“I suppose he’s going to by my patient?”
“Cassidy, you’re so good with the tough cases. We are lucky to have you. You know, I just submitted your name for employee of the month.”
Nothing Mr. March could say would make it easier to work with a difficult patient. But normally, I could just put their words aside and see that they were sick and needed some loving attention. I already suspected that was going to be more difficult with this man.
My job was to be nice to the patients. I didn’t do therapy sessions. I didn’t give them their medications. My whole purpose for being with the patients was to make their life better while they were in our care. Sometimes that meant walking with them. Other times, it might mean getting them a different meal. It didn’t matter to me, as long as what I was doing would help them.
“Mr. March, we don’t even have an employee of the month program. It’s just you typing up a certificate for me,” I said with a wry smile.
It was a little joke that Mr. March had with all the staff when he needed something done that no one wanted to do. We were a small facility and it wasn’t reasonable to even do an employee of the month program; everyone worked hard and everyone got recognized for their work on a pretty consistent basis. But our recognition usually came in letting us leave early, or Mr. March might buy pizza for the staff; it was a nice gesture at least.
“But I would give you employee of the month if we had a program,” he said as he patted me on the back.
“Thanks, I think.” I laughed. “Now, I need to go get Alexander’s recipe for this chicken so I can convince Brad to eat it.”
“See, that’s the kind of thing that just goes so far above what others do. And everyone else does a pretty fantastic job, too.”
“I know, I know, I’m employee of the month.”
I started to walk away, hoping Mr. March was done with me. But there was one thing that I knew he was going to comment on. I cringed as I heard him start to talk to me and hoped he wouldn’t write me up for my blatant refusal to follow this one rule.
“Let’s take it out before anyone else sees it, please, Cassidy.”
“Mr. March, it’s so much work to take in and out. I really don’t understand why I can’t keep it in. Just because the patients need their piercings out doesn’t mean I should have to take mine out.”
“No unusual piercings are allowed; you know the rules. If the patients have to take theirs out, so do you.”
“What unusual piercings do you have?” the new patient, Erik, asked as he rejoined the conversation and suddenly seemed very interested in me.
For the first time, Erik looked me dead in the eyes. I felt my body warm at his attention. Not because I wanted him to like me or anything like that. But his deep, brown eyes penetrated me. They looked so far into my soul that I felt the need to take a step backwards as I reeled and tried to figure out if I should respond to his question.
I looked at Erik and then at Mr. March and didn’t open my mouth to respond. My tongue piercing had been a fun little excursion when I went to Vegas for my twenty-first birthday. I had been so drunk that I almost married a complete stranger, and only by vomiting on the man had I been saved from that horrible mistake. The next morning, I woke up with my tongue pierced. I could have taken it out and my hole would have healed, but I liked keeping it as a reminder of my past and all the changes I had made.
“Let’s go look at the pool area,” Mr. March said in an effort to distract the new patient. “We have a spectacular pool, hot tub, and sauna. All visits need to be with staff for your safety,” he continued as he guided the man out of the kitchen.
“Clit, nipples, tongue; which is it?” Erik boldly asked just before turning the corner and grinning at me while he waited for my response.
“What?” I said in total shock.
“Where’s your piercing?”
I burst into laughter at his bold question. Erik was a handsome man with a bit of an attitude, but everyone had an attitude when they arrived at our facility. His smile would certainly stick in my mind for the rest of that evening, though. His half wink and brilliant white teeth mesmerized me and gave me a shot of adrenaline. For a man with such an attitude, he sure did seem to be flirting with me.
“Let’s go,” Mr. March said without giving me time to answer.
Mr. March put his hand on Erik’s elbow and guided him out of the room and toward the pool area. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to answer his question. The tour of our facility was quite impressive and Mr. March was a pro at it. He showed guests the workout room, the pool, the spa; he walked new patients around the grounds and looked up at the mountains. Our treatment center was more like a resort than a hospital and that was exactly why we got the rich and famous to send their loved ones to us.
“That one looks like trouble,” Alexander said from behind me.
“Yeah, I bet he won’t last a week. Probably one of those rich, spoiled kids.”
“I think he’s that guy from Slap 142, that rock band?”
“I don’t know. But he’s not very friendly, and he’s a vegetarian. Or wait, was it vegan? Crap, I don’t remember.”
“I’ll give him a bacon omelet tomorrow and we can find out.” Alexander laughed. “Is it horrible that I enjoy a bacon freak out so much?”
“No, don’t do that,” I begged. “At least I’m not working tomorrow; I won’t have to deal with that disaster. Speaking of disasters, Brad would like to know what the chicken’s stuffed with. He’s not going to eat it unless he knows.”