ends at six. I'll come over straight from the station. So, no need to rush home, yeah?" I wave at her as she jogs back to her rig when her partner emerges from the doors. "Be safe, bambina." The kiss she blows me through the window as they drive past me will have to suffice until we're alone together.