The Hookup Plan, page 9
“To answer your previous question, this is how this is going to work.” She crossed her legs, propped her elbow on her knee, and settled her chin on her fist. “First, nothing, and I mean absolutely, positively nothing happens at the hospital. We don’t even exchange smiles there, got that?”
“Why must you make everything so difficult?”
“Got that?” London asked again.
“I got it. Only frowns and sneers while at the hospital.”
She responded with a firm nod. “Second, this is just sex. I don’t want to get to know you any better. I don’t need to hear about your hopes and dreams for the future. The only thing I’m interested in is racking up as many orgasms as I can before you leave town. Wham bam, thank you, Drew.”
“Have you ever considered writing greeting cards as a side gig? It’s a shame to let all that sentimentality go to waste.”
London rolled her eyes. “I would add ‘no speaking’ to the list, but you would never go for that.”
Before she knew what he was doing, Drew threw off the sheet and swung his legs off the side of the bed. He stood and started for her, his naked body looking like a vision from some ambitious director’s idea of upmarket porn.
She quickly stood, not wanting to be at a disadvantage.
Drew stopped just inches away. His deep brown chest, covered with a light dusting of hair, was close enough for her to feel the heat radiating from it.
“These are the terms that you will agree to,” Drew said. “We meet at my place whenever you’re feeling stressed and need to work off some steam on my much more comfortable bed. However, at least once a week, we meet up for dinner or even just coffee. Outside of the hospital, of course. I agree about keeping the personal and professional separate.”
“I’m not dating you, Drew.”
“I’m not dating you either. That’s not what I’m suggesting.”
“Going out for dinner? What is that if not a date?”
He shrugged. “Two people don’t have to date in order to go to dinner. Think of it as hanging out with a former classmate and friend.”
“I’m not your friend.”
“And I won’t be some faceless dick you screw and forget about. Despite what you may have thought about me all this time, I actually do have some standards, and one of them is not being used.” His brow hitched. “So? What’s it going to be?”
London stared him down, refusing to so much as blink as she considered his terms. The tension between them pulsed like a heartbeat, the steady thump escalating with each second that passed.
She blinked first.
“Fine, you son of a bitch.” She latched on to his shoulders and pulled him to her. Drew caught her by the waist and lifted her up, setting her on the desk.
“For the record, I still don’t like you,” London said.
“But you don’t have to like me to fuck me.” He threw her words from Saturday night back at her.
“You got that right,” she said, wrapping her arms around his head and linking her wrists at the base of his neck. She tilted her head to the side, giving him better access to the spot underneath her jaw where his tongue was currently engaged in all kinds of delicious pursuits.
London squeezed her thighs tight against his hips. This insatiable need she had for him was, without a doubt, the most surprising and frustrating thing to come out of that stupid class reunion. But she could not deny how greedy she was for the pleasure he unleashed on her.
He reached over for his suit jacket and pulled an unopened three pack of condoms from the inside pocket, identical to the one on the nightstand that was down two condoms.
“You brought backup?” London asked.
“I didn’t reach this level of success in life by being unprepared, Dr. Kelley.”
“You’re such a cocky bastard,” she grumbled as she unhooked her bra. She nodded at the foil packet. “Get that thing on.”
He opened one of the condoms and quickly rolled the latex over his erection, then hooked his thumbs onto the waistband of her panties and tugged them off.
London hoisted herself slightly off the desk and thrust her hips toward him, pleasure seizing her limbs as he entered her. He was the perfect fucking girth. Because why wouldn’t her sworn enemy be the perfect fucking girth!
She tried to block out the fact that this was Drew, but something unexplainable denied her that ability. He was too…there. With every drive of his hips, every pull of his mouth on her nipples, he forced her to recognize that he was the source of all the blissful sensations overwhelming her.
He lifted her from the desk and carried her back to the bed, following her down to the mattress. London thrust her hips upward, meeting him as he plunged deep. He hooked his arm under her right knee and lifted it high, forcing her legs to spread farther apart as he drove himself into her over and over again.
She spiraled, the intense pleasure shooting through her limbs, making them seize with anticipation of the mind-blowing orgasm she’d already come to expect from him. It took only a few more pumps of his hips before she erupted with the most breathtakingly exquisite sensations she’d experienced since…since…
Since the last time Drew Sullivan had unleashed his magic dick on her.
He buried his face against her neck as he continued to pummel her with thrust after thrust, until his body went stiff and then shuddered violently against her. He shook with the force of his own orgasm.
“Fuck,” Drew whispered against her skin.
“I concur,” London said.
He let go of her leg and she wrapped both around him, keeping his weight pressed against her.
Over these past few months London had felt as if she’d made one remarkably bad choice after another. From accepting that first date with Craig Johnson to the numerous run-ins she’d had with Dr. Coleman. But there was one thing she was sure about: Concocting a hookup plan with Drew Sullivan was one of her smartest moves in ages.
10
At the sound of the doorbell, Drew pushed away from the small conference table and went out to answer his apartment door. He accepted the tray of breakfast sandwiches from the delivery guy and handed him a twenty.
“Um, you already tipped me in the app,” the guy said.
“Oh.” Drew tried to think up an excuse to avoid having to admit that he had no idea how the food delivery app worked. His assistant, Larissa, always did the ordering. “Yeah, I know. This is just an extra bonus for bringing these up here instead of making me come down to the lobby.”
Drew closed the door with his foot and retreated into the apartment. He and his team had a long day ahead of them. Not only did they need to discuss their first week of observations at Travis County Hospital, but they’d already been thrown a major curveball: A decrease in area population meant the hospital wouldn’t be receiving as much funding from the state this year. So now they had to brainstorm an initial set of cuts that could be made.
“I ordered some brain fuel,” he said as he returned to the collaboration room.
Five heads popped up from where his team stood huddled over the laptop of project manager Samantha Gomez. Their pensive expressions immediately got Drew’s guard up.
“Does someone want to tell me what’s going on, or is this something I should see for myself?” he asked.
Wordlessly, Samantha spun the laptop to face him and pushed it toward the center of the table.
Drew set down the tray and reached for his reading glasses that he was just vain enough to despise. Even with the glasses, he had to lean in close to the screen to read it.
When he did, his blood ran cold.
Bryce Dowell Named Partner
at the Meacham Group.
Drew fought to keep his face expressionless, but he knew his colleagues would see right through any attempt to hide his feelings. All but one of them had followed him from Meacham when he and his partners, B. J. Clark and Melissa Edwards, left to form Trident.
Drew closed the laptop and pushed it back toward Samantha. “Fuck Bryce and the rest of them,” he said.
“Fucking right,” Josh Hall said with a fist pump.
Trident’s director of planning and business development had been at the Meacham Group for three years already before Drew joined the hedge fund, and had remained in the same position the entire time. Like Drew, Josh knew what it was like to be screwed over by the boys in the corner offices.
“What’s going on back at that other firm in New York isn’t our concern,” Drew said. “Remember what Trident is about. Our work has a purpose. And one hundred percent of our focus must remain on Travis County Hospital.” He slapped the table. “Get some food in you, then we meet back here in fifteen to hash out what we’ve learned about the hospital operations so far.”
As the rest of the team fanned out, Drew reclaimed the chair at the head of the table and pulled up Google on his phone. He typed “Bryce Dowell” and “the Meacham Group” into the search bar. The article Samantha had been reading was the second hit, right behind the one about Bryce single-handedly reinventing one of the nation’s largest fast-food chains that had been on the brink of bankruptcy.
The same account Drew had brought to Meacham and done most of the work on.
Just the sight of the top search result irritated him. He clicked on the second article and scanned the story. It was the typical rundown of Bryce’s educational background, his years at Meacham, and, of course, his being lauded as a rising star because of the account he’d stolen from Drew.
What pissed him off more than anything was that Meacham’s chief investment officer knew that Drew was the one who put in the work to lure that client to Meacham, and he’d said nothing. It hadn’t just pissed him off, it had hurt. He’d given so much of himself to the firm, and everyone just shrugged it off.
Bryce came from old money. His father and grandfather had both been prominent bankers, and the prestige a Dowell brought to the hedge fund was worth more to them than the years of hustling and the billions—fucking billions—of dollars Drew had brought in.
He should have left Meacham long before he did. Sure, he’d walked out of those glass doors with nearly a hundred million dollars in investments and cash, but he’d also left with a mountain of regret. Because he’d given Meacham something worth far more than the money he’d earned with them: his time. Time that should’ve been spent with his mother.
Precious time he would never get back.
Drew sucked in a deep breath and pushed away from the table. He went into the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator, and swallowed down half of it.
He refused to give energy to these dark thoughts—not with the important work facing him right now. To a certain extent, his mother was the reason he was here now, helping hospitals like County. If he’d known about her cancer in time, he could have brought in the best doctors in the world to treat her, but a person’s bank balance shouldn’t determine whether they lived or died.
And there came a time when a person needed to be known for more than just their ability to acquire wealth. He didn’t want that to be his sole legacy.
Drew could never make up for those priceless moments he’d lost with his mom, but he would do what he could to ensure others had more time with their loved ones, regardless of their ability to pay.
To accomplish that at County, he had to get the people working there to buy into the changes that would have to be made. That’s why he needed London to get on board. She had more clout with the staff than doctors who had been there for decades.
Drew finished his water on his way back to the makeshift conference room. As the team reassembled around the table, he unbuttoned his shirt at the wrists and rolled up his cuffs.
“I don’t have to reiterate the significance of the job that’s been put before us. I’m sure you all saw it at various times this week. Travis County Hospital serves a special purpose for many in this area. It’s vital that this community has a reliable source for their health care.
“Understand that there will be major pushback if privatization is even whispered about, but don’t allow those voices to knock you off track. Our goal is to find the best answer to this hospital’s financial and management issues.” Drew paused for a moment. He knew his next words would leave a foul taste in his mouth, but they needed to be said. “If our data findings suggest that County should no longer be publicly run, then that’s what we recommend. But we can’t get ahead of ourselves. We need to keep our biases out of this and go into this assessment with eyes wide open,” he added as much for himself as for the team.
He flipped over several of the pages he’d printed earlier. “I’ve already noticed a lot of fat that can be trimmed. Starting with discarding medical supplies. I questioned a nurse about why she was throwing out several boxes of sutures, and was told that they restock every six months, regardless of the expiration date on the items. But when I searched the policy and procedures manual, I saw nothing stating there should be a six-month overhaul of the surgical supplies.
“After investigating a bit further, I discovered the practice has been passed down by word of mouth over the years. No one knows when it started—it’s just part of the culture. Those sutures cost over four hundred dollars a box, and I personally saw her throw out at least seven of them. When you’re running at an eight-figure deficit, that doesn’t seem like a lot, but it adds up.”
“It’s so wasteful,” Samantha said. “Who did you say was doing this?”
“It doesn’t matter who,” Drew pointed out. “We’re not here to blame any one person in particular. We’re focused on the system that created the mindset that it’s okay to toss out thousands of dollars of medical supplies simply because someone said to do it years ago.”
Heads nodded around the table, and for the next two hours, the team methodically went through a list of obvious evidence of wastefulness. As they tallied up the expenditures, Drew’s earlier anger over news about Bryce Dowell’s partnership faded.
Not being made partner at the Meacham Group had made leaving that much easier. And he had no desire to go back.
What he was doing now saved lives. He and his team brought struggling health-care facilities back from the brink. If the small, rural hospital in his mother’s hometown had hired a company like Trident to help it run more efficiently, maybe it would have been able to afford more advanced technology that could have caught her cancer earlier. Maybe she would still be here.
He had not been able to save his own mother, but the work he was doing now could possibly save someone else’s. That would always mean more to him than a partnership.
11
Pressing together the Velcro seams of the new SpongeBob stethoscope sleeve she’d just received from her favorite Etsy shop, London made her way to the Under the Sea room. Jason Milner wasn’t on her patient list today, but the ten-year-old was being discharged, and London couldn’t let him leave without saying goodbye.
The gut-wrenching thing was that she would probably see him again in a few months. He had been born with a congenital heart defect that required multiple surgeries.
She tapped her knuckles on the door twice before entering.
“Hello there,” London greeted Jason and his parents. “I heard someone is going home today.”
When he saw her, Jason’s smile grew as bright as the Austin skyline. London was continually amazed by his ability to maintain such a positive outlook after everything he’d been through in his short life.
Just as she made it to the ten-year-old’s bedside, there was another knock on the door and Kia Jackson walked in.
“Dr. Kelley? Can I see you outside?”
“Sure, one minute,” London said. She turned to Jason and gave him a hug. “Sorry I can’t stay longer, buddy. Now, I don’t want to see you here for a while, you hear me?”
He nodded.
“Dr. Kelley.” The underlying hint of distress in Kia’s voice immediately set London on edge.
She gave Jason’s shoulder a squeeze before leaving the room. “What’s going on?” she asked the minute she and the nurse were in the hallway.
“You’re needed in the ER.”
“I’m not on call.”
“It’s your father,” Kia said. “He was brought in an hour ago.”
“Shit.” London took off down the corridor. She bypassed the elevators, opting instead for the stairs. She released a string of curse words as she made her way down the two flights, the fear in her stomach knotting tighter with each step she took.
Her father had been in her hospital for an hour already, and she was just finding out?
She spotted Xander Caldwell the moment she exited the stairwell. Doug Renault had recruited the senior resident the same year he’d brought London to County.
“Xander.” London caught him on the arm. “You have a patient that was brought in an hour ago. Black male. Late fifties. Bald with a goatee. Very fit.”
“Yes. Mr. Kelley.” His eyes widened. “Is he—”
She nodded. “My dad.”
“Wow. I didn’t put two and two together.” He pointed to his face. “You have his eyes.”
“I know,” London said. “How is he? Where is he?”
“First, don’t get too alarmed,” he said. “It was just a TIA.”
“Thank goodness,” London said, her shoulders wilting in relief. No one campaigned for a transient ischemic attack, but if you were going to have a stroke, that’s the kind you wanted.
“He’s in Exam 3,” Xander said.
London thanked him before crossing over to the exam room. She found Kenneth Kelley sitting upright on the exam table, dressed in khakis and a polo shirt. He held his phone out about eight inches from his face and was laughing at whoever was on the other end of the video call.
“I had a stroke and two bogeys, and still whipped your tail today,” he said.
Golf? The man was talking about fucking golf?
Why was she surprised?
