Page 37 of Game Misconduct

Rolling my lips inward, I try to figure out what to say. “I’m bored.”

Her perfectly sculpted eyebrow darts into her hairline. “Bored?”

“None of the guys have had any issues lately. I can only re-review the same findings so many times before I go nuts. I’m not working on any other patients, and I don’t want any of them to get injured, but I’m starting to wonder what I’m doing. Am I really wasting my time like my parents think I am?”

“Your parents are fucking assholes,” she snaps.

I sip my drink. “Mm-hmm.” No arguments there.

“It sucks that you don’t have a lot going on. Maybe talk to team management about taking on outside projects? I can’t imagine they’d be too happy if it takes time away from your actual job, but maybe…”

“I have to be on call. Annaliese can’t travel with the team, and if something were to happen on the road, I need to be there.” With a heavy sigh, I slump on my barstool. “When someone is injured, I’m busy. So busy I wouldn’t be able to manage anything else. But when everyone is healthy, and I’m hoping they all stay healthy, it’s hard to find the motivation to keep going.”

“Doc Hudson works at a clinic outside of the team,” she points out. “It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for you to consult with a neurologist as a specialist. You could take patients on the days you’re off, once or twice a week.”

“I’m not a medical doctor, though.”

She pins me with a flat look. “If you tell me you aren’t qualified to talk about neuroscience with two master’s degrees and a fucking doctorate, I’m going to whoop your ass.”

“Okay, okay.” I lift my hands into the air. “No ass whooping, please.”

“What are your colleagues doing?”

My face screws up. “I don’t want to go into Big Pharma.”

“Academia? Maybe you could take on one or two classes as an adjunct?”

I shake my head. Already thought of that. “Not with the team’s schedule. I’d miss too many classes with road trips.”

“Do you want a start-up? I’d fund it,” she says off the bat.

My half-panicked chuckle bubbles up from within me, bursting from my lips. “I’m not going to take your money.”

She opens her mouth, but I jump back in before she can say anything.

“Besides, I don’t know what I’d work on that the team can’t already provide. I have an idea for a helmet prototype, but I’m still a few years away from designing it, much less developing it. I want to do a few more studies.”

“Fair.” Ceci sighs, setting her chin in her hand. “Clinical work? Public policy?”

“Mildly interesting.”

“Okay, let’s circle back to this later.” She sips her drink. “Why are you lashing out? What specifically triggered this episode?”

Nick.

He’s always there. Always around. Since running into him in the parking garage last week, it’s like I can’t escape him. If he’s not physically in the room, I’m still thinking about him.

“Bad memories coming to the forefront,” I finally say. “I never dealt with them, and now I can’t avoid them.”

The bar grows louder as pop-punk music pulses around us, punctuated by my friend’s silence.

Finally, Ceci offers her opinion. “You know how to do the healthy thing. You’ve done the work, you have the skills.”

“But?” I prod.

“But if that’s not working, maybe it’s time to try something new.”

“Like what?”