Sorry, Bro by Genevieve Bergeron Page B

that kept him coming back.
    Trina eyed him. “Then, maybe—”
    The phone at the nurse’s station buzzed. Trina reacted instantly and clutched the boxy receiver against her cheek. “Hello? Still no-shows? I’ll send him.” Trina furrowed her dark eyebrows and looked up. “They need you in the operating room Bryce. Assault with possible trauma to the head. The surgical assistants are still no-shows.”
    Bryce knew better than to ask any questions. He nodded, dropped the stack of charts and dashed down the hall to the nearest elevator.
    He hadn’t had to wait very long for the surgery. Damn being the only nurse in coronary care with any skill in trauma surgery. And damn him for dropping out of medical school.
    Bryce scrambled out of the elevator onto the first floor. He pulled his white cap over his bandana and covered his face with a surgical mask before scrubbing in. Another nurse hurried over to brief him on the situation. Male, mid-twenties. Victim of a random assault. Blunt force trauma to the head, but a CAT scan would come later to determine the seriousness of the wound. He had fallen just after the incident, and several shards of broken glass—most likely from a broken beer or liquor bottle—were lodged in his abdomen. For now, the patient was unconscious.
    Shoulder-to-shoulder with the slight female nurse, Bryce rounded the corner into the OR. Instantly, he recognised the doctor whom he had seen changing in the locker room just ten minutes before. So, he’s a resident surgeon, Bryce thought.
    Bryce stepped forward, and trailed his gaze up the patient’s body. Three jagged triangles of glass, stuck like porcupine quills, in the patient’s lower abdomen. The bleeding seemed minimal, and the glass shards seemed small enough not to have penetrated any major organs. His gaze settled on the battered face and swollen eyes. The man seemed vaguely familiar.
    Bryce froze.
    He hadn’t seen Tim in eight years—not since the summer before he had left for college in New York. How had he not known Tim had come to New Orleans? No—it can’t be him. There’s just no way.
    As the surgeon barked orders in a clear, strong voice, Bryce reached for a pair of surgical tongs and dropped them clumsily onto the floor.
    “Nurse, what the hell are you doing?” The surgeon didn’t even bother to look up.
    “Sorry,” Bryce said, reaching for another, then turning to place it in the surgeon’s outstretched hand.
    Bryce’s breath quivered, and tremors travelled from his lungs straight outward to his fingers as he watched the heart monitor, ticking placidly behind the stretcher. He turned to the nurse standing next to him. “What’s the name on this guy’s chart?” he whispered. Not that there would be a chart yet. The surgery had come up from the ER after all.
    The nurse eyed him and said, “He was barely conscious when he stumbled into the ER.” She paused and glanced up at the surgeon’s back. “But his wallet was in his hand, and we got his ID out. No insurance. Tim. The staff at the desk are trying to reach his family.”
    Tim. That was too much of a coincidence. The man on the stretcher in front of him, despite the bluish-yellow lump on his forehead, was the spitting image of his old college friend and had the same name.
    It has to be him. But why the hell didn’t he tell me he was in New Orleans?
    Bryce clutched the edge of the cart next to him to steady himself. What was going on?
    And why did this have to happen now?
    Tim groaned just as the surgeon pulled the last piece of green-tinged, beer bottle glass from his abdomen. His eyes fluttered open, and in the sea of light blue scrubs and colourful nurse’s caps, Tim rested his eyes on Bryce almost immediately. He smiled weakly. “What’s up, buddy?”

    * * * *

    Bryce cursed under his breath and kicked the skeleton of his bike off the crumbling sidewalk and into a shallow pool of mud. He’d ridden too quickly over a wide, deep divide in the sidewalk and