Bulletproof (8/52)
Title: Bulletproof
Author: blasthisass
Rating: PG-13 to NC-17
Summary: AU- when Luke is shot by Colonel Mayer, his condition quickly deteriorates. In order to save his life, Bob calls in a young, hotshot doctor from Texas, brilliant and already making a name for himself.
Disclaimers: All characters and such property of ATWT, CBS and anyone else who can legally take credit for them. If they were mine, I would take infinitely better care of them.
Title from the song by La Roux. There is dialogue from both the time in which the story takes place as well as the LuRe storyline.
A/N: This is unbeta'd, so any mistakes are mine.
Comments much appreciated . . . I love them like Reid loves Luke.
Previous parts: prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
***
Noah Mayer lingered alone in the hallway, watching the movements in the room from the hallway. He shifted nervously on his legs, moving in an out of view of the window, partially reluctant to be seen by Luke. He couldn’t even figure out why he was there. He’d come with the resolution to go inside, to apologize for his psychopath of a father, to make things right, but then he’d come he’d spotted Luke with his doctor and he’d hesitated. The doctor had gotten a nasty look almost the minute Noah had showed up. Noah knew he hadn’t been seen, knew that the look was meant for Luke and not for himself, but, all the same, he was reluctant to get caught in the line of his sight.
So, he figured he’d just . . . wait outside until the doctor left and then go in and see Luke. But then he couldn’t do it. Even when the doctor had stalked out, looking positively infuriated and exchanged several curt words with an approaching Bob Hughes and the room was all but empty, Noah couldn’t go in.
Because if he had been wrecked with guilt before, then it was nothing like what he’d felt when he’d watched Luke’s doctor poking and prodding at Luke’s feet. Nothing like what he’d felt when he’d looked at Luke’s face and seen it grow increasingly frustrated before breaking down and shouting at the doctor. Nothing like what he felt when he’d heard Luke’s yelling laying the blame on the doctor rather than himself, when all he could think was that the blame had to be directed at him.
And so, rather than going inside, he ran.
***
When Reid woke up the next morning, curled in the armchair in his hotel room, he still felt exhausted. His back was aching from the fetal position in which he’d been forced to sleep. He checked the clock on the bedside table, squinting through his sleep to try and decipher the digits. 7:34 am.
Reid groaned. He felt like he’d been sleeping for a day and a half when in reality it had been five hours. And yet he knew he couldn’t sleep any longer. He was completely exhausted, both physically and mentally. His brain tired of thinking up new insults for the people that blamed him for the fact that Luke Snyder couldn’t walk rather than thanking him for the fact that the boy was even alive to begin with. He ran a hand through his hair and began to make his way to the shower. That was what he needed: a shower. Though for the life of him he couldn’t figure out if it had to be steaming or freezing.
He couldn’t quite figure this town out. It seemed to him that every occurrence that happened there came about backwards. He felt that any other town would let him out of his clutches, that wherever he went he could escape whenever he wanted. He had always escaped when he wanted. He’d escaped from his home when he’d wanted. He’d escaped high school, he’d escaped college. He’d jumped through the hoops of residency at flying pace, running for his life, though he hadn’t quite known from what or to what. Or whom, perhaps. Scientifically speaking, he felt he had to entertain all possibilities.
He’d become quite the expert at running. And yet it was as though his town had grabbed him by the ankles and caused him, halfway through his sprint, to go crashing face-first into the dusty ground of the track. Running he was well versed in. It was a continuous movement. Picking himself up off the ground and restarting the sprint with a jog took some adjusting to.
***
Reid pushed his way through the second door leading into Al’s Diner, glancing around and spotting Bob Hughes sitting by himself at a two person table, eating a hearty breakfast of pancakes and eggs. He looked engrossed in the newspaper article he was reading but, as though Reid’s presence had a special announcement attached to it, he glanced up when the door swung shut and offered Reid a smile. He motioned at the seat in front of him.
Reid frowned. He wasn’t one for sitting down and eating breakfast; he usually just grabbed a cup of coffee and a bagel and went to the hospital. Sometimes he even just grabbed said breakfast items from the hospital cafeteria.
He patted the back of the chair across the table from Bob and eyed his breakfast. “At your age, that’s a heart attack waiting to happen.”
“Well, wouldn’t you rather it came covered in syrup than any other manner?” Bob chuckled, once again motioning at the chair that Reid’s fingers were unconsciously tapping against.
Reid sighed and his fingers curled definitively around the chair before pulling it out and easing a leg under the table to settle into it. Bob pushed a menu in front of Reid, but other than provide a new surface for Reid to drum his fingers on, it was ignored.
“You wanted to talk,” Reid said finally, settling back against the backrest of the seat. “Don’t understand why we couldn’t do it at the hospital.”
“You should order something, doctor,” Bob replied, cutting a triangle out of his pancake and placing the morsel in his mouth. He chewed it thoughtfully before adding. “One should always have time for breakfast.”
“Perhaps when my dementia sets in, I’ll consider it,” Reid muttered, but he fingered the laminated pages of the menu momentarily before flicking it open. He glanced at the pictures and missed Bob’s soft smile. Bob supplanted it with an expectant stare when Reid glanced up. “You wanted to talk,” Reid repeated.
“No, I wanted to listen,” Bob corrected, waving over one of the employees of the diner to take Reid’s order. “I wanted, very curiously, to listen to what is going through your head.”
Reid frowned. “I don’t quite understand.”
Before Bob could offer an explanation to his words, they were approached by the man that Bob had motioned over. Bob signaled for Reid to pick something so that he could order. Reid’s mouth formed a thin line, considering protesting the instruction, but his stomach growled and he remembered that by the time he’d returned to his room, he’d been so exhausted that he hadn’t even eaten the sandwich he’d been engrossed in earlier. He flicked quickly through the menu and some strange, competitive side of him decided that he needed to rival Bob Hughes’s breakfast.
He glanced up to order and interrupt the conversation between Bob and the other gentleman, but was sidetracked by the fact that the man’s shirt blinded him completely. He blinked rapidly and his hand rose instinctively to his eyes, as though someone had suddenly flashed a floodlight into his eyes and he needed a way to block it. Yes, the bright orange paisley shirt and tie had very much that same effect.
“Morning,” said the man’s voice, which Reid found just as annoying as his shirt. He groaned, wondering why the minute he stepped outside of his hotel room or the hospital, he had to run into the lone gay man in Oakdale.
“It is. What a clever observation,” Reid muttered, tone conveying that he didn’t not truly feel the sentiment. Before the man could reply, Reid listed off at least ten breakfast items in rapid succession. The man jumped and after the third or fourth item on the list overcame his shock and tried to catch up on all the food being listed.
“All this food can’t be for you,” Paisley Shirt commented, his brow furrowing, while Bob made a comment about Reid’s mild hypocrisy regarding his own eating habits.
“Well, when I’m six hundred years old, I’ll consider watching what I eat. And why the hell can’t it all be for me? You have a problem with an individual’s eating habits maybe you shouldn’t be working at an establishment that’s meant to cater to them,” Reid demanded, the tone of his voice again making Paisley Shirt look like he ought to jump back several paces.
“No, no. I-I just meant . . . well, you look too in shape or something to eat like that on a regular basis,” was the stumbled reply, the end of which was cut off by a groan from Reid.
“Okay, that’s it,” Reid growled, twisting in his seat to look at Paisley Shirt full in the face. “I realize that this is a small, out of the way town and that it’s really quite rarely that your gaydar is able to perk itself up and ping in excitement, but I’m going to tell you right now that if I even had a type, which I don’t, you wouldn’t be remotely near it. So, just lay it to rest and bring me my food, ‘kay?”
Paisley Shirt muttered in indignation, his voice stumbling over the beginnings of several sentences, as though he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around what Reid was saying to him. Before he could counter the hidden accusation, there was a call of, “Henry, darling, the fry machine is making uncanny noises again!” Paisley Shirt, who appeared to be this ‘Henry,’ mouthed like a goldfish for a moment before practically sprinting away from their table to help the woman who looked like she’d just stepped out of some exotic version of The Sound of Music. Reid grimaced as she reminded him that those were four hours of his life he’d never get back.
Bob raised an eyebrow at Reid, who glanced across the table at Bob’s half-finished cup of coffee. He considered reaching over and taking it, but his eyes met Bob’s and the elder doctor’s expression made him roll his eyes in annoyance. “You may be a grandfather, but you’re not mine, so there’s no reason for you to look at me like one.”
Bob continued to frown, wondering if Reid realized that he’d just seemingly outed himself to both anyone within earshot. “Henry Coleman is straight.”
“Well, then he does an excellent job of hiding it,” Reid muttered. Of course. Who was he to expect there to be a gay man in Podunk?
Bob chuckled, looking like he was perfectly ready to agree with Reid in that regard, but just as he was finishing the last of his eggs, Henry Coleman stalked back up to the table and practically dumped Reid’s breakfast in front of him. He looked like time in the back with his exotic woman had infused him with the courage he needed to face Reid.
“Listen you . . . errm, whoever you are!” he proclaimed, crossing his arms in front of his chest and looking ready to puff his chest out a little bit. He reminded Reid exactly of a male peacock strutting around in a zoo. Reid raised his eyebrows in amusement, sensing that this ought to be at least mildly amusing. “I don’t know who you think you are, marching in here and-and-and, errm, mouthing off, but I will not let you stand around and insult me! Now, as co-owner of this establishment-”
“Since when do you own Al’s, Henry?” Bob interrupted, looking mildly surprised.
Henry frowned, as though he’d wound himself up for a great, Shakespeare-esque monolog that he hadn’t been expecting to get interrupted. He had to push his speech out of the way to process what was being said. “Oh, it’s recent, Bob. Won it in a poker game.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah.”
Reid waited expectantly for a moment while Henry and Bob stood in the silence of their monosyllabic conversation before clearing his throat. “Are you finished?”
Henry looked confused, looking at Reid as though he’d never seen anything quite like him before. “Pardon?”
“You were monologing. If you’ve finished, could you leave us in peace to eat our food, Hank? I’m afraid your presence is disturbing my appetite,” Reid informed him, turning to his plate and stabbing several random breakfast foods with his fork, slathering them with maple syrup and stuffing him into his mouth. He chewed obnoxiously as he watched Henry turn red. The goldfish like movement repeated itself across Henry’s face before he decided that he wasn’t in the right frame of mind to have a snark-off with the doctor and he spotted a customer that he was all too eager to serve.
Bob raised his eyebrow as Henry scurried away before glancing back at Reid, who was heartily digging into his meal. “You certainly have a way with people, Dr. Oliver.”
Reid shrugged. “Some people don’t like me. Can’t fathom why.”
“Perhaps they have trouble understanding you.”
Reid snorted, taking a long sip of his coffee before looking back at Bob incredulously. “And you presume you understand me, Dr. Hughes?”
Bob smiled and Reid had the uncanny feeling that he’d been somehow tricked back onto the track the elder man wished the conversation would be on. “I do not, doctor. Quite the contrary, in fact. For example, yesterday you informed me that neither my hospital nor Luke Snyder would benefit from your presence and expertise and that you were therefore leaving town, going back to the patients who, quote-unquote, ‘need you.’ And yet here you are, willing to skip breakfast to arrive at said hospital to check on the very patient that you dismissed the other day. Why is this?”
Reid didn’t answer. His chosen excuse wasn’t necessarily that he didn’t have one to give to Bob Hughes. That is to say, he did have an answer, but conveying to anyone that he had been coerced by one Lucinda Walsh into staying in Oakdale under possibly empty threats was not a circumstance that he would ever admit to. So he chose instead to stuff some food into his mouth and prolong the silence. He didn’t have a problem expressing himself with a full mouth sometimes, but Bob Hughes didn’t have to know that. Bob Hughes didn’t have to know anything that Reid didn’t wish to convey.
“Like I said, things change.”
“That, Dr. Oliver, is an answer that I’m sure wouldn’t have gotten you any credit on an exam at Harvard Medical School.”
“Well, I hear they’re much less strict at Oakdale University, so I’ll take my chances,” Reid muttered, shoving his half-empty plates to the side and sliding his chair back.
“Dr. Oliver-”
“Dr. Hughes, my reasons for staying are my own. If I were you, I wouldn’t be questioning them, but would sit back, pleased because they’re working to your advantage,” Reid interrupted, swinging his jacket over his shoulder and starting toward the door.
Bob frowned. It was advice that he only half wanted to follow. He glanced at the plates of food that Reid had left behind and called after him. “You forgot to pay!”
“No, I didn’t!” Reid answered, opening the door. “It’s customary for the asker to pay for the meal of the askee. I realize you haven’t dated in a while, but that’s the way it is now. Good day, Dr. Hughes.”
Bob shook his head as he fished out his wallet, wondering how one man could be so amusing and yet so aggravating at the same time. He walked over to the counter, where Henry and his fiancé, Vienna, were conversing with a young blonde woman, who was busy complaining about her recent marriage, which already looked like it was in shambles.
“How much do I owe you?”
Henry glanced at the correct order and gave Bob a sum. He watched as Bob fished some bills out of his wallet. “Who was that jackass you were having breakfast with?” he demanded as Bob handed over the money.
“Just a consulting doctor from out of town. Called him in to help with Luke Snyder’s case.”
The blonde chuckled. “C’mon, Henry. You just don’t like him because someone finally told you the straight truth about your horrendous taste in fashion.”
Bob accepted the change gratefully, easing himself out of the conversation and proceeding to the door, vaguely wondering whether he should read anything into how cryptic Dr. Oliver was being. After all, Bob had technically gotten what he wanted: a physician staying to oversee a case until the very end. It concerned him, however, because Dr. Reid Oliver did not seem like the type of man who was easily persuaded into doing something that he was adamantly set against.
Chapter 9-->
***
Also: I seem to be having a bit of trouble confirming this anywhere, but are Henry and Vienna engaged or married at this point? Because all I find are things of an engagement, nothing saying whether or not they actually got married.
Author: blasthisass
Rating: PG-13 to NC-17
Summary: AU- when Luke is shot by Colonel Mayer, his condition quickly deteriorates. In order to save his life, Bob calls in a young, hotshot doctor from Texas, brilliant and already making a name for himself.
Disclaimers: All characters and such property of ATWT, CBS and anyone else who can legally take credit for them. If they were mine, I would take infinitely better care of them.
Title from the song by La Roux. There is dialogue from both the time in which the story takes place as well as the LuRe storyline.
A/N: This is unbeta'd, so any mistakes are mine.
Comments much appreciated . . . I love them like Reid loves Luke.
Previous parts: prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
***
Noah Mayer lingered alone in the hallway, watching the movements in the room from the hallway. He shifted nervously on his legs, moving in an out of view of the window, partially reluctant to be seen by Luke. He couldn’t even figure out why he was there. He’d come with the resolution to go inside, to apologize for his psychopath of a father, to make things right, but then he’d come he’d spotted Luke with his doctor and he’d hesitated. The doctor had gotten a nasty look almost the minute Noah had showed up. Noah knew he hadn’t been seen, knew that the look was meant for Luke and not for himself, but, all the same, he was reluctant to get caught in the line of his sight.
So, he figured he’d just . . . wait outside until the doctor left and then go in and see Luke. But then he couldn’t do it. Even when the doctor had stalked out, looking positively infuriated and exchanged several curt words with an approaching Bob Hughes and the room was all but empty, Noah couldn’t go in.
Because if he had been wrecked with guilt before, then it was nothing like what he’d felt when he’d watched Luke’s doctor poking and prodding at Luke’s feet. Nothing like what he’d felt when he’d looked at Luke’s face and seen it grow increasingly frustrated before breaking down and shouting at the doctor. Nothing like what he felt when he’d heard Luke’s yelling laying the blame on the doctor rather than himself, when all he could think was that the blame had to be directed at him.
And so, rather than going inside, he ran.
***
When Reid woke up the next morning, curled in the armchair in his hotel room, he still felt exhausted. His back was aching from the fetal position in which he’d been forced to sleep. He checked the clock on the bedside table, squinting through his sleep to try and decipher the digits. 7:34 am.
Reid groaned. He felt like he’d been sleeping for a day and a half when in reality it had been five hours. And yet he knew he couldn’t sleep any longer. He was completely exhausted, both physically and mentally. His brain tired of thinking up new insults for the people that blamed him for the fact that Luke Snyder couldn’t walk rather than thanking him for the fact that the boy was even alive to begin with. He ran a hand through his hair and began to make his way to the shower. That was what he needed: a shower. Though for the life of him he couldn’t figure out if it had to be steaming or freezing.
He couldn’t quite figure this town out. It seemed to him that every occurrence that happened there came about backwards. He felt that any other town would let him out of his clutches, that wherever he went he could escape whenever he wanted. He had always escaped when he wanted. He’d escaped from his home when he’d wanted. He’d escaped high school, he’d escaped college. He’d jumped through the hoops of residency at flying pace, running for his life, though he hadn’t quite known from what or to what. Or whom, perhaps. Scientifically speaking, he felt he had to entertain all possibilities.
He’d become quite the expert at running. And yet it was as though his town had grabbed him by the ankles and caused him, halfway through his sprint, to go crashing face-first into the dusty ground of the track. Running he was well versed in. It was a continuous movement. Picking himself up off the ground and restarting the sprint with a jog took some adjusting to.
***
Reid pushed his way through the second door leading into Al’s Diner, glancing around and spotting Bob Hughes sitting by himself at a two person table, eating a hearty breakfast of pancakes and eggs. He looked engrossed in the newspaper article he was reading but, as though Reid’s presence had a special announcement attached to it, he glanced up when the door swung shut and offered Reid a smile. He motioned at the seat in front of him.
Reid frowned. He wasn’t one for sitting down and eating breakfast; he usually just grabbed a cup of coffee and a bagel and went to the hospital. Sometimes he even just grabbed said breakfast items from the hospital cafeteria.
He patted the back of the chair across the table from Bob and eyed his breakfast. “At your age, that’s a heart attack waiting to happen.”
“Well, wouldn’t you rather it came covered in syrup than any other manner?” Bob chuckled, once again motioning at the chair that Reid’s fingers were unconsciously tapping against.
Reid sighed and his fingers curled definitively around the chair before pulling it out and easing a leg under the table to settle into it. Bob pushed a menu in front of Reid, but other than provide a new surface for Reid to drum his fingers on, it was ignored.
“You wanted to talk,” Reid said finally, settling back against the backrest of the seat. “Don’t understand why we couldn’t do it at the hospital.”
“You should order something, doctor,” Bob replied, cutting a triangle out of his pancake and placing the morsel in his mouth. He chewed it thoughtfully before adding. “One should always have time for breakfast.”
“Perhaps when my dementia sets in, I’ll consider it,” Reid muttered, but he fingered the laminated pages of the menu momentarily before flicking it open. He glanced at the pictures and missed Bob’s soft smile. Bob supplanted it with an expectant stare when Reid glanced up. “You wanted to talk,” Reid repeated.
“No, I wanted to listen,” Bob corrected, waving over one of the employees of the diner to take Reid’s order. “I wanted, very curiously, to listen to what is going through your head.”
Reid frowned. “I don’t quite understand.”
Before Bob could offer an explanation to his words, they were approached by the man that Bob had motioned over. Bob signaled for Reid to pick something so that he could order. Reid’s mouth formed a thin line, considering protesting the instruction, but his stomach growled and he remembered that by the time he’d returned to his room, he’d been so exhausted that he hadn’t even eaten the sandwich he’d been engrossed in earlier. He flicked quickly through the menu and some strange, competitive side of him decided that he needed to rival Bob Hughes’s breakfast.
He glanced up to order and interrupt the conversation between Bob and the other gentleman, but was sidetracked by the fact that the man’s shirt blinded him completely. He blinked rapidly and his hand rose instinctively to his eyes, as though someone had suddenly flashed a floodlight into his eyes and he needed a way to block it. Yes, the bright orange paisley shirt and tie had very much that same effect.
“Morning,” said the man’s voice, which Reid found just as annoying as his shirt. He groaned, wondering why the minute he stepped outside of his hotel room or the hospital, he had to run into the lone gay man in Oakdale.
“It is. What a clever observation,” Reid muttered, tone conveying that he didn’t not truly feel the sentiment. Before the man could reply, Reid listed off at least ten breakfast items in rapid succession. The man jumped and after the third or fourth item on the list overcame his shock and tried to catch up on all the food being listed.
“All this food can’t be for you,” Paisley Shirt commented, his brow furrowing, while Bob made a comment about Reid’s mild hypocrisy regarding his own eating habits.
“Well, when I’m six hundred years old, I’ll consider watching what I eat. And why the hell can’t it all be for me? You have a problem with an individual’s eating habits maybe you shouldn’t be working at an establishment that’s meant to cater to them,” Reid demanded, the tone of his voice again making Paisley Shirt look like he ought to jump back several paces.
“No, no. I-I just meant . . . well, you look too in shape or something to eat like that on a regular basis,” was the stumbled reply, the end of which was cut off by a groan from Reid.
“Okay, that’s it,” Reid growled, twisting in his seat to look at Paisley Shirt full in the face. “I realize that this is a small, out of the way town and that it’s really quite rarely that your gaydar is able to perk itself up and ping in excitement, but I’m going to tell you right now that if I even had a type, which I don’t, you wouldn’t be remotely near it. So, just lay it to rest and bring me my food, ‘kay?”
Paisley Shirt muttered in indignation, his voice stumbling over the beginnings of several sentences, as though he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around what Reid was saying to him. Before he could counter the hidden accusation, there was a call of, “Henry, darling, the fry machine is making uncanny noises again!” Paisley Shirt, who appeared to be this ‘Henry,’ mouthed like a goldfish for a moment before practically sprinting away from their table to help the woman who looked like she’d just stepped out of some exotic version of The Sound of Music. Reid grimaced as she reminded him that those were four hours of his life he’d never get back.
Bob raised an eyebrow at Reid, who glanced across the table at Bob’s half-finished cup of coffee. He considered reaching over and taking it, but his eyes met Bob’s and the elder doctor’s expression made him roll his eyes in annoyance. “You may be a grandfather, but you’re not mine, so there’s no reason for you to look at me like one.”
Bob continued to frown, wondering if Reid realized that he’d just seemingly outed himself to both anyone within earshot. “Henry Coleman is straight.”
“Well, then he does an excellent job of hiding it,” Reid muttered. Of course. Who was he to expect there to be a gay man in Podunk?
Bob chuckled, looking like he was perfectly ready to agree with Reid in that regard, but just as he was finishing the last of his eggs, Henry Coleman stalked back up to the table and practically dumped Reid’s breakfast in front of him. He looked like time in the back with his exotic woman had infused him with the courage he needed to face Reid.
“Listen you . . . errm, whoever you are!” he proclaimed, crossing his arms in front of his chest and looking ready to puff his chest out a little bit. He reminded Reid exactly of a male peacock strutting around in a zoo. Reid raised his eyebrows in amusement, sensing that this ought to be at least mildly amusing. “I don’t know who you think you are, marching in here and-and-and, errm, mouthing off, but I will not let you stand around and insult me! Now, as co-owner of this establishment-”
“Since when do you own Al’s, Henry?” Bob interrupted, looking mildly surprised.
Henry frowned, as though he’d wound himself up for a great, Shakespeare-esque monolog that he hadn’t been expecting to get interrupted. He had to push his speech out of the way to process what was being said. “Oh, it’s recent, Bob. Won it in a poker game.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah.”
Reid waited expectantly for a moment while Henry and Bob stood in the silence of their monosyllabic conversation before clearing his throat. “Are you finished?”
Henry looked confused, looking at Reid as though he’d never seen anything quite like him before. “Pardon?”
“You were monologing. If you’ve finished, could you leave us in peace to eat our food, Hank? I’m afraid your presence is disturbing my appetite,” Reid informed him, turning to his plate and stabbing several random breakfast foods with his fork, slathering them with maple syrup and stuffing him into his mouth. He chewed obnoxiously as he watched Henry turn red. The goldfish like movement repeated itself across Henry’s face before he decided that he wasn’t in the right frame of mind to have a snark-off with the doctor and he spotted a customer that he was all too eager to serve.
Bob raised his eyebrow as Henry scurried away before glancing back at Reid, who was heartily digging into his meal. “You certainly have a way with people, Dr. Oliver.”
Reid shrugged. “Some people don’t like me. Can’t fathom why.”
“Perhaps they have trouble understanding you.”
Reid snorted, taking a long sip of his coffee before looking back at Bob incredulously. “And you presume you understand me, Dr. Hughes?”
Bob smiled and Reid had the uncanny feeling that he’d been somehow tricked back onto the track the elder man wished the conversation would be on. “I do not, doctor. Quite the contrary, in fact. For example, yesterday you informed me that neither my hospital nor Luke Snyder would benefit from your presence and expertise and that you were therefore leaving town, going back to the patients who, quote-unquote, ‘need you.’ And yet here you are, willing to skip breakfast to arrive at said hospital to check on the very patient that you dismissed the other day. Why is this?”
Reid didn’t answer. His chosen excuse wasn’t necessarily that he didn’t have one to give to Bob Hughes. That is to say, he did have an answer, but conveying to anyone that he had been coerced by one Lucinda Walsh into staying in Oakdale under possibly empty threats was not a circumstance that he would ever admit to. So he chose instead to stuff some food into his mouth and prolong the silence. He didn’t have a problem expressing himself with a full mouth sometimes, but Bob Hughes didn’t have to know that. Bob Hughes didn’t have to know anything that Reid didn’t wish to convey.
“Like I said, things change.”
“That, Dr. Oliver, is an answer that I’m sure wouldn’t have gotten you any credit on an exam at Harvard Medical School.”
“Well, I hear they’re much less strict at Oakdale University, so I’ll take my chances,” Reid muttered, shoving his half-empty plates to the side and sliding his chair back.
“Dr. Oliver-”
“Dr. Hughes, my reasons for staying are my own. If I were you, I wouldn’t be questioning them, but would sit back, pleased because they’re working to your advantage,” Reid interrupted, swinging his jacket over his shoulder and starting toward the door.
Bob frowned. It was advice that he only half wanted to follow. He glanced at the plates of food that Reid had left behind and called after him. “You forgot to pay!”
“No, I didn’t!” Reid answered, opening the door. “It’s customary for the asker to pay for the meal of the askee. I realize you haven’t dated in a while, but that’s the way it is now. Good day, Dr. Hughes.”
Bob shook his head as he fished out his wallet, wondering how one man could be so amusing and yet so aggravating at the same time. He walked over to the counter, where Henry and his fiancé, Vienna, were conversing with a young blonde woman, who was busy complaining about her recent marriage, which already looked like it was in shambles.
“How much do I owe you?”
Henry glanced at the correct order and gave Bob a sum. He watched as Bob fished some bills out of his wallet. “Who was that jackass you were having breakfast with?” he demanded as Bob handed over the money.
“Just a consulting doctor from out of town. Called him in to help with Luke Snyder’s case.”
The blonde chuckled. “C’mon, Henry. You just don’t like him because someone finally told you the straight truth about your horrendous taste in fashion.”
Bob accepted the change gratefully, easing himself out of the conversation and proceeding to the door, vaguely wondering whether he should read anything into how cryptic Dr. Oliver was being. After all, Bob had technically gotten what he wanted: a physician staying to oversee a case until the very end. It concerned him, however, because Dr. Reid Oliver did not seem like the type of man who was easily persuaded into doing something that he was adamantly set against.
Chapter 9-->
***
Also: I seem to be having a bit of trouble confirming this anywhere, but are Henry and Vienna engaged or married at this point? Because all I find are things of an engagement, nothing saying whether or not they actually got married.