The Nurse and the Playboy

This is bullshit, Thought Eve Berry.

Why am I being called into the North Wing? No one ever goes there, she thought. Eve herself had only gone in there a handful of times during her history here at MidEast Claramine... maybe just to take a quick power nap. But when she read the message earlier she had to do a double take, there was no mistaking it: she was requested by name to report to the North Wing for a new geriatric patient. This was the first red flag of her day.

She turned in towards the building and entered the revolving doorway remembering how similarly her university entrance looked. She was always an okay student in her university days, studying medicine was difficult enough, not to mention the disastrously scheduled exams and the impossible struggle to maintain a work-life-work-school balance in a new city. But after passing the Etra Exam and finally becoming a registered Level 3 Nurse, Eve was excited that she would finally be able to fulfill her lifelong passion of helping sick people. As cliche as it sounded that's the whole reason she went into medicine in the first place. At least that was what was supposed to happen to her.

Walking past the empty receptionist desk, Eve tried to think back if she had ever actually seen another soul sitting behind that desk. Her first day here there was an administrator welcoming the handful of new nurses, but that lady stood next to the desk. That should have been Eve's first clue. On paper, MidEast Claramine had an amazing Patient Outcome record. Nearly every patient that was admitted survived their respective medical procedures, in the entire province this hospital ranked number 2 out of thousands in its Discharge to Home ratio, and the reviews of previous patients made it stand out in the textbooks as a numerical miracle. It was the second hospital Eve applied to after graduating, and they got back to her faster than any of the rest with a letter of acceptance. She was stunned and thought they saw her potential, her caring, and her professionalism.

She laughed to herself when she thought about it now. That was four years ago. She would kick herself in the face and tell her past self to get the fuck out while she still could. The only reason they hired her so quickly was because they wanted her to accept the contract before any other hospital could get her. Yes, MidEast was probably the best hospital when it came to Patient Outcome records... but that was only because they didn't have any procedures done. They also didn't need to do much to get the second best Discharge to Home ratio either, because the MidEast corporation owned the Claramine Nursing Home that it was attached to. And the best part? They only accepted patients from the Nursing Home who had a medical evaluation ranking them a Class B or higher... meaning that the whole hospital was full of a handful of old people that were already senile and left in an old folks home, and were only sick enough to need a shot of nasal spray and a multivitamin. The most interesting thing that happened was that an old man swallowed his gold tooth, but that was a simple laxative and bucket situation, and Adam told the whole crew all about that fun time right before he quit for a better job.

Eve pressed the button on the metal door marked "Lockers", waited for the little light to turn green, and then entered her PIN. The electronic screen read her name, flashed twice, and unlocked with a *click*. She pushed it open and went inside, towards her locker, when she saw two younger nurses laying down on the benches, clearly having made themselves comfortable with piles of jackets and blankets. This was the usual way newcomers spend their time. They were too inexperienced to be trusted with the few patients that were actually here, so they were "on standby"... basically chilling out in whatever corner wasn't being watched by the three administrators (of which there were many).

"How is the 'busy side' of the Cardiac Staff?" Eve said sarcastically, passing them by and turning just around the corner, unlocking her dusty metal locket outside of their view.

"Oh, you know, always something to do." The young girl replied loudly without looking up from her phone, her feet were propped up on the bench and she was snuggled in her nest of blankets. "I keep telling Christina to send me to the West Wing where I can at least have something to do."

"Trust me," Eve retrieved her ugly pink scrubs and started to disrobe. "There really isn't much besides wiping old people's asses and trying to convince them they're not going to kick the bucket in a year." The West Wing was her territory, and while her days were less mundane, there was still little honor in being the designated toilet paper holder for some deaf Boomer who lost all bowel control.

"Renee just wants a reason to get off her phone, she's been texting that boy again, and maybe he finally ghosted her... again. Maybe he'll leave her with a sticky quickie this time," teased the redhead, throwing a crumpled up piece of paper at the first girl. The paper hit Renee in the head and bounced off her head.

"Fucking stop, I told you to fuck off with that!" Obviously infatuated with the boy in question, Renee's lashing out echoed off the walls and into Eve's brain, annoying her further with how the day was starting. "I'm just talking to him, we're not even like that, shut the fuck up."

"Can you two please-" she started to speak while closing the button on her pants, but the other girl piped up again.

"What makes you think Christina is going to actually let you move staff teams anyway? I've been trying to get out of Cardiac since day one and no matter which team I try to switch to, they literally always come up with a reason for why they need ten cardiac staffers. It's fucking backwards, how many heart patients have we seen in one day?" There was a silence as Eve's shoes were tied. "Fucking three, maybe." This was usually the branch of conversation most staff members at MidEast had. There was a huge amount of overstaffing which no admin was able to explain to anyone. Sometimes when asked why there were so many nurses the answer was we're expecting a lot of incoming patients from out of state, which never came. Sometime it was there was a mix-up with the applications, some of you will be transferred to another hospital, which no one ever was. And once it was something along the lines of I don't know, why, is someone planning on quitting!?

Bureaucracy is the single most annoying obstacle in any professional organization, and none had it worse than the medical field. Did Eve want to wear these disgustingly vibrant pink scrubs? No. Did she have a choice? She asked herself that as she looked in the mirror, hair tied in a tight bun in the back of her head, face mask on and digital clip board in-hand.

"But what about you?"

Eve's head spun around the corner, eyebrows furrowed. She was still thinking about why there were so many of them employed here, and how the hospital still had the money to be making this mistake. "Ha? What?"

The redhead put her phone down on her chest and looked up at Eve. "You've worked here for a while, do you think you're gonna stay here? You're super pretty so you'll probably find a hot guy and convince him to move with you. I mean what, do you have any plans on getting out?" Eve silently raised an eyebrow at her and turned away.

"If you only knew..." she said under her breath, opening the door and ignoring the annoying boos that followed her lack of an answer. Who was she kidding? She got the first shitty apartment without roommates that she could find, thankfully it was relatively close to work and it had plenty of windows for her plant collection, but it was leaky, drafty, and the alley always smelled like piss. This only made her buy more and more plants, partly to purify the air in her home, but really just so she wouldn't kill herself from boredom. She saw her friends from her first days here maybe twice a year, besides that she was stuck. There wasn't any other hospital in the town, and she couldn't save up enough to be able to move. But there had to be something...

The North Wing.

Christina was waiting for her in the doorway of where she was supposed to report, room 322, which was the second red flag of the day.

"Good morning Miss Berry." This annoying old bag had the even more annoying habit of calling everyone by their last names, as if this was Hogwarts. No matter who talked to her about this, it was one of those things that she refused to stop doing. She gestured to the side of her, signaling that she wanted to have a private conversation before entering the room.

"Hi Christina." Enough shit was enough shit after the first two years, at this point Eve couldn't care less what the Administrator thought, it's not like they were going to fire her.

"Not today, Eve."

Oh fuck, she thought.

"Today we requested you here by name, because we want to ensure that this... particular patient has the level of privacy that they requested, and since you've been here with us for nearly four years we've come to value your work ethic, and trust that you'll respect the policies that have been presented." All of this was, to Eve's perspective, a bureaucratic way to say we know all of your friends have quit and found other jobs, and you don't hang out with the younger crowd. This was probably some VIP stockholder or something.

Eve sighed, crossed her arms, and leaned against the wall, looking at Christina's shoes from forty years ago, counting all the loose threads in the stitching. "What is he, like a huge donor or something?" Christina handed her the yellow paper in her hands, the Patient Info sheet. She took it gingerly and read the name, age, sex, height, and paused. Her eyes went back up to the name. Samantha Broker... Her eyes squinted, and she held the paper with both hands, pulling it closer. No, it must be a typo. She stood up off the wall and peered closer.

Holy shit.

"Is this the Samantha Broker!?" She didn't mean to say the words that loud, and Christina's fluttering hands would have been something hilarious to imitate for her friends at a party if it wasn't for the severity of who she was about to be dealing with. Eve leaned dramatically over to her supervisor, and in a harsh whisper freaked out. "Are you serious? This is the Samantha Broker? She owns the entire hospital, what the hell is she doing here!?"

The Broker name may have started when Samantha's grandfather traded copper wire and made a killing back in the old days, but it was Samantha that put MidEast Claramine on the map. She was not only famous in the medical world for selling the latest in medical technology to laboratories, but in every drug store you could find a rejuvenation cream in the cosmetics section with Samantha's face on it. She had a huge marketing campaign showing off the benefits of Tramelia, and everyone above the age of 50 rushed to get the magical cure that made the 68 year old entrepreneur look like she was 40. When Eve's mother heard that she had been accepted into MidEast she bought three of the giant bottles of the stuff. Why? Because that was the kind of thing mothers did. It didn't matter that the bottles were way overpriced for a skin cream, her mother did her own thing.

"Mrs. Broker is an integral part of the Claramine Medical facilities everywhere, and, don't ask me how, she is admitted here because of her immediate care needs." Eve's eyes only grew wider. Samantha Broker? Sick? The woman was an icon to medical students everywhere, she was the face of Claramine itself. She looked down at the Info sheet but was quickly pulled into the room by Christina, despite her hushed protests.

"No no, wait-"

But it was too late. The door was already open, and the pale fluorescent light bulbs were shining brightly, in that special kind of manner that only old people really could tolerate. It blinded Eve initially but she quickly adjusted, and her eyes relaxed enough to look forward.

There she was.

Sitting up in her seat, it was like looking at a real life magazine cover. Samantha Broker, in the flesh. Eve had to admit, maybe there was something to Tramelia, because Mrs. Broker's skin was impossibly healthy. She looked perfectly fine, phone in one hand and laptop on her lap, her iconic short white hair looking as perfect as if she just stepped out of the salon. She was nodding feverishly at the line, as if the person on the other end could hear her head move, and typing something with one finger on the computer.

"Yes!" She said excitedly, startling both Christina and Eve. "That's what I'm talking about, you get the brown tracers, and I'll do the rest, don't you worry about it doll. Steven will send it over once you let him know you got them, go talk with him about it and he'll tell ya." It was surreal, she even sounded like herself. No shit, Eve scolded herself. Who else would she sound like? "AH!" The shout came all of a sudden, and Eve's training kicked in. She immediately took a step towards the patient and grabbed the handle, glancing her over to see what could have caused any pain, but in the span of half a second she felt her cheeks blush when Mrs. Broker said "Christina!" so she finally noticed them in the room.

Eve meekly pulled her hand back to her side. "Lovely that you're here- sorry Trish I've got to go," and with that she pulled the phone away from her face and pressed the red button, returning the phone to its lockscreen. Huh, so even multi-millionaires have pictures of their families saved as their backgrounds, came the unintentional observation. "And who's this gorgeous minikin here, is she gonna try to poison my soup? Ah! I'm just fooling around, Sarah Broker, pleased to meet you!" She stuck out her hand and Eve reached out to shake it, careful of her fragility, but was surprised to find that this old cat had a crab claw for a hand.

"E-Eve Berry." She tried to keep her voice steady.

"Ah! What a name, with a name like that you could be a model. And ya look like one too, look at this foxy Sheba," with a fluid motion the elderly woman playfully twisted Eve's hand and made her spin around. Ridiculous as this was, Eve was actually having fun with this crazy millionaire. "Now tell me babe, do you use Tramelia?" Eve froze, the smile stupidly caked on her face.

"I'm sorry, I actually don't." her voice sounded pathetic, as if she was embarrassing herself in front of the cool girl in school.

"Well, now why the hell not?" She didn't even miss a beat, Eve's words just bounced right off of her. "Christina here does, and she swears on the splinters that it makes her look just like me. Now if you went out and got yourself a bottle, wouldn't you think that you'd look even prettier than me now?" Her hand was still grabbing onto Eve's, and there was no way out of this circus. The only thing she could do was think of something drastic... Anything to get out of this awkwardness...

"If I got myself a bottle I'd be even Broker than you now, that's for sure."

The room was quiet. Christina's eyes grew wide with surprise, and Mrs. Broker's jaw dropped. You stupid, stupid idiot! she mentally kicked herself. Why the fuck would you say something so fucking stupid!? Shit!

Christina moved forward to say something, but was abruptly cut off when the millionaire burst out laughing with loud, powerful cackles.

"Well aren't you a saucebox of a type! I like this one, Christina, she and I are going to be best of friends. Now it's so cold in here that the milk cows gave icicles, crank up that head on your way out please."

It was out of this world. They spent the next few days in deep conversation (at least Mrs. Broker was), and Eve got to hear all about how low her iron levels were, why they suddenly had to make a stop during their flight when she passed out, how even though Times General Care was right next to them, she insisted on being taken to one of her hospitals. The fact that she was one of the most successful business people of the modern day didn't even seem to phase her, she just kept cracking out those hilariously outdated phrases and quips, and Eve got told again and again how great of a job she was doing.

"Now focus your audio and listen up," Mrs. Broker said to Eve towards the end of her shift one day. "My son Felix is coming over today, and I want you on your best behavior." Eve threw a cherry up in the air and caught it in her mouth.

"Why, you don't think he'll like us like this?" She spit the cherry pit into the metal trash can and it hit the side with a ding, before falling to the floor. "Shiiiii..."

"That's not to say I give a damn what he rightly thinks of me." She threw her own cherry into the air and it landed in her mouth in one smooth motion. "It's you I'm worried about." She closed one eye, dramatically raised her hands and spit. The cherry pit flew over her feet and landed exactly in the middle of the trash can with a soft pip. "That's 7 to 2, saucebox!"

"Wait, wait, why am I the one you're worried about?" Eve put her handful of cherries in her lap.

"Ah! Don't get your panties in a twist, you're a young woman and he's a young man. I've done my fair share of basket making, but if you happen to drop a pen at his feet as he walks by, and he returns it to you, make sure you have a piece of paper to leave him with your number on it, I won't say a word about it." And she even winked at her. This was hilarious.

"Mrs. Broker, respectfully, even if he is your son, are you implying that I'm going to fall for some old-"

At the same instance she threw the cherry into the air, there was a single, loud knock on the door. Eve's head whipped around and she stared at the doorway, a huge man was standing there, one hand in his pocket, the other on the door. The cherry fell from the sky and hit Eve on the nose, making her entire body jump again and spill her handful of fruit on the ground.

Their eyes met, and Eve felt that cold, tingling sensation run down her spine. Her mouth was still open from the surprise, and she felt frozen in place. He really was huge. His light and styled hair was a stark comparison to his grizzled chin, he had the shadow of a beard and it gave his face a serious look. His cornflower blue dress shirt has the sleeves rolled up just under his elbows, unbuttoned at the top, and his broad shoulders forced it apart, giving Eve a peek at this chest. But what caught her were his eyes. They were the deepest brown, so much so they looked black... the same shade of brown that her eyes were.

But who was this guy? He couldn't be-

"Ah! Felix!" No way.

"Am I... interrupting something?" he asked, still looking at Eve with his piercing gaze. It's like he saw right through her, she had to break contact first and look down. She got up and picked up the cherries on the ground, carefully bending in such a way as to not expose her ass to him. Fucking Samantha Broker.

"Felix, this is Eve Berry, she's a nurse here and is my new friend."

Eve picked up six of the thirteen cherries when Felix stepped into the room, slowly walking towards her, almost as if he was giving her enough time to pick up the fruit before he made it to her. She managed to grab the last few and stand up right as he made it to her, but she didn't even come up to his chin! Eve wasn't particularly tall, but sure wasn't short for sure. This man was a monolith, he could probably pick her up without trying!

He stuck out his hand towards Eve after she dumped the cherried onto the table and simply said, "Felix."

She took his hand and was surprised at this gentleness. She expected another crushing grip but he was delicate with her fingers. "Eve", came her quiet reply. She inhaled and smelled his cologne, it was something that reminded her of coffee, of a beach, and of her apartment plants... It was amazing. It was uncommon that someone wore a scent in the hospital. Even more uncommon that it actually smelled good. But his...