TRACY
Shelby walked into his apartment with a demeanor that oozed aura and confidence. He looked exhausted but still had that sexy charm that any woman would fall for. He walked up to where I was sitting, completely ignoring Dr. Miller and the chef who was plating the food, and placed his palm on my forehead to check my temperature. He examined me carefully with so much interest.
"You look pale. Are you okay, Tracy?" he asked with so much concern in his eyes.
I'm fine, chief; I just need to head home to rest.
Just Shelby is fine.
He hesitated for a second, and then he turned to the chef. "Pack the food to go. ",
He turned to me and said, "Let me quickly change from my work outfit; I'll drop you." I politely declined, and I could sense the disappointment on his face even though he tried so much to hide it behind the tough armor.
As I left Shelby's building, the heavy bag of pasta weighed down my hand like a big burden, and the cold night air hit me across the face. Dr. Miller was silent beside me, her heels tapping a fast, melodious beat against the pavement that seemed to mock my heart's rapid pounding.
The silence that welcomed me when I finally arrived at my apartment was not the peaceful solitude I usually longed for. It was empty. With a single bed with thin, rough cotton sheets and a simple wooden table packed with neurology textbooks that suddenly seemed like a mountain I didn't want to climb, my room was a simple space.
I placed the pasta on the table. The tiny room was filled with the smell of expensive herbs and sautéed garlic, a bitter reminder of the warmth I had just left. I looked at my bed before thinking of Shelby's living room's dim amber glow and the deep leather chairs. The refreshing, liquid-like feel of silk sheets against my skin and the feeling of waking up in a place that appeared for more than just survival were two things I found myself craving but won't allow myself to have.
A sudden deep sadness poured over me. I wasn't just tired; I was lonely. I didn't even open the container of food I brought back. Instead, I packed the luxurious meal into my mini-fridge, poured a bowl of stale cereal, and ate it in the dark. I fell asleep in my oversized t-shirt, dreaming of a pair of piercing, evaluating eyes that seemed to follow me even in the shadows.
For the next couple of days, my life was no longer my own. Chief Shelby was everywhere.
He didn't have my number yet, but he had something better: control. He officially assigned Dr. Miller to me, claiming it as a "senior-junior mentorship," but we both knew the truth. She was his eyes and ears. Every day, like a routine, her phone would buzz in the middle of our rounds.
"It's him," she'd whisper, checking her screen. "He wants to know if you've had lunch."
He had meals prepared especially for me by his personal chef, including hand-rolled pasta, creamy risottos, and lavish sauces of lemon-butter smoked salmon, which he brought to the hospital. Miller would pull me to his office every afternoon or to his apartment once our shifts were over.
Miller would make flimsy excuses, such as "I have to go back to the hospital; I forgot my tablet," on the third day because she wanted to give Shelby and me our time. "I'm meeting a guy from Tinder, Tracy; you'll be fine!" is another example. Before disappearing, she would always say this.
The first two days were agonizing. I sat on the edge of his leather sofa, my hands tucked under my thighs, answering his questions in shy monosyllables. He did most of the talking, his voice a low, comforting baritone as he spoke about topics from complex neurosurgeries to the best hidden jazz bars in the city.
By the third day, the "Ice Queen" shield finally began to crack. I found myself laughing at a dry joke he made about a clumsy surgical resident, and for a moment, the power dynamic shifted. We weren't just Chief and Resident; we were two people in a very quiet, very private room.
But as the week went on, there was an increasing amount of tension between us, making it difficult to breathe. Every time Miller left us by ourselves, the quiet no longer felt empty but rather charged, like the seconds before a lightning strike.
I could feel his gaze following the curve of my throat, slowly descending to my waist, and then returning to my lips. He was no longer even attempting to conceal it. He would pause in the middle of a sentence, his eyes briefly lowering, and I could see him gulping, his jaw tightening as though he was struggling to control an impulse.
The atmosphere in Shelby's apartment had changed from a formal questioning to something much more personal by the third night. Ten minutes after we arrived, Dr. Miller had done her usual disappearing act, leaving me by myself with the man who had turned into my week's silent architect.
As we sat in the living room, the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves were covered in long shadows created by the amber glow of the lamps. The topic of medicine had shifted to the life I had left behind to move to this city.
"So, Tracy," he began, leaning back and crossing one long leg over the other, "when you aren't breaking records in neuroanatomy or avoiding the breakroom gossip, what do you do for fun? Surely there's more to you than just textbooks."
I looked down at my hands, feeling a small, shy smile tug at my lips. "To be honest, Chief, I barely go out. Between the move and the residency, I haven't seen a part of this city that doesn't smell antiseptic. I haven't been to a single 'fun' place since I got here."
His intense, unreadable gaze was focused on me for a brief moment. "That is a medical emergency in itself," he said. "A city this alive, and you're treating it like a morgue."
He rose and walked toward a sleek mahogany cabinet with a graceful, predatory gait. "Red wine?" he asked, taking out a bottle without waiting for a response. "I suspect it's your favorite."
Yes, it was.
How did he know? This man acts like he sees through me and reads my every thought.
He poured two glasses of a rich, silky red wine, and I watched. A rush of electricity went straight to my chest as he handed one to me, his fingers grazing mine for an excessively long moment. With each sip of wine, the tension in the room increased as we sat there and talked for an hour. He was charming and intelligent and gave me his undivided attention to the point where everything else seemed to have faded.
He suddenly said, "I can't let you spend another night buried in a textbook," and put down his empty glass. "Tonight, let me take you out. I want to show you this city's non-hospital side.
My heart skipped. I should have said no. I should have remembered my "one year" rule. But looking at the dimples cutting into his cheeks and the heat in his eyes, the 'no' died in my throat.
"Yes," I whispered. "I'd like that."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, sliding it across the coffee table toward me. "Then I think it's time I stop calling Dr. Miller to find out if you've had lunch. Give me your number, Tracy."
With slightly shaking fingers, I typed my digits into his phone. As I handed it back, our eyes locked, and for a moment, neither of us breathed. The air was vibrating with everything we weren't saying.