Page 104 of With Spite

I winked at her as I came up behind Bernice and wrapped my arms around her torso, pulling her back into my front.

“Hey, beautiful,” I said as I pressed kisses down the length of her neck, stopping when I reached her ear and she started to giggle.

She brought her hand up and cupped my face, turning it so that she could take my mouth with her own.

“Y’all are so gross,” Katana grumbled as she rang up the rest of our order while I was busy kissing Bernice.

Bernice broke off the kiss and looked sheepishly at Katana. “Oh, really? We’re gross? What about what I saw you doing with Shaw just an hour ago in my office?”

Katana’s face went red. “That’s definitely against patient confidentiality. That’s a HIPAA violation, isn’t it?”

“I wasn’t your doctor. I also wasn’t seeing you in an official capacity. Nor have I shared any of your medical information.” Bernice rolled her eyes. “Plus, you were outside the office when I saw you both.”

Katana scrunched up her nose. “I know.”

“What’s this?” I asked, leveling my cousin with a look. “Is it official then?”

Katana shrugged. “He wants it to be.”

I could sense her need to change the subject, though, based solely on how red her cheeks were.

Instead, I turned to Bernice and said, “How’s your day been?”

Bernice ran with the subject change as she leaned in close and said, “What did you think of the new nurse?”

I heard because I was also standing so close.

But I could tell that Bernice had some serious reservations about this new nurse that they’d hired.

At first, they thought that it was the other man, Randel, who would be the problem.

But in the week or so that Chan had been working with Odin, Sage, and Bernice, he’d become a different person.

At first, they were happy to have whatever help that they could.

But then Chan started to question literally everything.

The charting. Their choices in products. The drugs they kept on hand.

And those were just the tame questions.

Chan had also started questioning Odin’s skills as a doctor, Sage’s nursing practices, and more.

But it’d been Chan’s treatment of Bernice that had everyone pausing.

Bernice couldn’t do anything right.

Chan questioned her in front of patients. Chan refused to be assigned to Bernice as her RN for the day. He refused to even be in the same room as her sometimes.

It was a complete one-eighty from what he’d acted like when they’d hired him.

Honestly, if it wasn’t for Odin already questioning Chan and his employment status, I might’ve forced Odin’s hand.

As it was, they were ready to fire him. Needing help or not, Chan wasn’t enough of a help to warrant having to deal with his shit.

“You mean when I came in to get a routine test today, and he said I was stupid for getting pregnant while also having a cancer diagnosis?” my cousin asked.

I stiffened.