After two weeks of eighteen-hour days seeing patients, some of whom hadn’t seen a doctor in years, I was tired to the core in the best possible way. But despite all that physical drain, I was also on my second week of really shitty sleep, thanks to the man on the floor and his systematic campaign to drive me insane.
Suffice it to say, my patience with him was thin.
Thinner than thin.
Basically nonexistent.
William Riggs was the most annoying human in the universe, with his stupid nicknames and dismissive attitude. But he was also sexily competent at things like speaking foreign languages, and giving vaccinations, and eating reina pepiada without getting avocado on his clothing, and—ironically—carrying heavy boxes, so I couldn’t help but watch him surreptitiously whenever he walked into a room.
He was bossier than Attila the Hun despite calling me Duchess, and he did not understand how friendly chitchat was supposed to work, which enraged me… but then he also got incredibly protective in a way that was not part of his job description, like the night he’d forced me to shut down clinic hours at 11:00 p.m. because I was dead on my feet, and that made my chest go gooey.
He had biceps so enormous I’d started fantasizing about being bench-pressed… but he was prone to doing diabolical things with those muscles, like forcing the bathroom door open while I was in the middle of a stress-relieving shower jerk session right before bed (the only kind of masturbation I could manage, since the man wouldn’t leave me alone). He’d claimed he was worried for my safety because he’d heard “sounds of a struggle,” but his smirky smirk had given that lie away… and now I was engaged in a real struggle as I attempted not to poke a hole through my thin cotton sleep shorts with the raging erection I couldn’t get rid of.
I couldn’t figure him out. More to the point, I couldn’t figure out how I felt about him, even after spending days and days together in close quarters.
“No can do on the earplugs, Duchess,” Riggs said with mock regret. “What would your grandfather say if I let you get hurt because I wasn’t actively listening for threats?”
“In fourteen days, the biggest nonmedical excitement around here was when that five-foot capybara trotted through town,” I scoffed.
“First of all, not true. There were those guys standing across from the clinic the other day watching you. The bearded one and the tall guy with the curly hair—”
“Oooh, watching me.” I rolled my eyes. “Couldn’t be because I’m the blondest, palest person for miles, could it?” If I had a nickel for every little kid who stared at me, I’d be able to buy the people of Gelada a whole new clinic.
“Possibly,” he allowed.
“So you’re saying the capybara was the most exciting thing,” I said triumphantly.
I could practically hear Riggs’s amusement. “A capybara’s still a wild animal. Have you seen the teeth on that thing? It could murder you while you sleep.” He yawned.
“But it wouldn’t hurt me because capybaras are vegetarians.”
Riggs sighed sadly. “That’s what they said about Genghis Khan.”
I rolled my lips together, amused against my will. “People keep them as pets,” I reminded him.
“That’s a terrible argument! People keep all kinds of animals as pets even when they shouldn’t. Tigers, bears… or that story you told me about Bernadette, the sow who sleeps under your ex-boyfriend’s dining room table.”
I huffed. I regretted telling him that story about Dunn and Tucker and their pig, just like I regretted telling him stories about Kev as a teenager, or about my frat bro neighbor who’d used me as his big gay experiment, or about the way I failed my driver’s license test three times because I couldn’t parallel park to save my damn life.
But two weeks was a long time to be with someone twenty-four seven and keep up the silent treatment, at least for me. And when it was too hot to sleep sometimes and the walls closed in, the words started spilling out of my mouth. Sometimes I felt like if I couldn’t talk about something besides sickness and patients and the criminal lack of medical supplies in Gelada, I might break down.
The only, only thing that made my oversharing remotely okay was that every once in a while, Riggs would comment something funny or silly or tell me about how his brother Zeb had only passed his driving test because the road test guy was tired of seeing Zeb every other week. It was really hilarious when Riggs put on the instructor’s high-pitched voice and said, “I do not earn enough to take my life in my hands this often!”
But even so, I realized I shared ten times more than Riggs did. After every story he told me, he’d retreat back into his shell again, and it bugged me a little more each time. I didn’t get why he was so determined not to be friends with me or trust me at all, but it made me feel like I was back in high school, trying desperately to get the hot basketball player to notice me… and failing utterly.
“We can’t get complacent about capybaras, or before you know it, we’ll be complacent about security altogether,” Riggs drawled. “My job is to stay vigilant.”
Great. Lovely.
“You should take this as a compliment, Rogers. There are a limited number of people in the world I’d save from a rampaging capybara. In fact…” He yawned again. “It’s just you.”
How ridiculous was it that I found this charming? Clearly my standards were slipping.
I leaned up and flipped my pillow over, hoping to find a coolish spot, and then I lay back down with a huff.
Riggs’s pallet creaked as he shifted. “Go to sleep, for fuck’s sake.”
“Oh my gosh, Mr. Riggs, what a great idea!” I shot back. “Why don’t I just get rid of my insomnia by sleeping? Later, I’ll rid myself of allergies by not sneezing and cure patients of diarrhea by suggesting they not use the restroom. What would I do without you and your advice?”
“Without me, you’d have fallen into a ravine earlier today while following some random dude down the side of a jungle mountain like a Bear Grylls wannabe,” my own personal demon reminded me. “Repeat after me, Duchess: we do not leave the village for any reason. That’s not just my rule, that’s a Doctors Across Continents rule for safety and liability purposes.”
“Hey! I’ll have you know, I was milliseconds away from grabbing a tree branch, and I was nowhere near the edge of the ravine! I didn’t need your help at all,” I mostly lied. “And don’t make it sound like I was out on some kind of wilderness adventure. That ‘random dude’ was a man whose wife was having a complicated labor all alone. I did what I had to do so I could get to her.”
It was hard to care about things like liability and personal safety when someone’s life was on the line.
Riggs was silent for a full second. “You did good work,” he grunted finally. “If you hadn’t controlled her bleeding with oxytocin, she would have died. Instead, you kept her calm and made sure she and her son were healthy.”
Perversely, I was nearly as annoyed by his praise as I was by his insults. How the heck was I supposed to know how to take him?
“Yeah, well, it’s a good thing I keep oxytocin tucked in my bag right next to the Band-Aids I hand out while pretending to save lives.” I flung his words from the gala back at him.