Challenge (Harris Brothers Book 1)

“OH MY GOD, I’M knackered,” I say as I stroll into the on-call room and flop myself onto one of the sterile blue hospital cots, which have zero give. The hard plastic smarts against my vertebrae at the force.

My fellow resident and friend, Belle, glances up at me from her own cot. Her dark eyes are partially closed and tired, similar to my own at this time of day. “Your timing is perfect,” she says, her voice perking up. “I just looked at the schedule. You’re on a nine-day stretch with me. We must discuss.”

I turn and prop my head on my hand and nod at the prospect of hitting the workweek finish line with my friend. “I saw that this morning, too. We’ve got three days down already, so I’m telling you right now that on day nine, we’re hitting Club Taint.”

“Hell yes,” she agrees with a lascivious smirk. When she sits up, her long, inky hair falls perfectly over her shoulders. I stare at it wistfully as she adds, “Club Taint is always a wild time. I’m so excited that we’re on the same rotation. Last time I missed you going out and I refuse to miss it again. Little Miss Innocent raging through the clubs of London is as good as Boxing Day in my book.” She exhales heavily. “You’re staring at my hair again, Indie.”

My eyes snap to hers. “Sorry.” Feeling a flush of heat in my cheeks, I drag myself up and stride over to the wall of lockers, knowing my fair skin does a crap job of concealing my emotions. It’s not that I’m into girls. I’m just into that silky, straight, shiny—

“Your obsession with my hair is bordering on creepy, darling.” Her tone is light, but her humour is dry as usual.

I crack open my locker and stare at myself in the mirror. “You have no idea how lucky you are,” I sigh, silently surrendering to my fate. My messy wad of curly, red hair is in its standard messy bun on top of my head. Coming in on the ninth straight hour at work, it has grown from the size of a kumquat to the size of a melon. I attempt to smash in some of the expanse, but it’s futile.

I push my cheetah-print glasses back up my nose and force a confident nod of acceptance over my appearance. These glasses are living proof of just how far I’ve come out of my shell since childhood—how much I’ve changed.

It sounds odd for a silly pair of glasses to carry so much meaning, but my upbringing was unique to say the least. I grew up in all-girls boarding schools. If that wasn’t bad enough, in year three, a teacher caught me reading The Catcher In The Rye and made me take some fifth grade level practise tests. Next thing I knew, they advanced me three whole grades. I was thrust into a classroom of girls all wearing training bras and talking about boys.

It was like being handed a big, juicy steak without any teeth to chew. No matter how much you try to gum it, you can’t seem to break it down. I wasn’t able to make friends with a single girl. Instead, I lived the majority of my formative years keeping to myself and hiding behind books. I immersed myself in schoolwork because it was easier than making friends. In the end, it paid off because I received a full-ride scholarship to University and, eventually, med school.

And that is where I met the wildly bold, Belle Ryan.

Belle waltzed right up to me before our first day of class and already knew who I was, even down to where my grandmother lived in Brighton. She worked in the scholarship department on campus and had data-entered my information into the system. Med school at nineteen isn’t the norm, so she set out to ensure that I wasn’t a terrorist. Eventually she made some crack about a child prodigy being pretty and smart and how it’s horribly unfair to the rest of the world.

In my one act of brazenness, I replied, “Well, sit tight. It’s raining outside so my curls should hit Einstein heights by the end of the day.”

I’ve always been leery of girls since some bad experiences in school, but something about Belle felt too transparent not to love. The cheeky cow stared at my hair during the entire lecture. We’ve been best friends ever since.

I smile at the memory as I spray myself with Evian facial spray, slather on a fresh layer of deodorant, and position myself to brush my teeth in the nearby sink. Belle calls these whore baths for doctors, but she takes it a step further and uses baby wipes in her nether regions—something that makes me feel horribly awkward.

I glance at the time and see I only have three more hours to go until I get my glorious board-required six hours of respite, even if I do plan to sleep on these horridly uncomfortable cots again.

“So talk to me about how wild you got last time. Stanley hasn’t stopped leering at you since then.” Belle stands up from her bed and straightens her blue scrubs, pausing as she notes a smattering of blood on her pant leg. “Damn, I didn’t see that before.”

“I wouldn’t say I got completely wild last time.” I bite my lip nervously, recalling my night with Stanley in more detail.

He’s a fellow second year resident whom I know I snogged senseless on the dance floor at Club Taint last week. But that was it, right?

Then, as if my denial floodgates have instantly opened wide, I recall rubbing myself against him. I internally flinch when I remember that I even touched him through his jeans before ditching him like a thief in the night. Drunk, alone, and hard as a blue quartz stone.

“Gosh, I wasn’t trying to be a tease.” I blanch, feeling mortified because I haven’t thought about that night with him until right this moment. “He just caught me in a weak moment. Wilding out is survival.”

“I know, I know. Tequila Sunrise,” Belle adds, voicing our own personal mantra.

Tequila Sunrise is essentially our more original version of YOLO. Actually saying YOLO makes my skin crawl. That’s what immature tweens shout when they decide to purchase a full calorie soda instead of diet. Tequila Sunrise is so much more.

Our first day in Accident and Emergency—or Patch Alley as the hospital staff all call it—Belle and I were both pummeled with a crippling dose of reality when a baby was rushed in on a stretcher and pronounced dead only moments later from SIDS. The mother’s screams shook us so much that Belle ended up sick in the bathroom while I stood there, frozen and shell-shocked.

The Paediatrics doctor on call that night yanked us both into her office, pulled out a sticky pad of paper, and scribbled some ingredients down on it.

Tequila Sunrise:

1 part Grenadine

3 parts Tequila

6 parts Orange Juice

Do not mix.

She told us to go home and make them when our shifts ended, and to remember that there is still sunshine above the chaos. Belle and I did exactly what she said and ended up completely wasted. We both realised in that moment that med school prepared us for the answers, but it did not prepare us for the heartache. So, rather than wallow in the sadness, we adopted the Tequila Sunrise philosophy as a part of our everyday lives.

Therefore, as a single, somewhat naïve twenty-four-year-old determined to live my life to the fullest, I thought that meant letting down my hair at clubs, drinking in excess, dancing ‘til I sweat, and traveling when I can manage the time. The occasional flirting and making out is all a part of that game plan, too. It’s not about being loose and easy. It’s about living the one life you’re given and having fun while you can. Then getting right back in the trenches when your shift arrives and doing your best to lessen the sadness in the world. Add some sunshine.

But what I did with Stanley wasn’t the perfect Tequila Sunrise decision. “I’m afraid Stanley was just…there,” I add regretfully. “I’d just finished a nine-day workweek, and I don’t think it’s unheard of for me to want to remind myself that I’m still alive and my girlie parts are all in full working order. I have you to thank for my wild side, you know,” I accuse.

Belle pulls on a pair of fresh scrub pants over her black thong. “Too right,” she admits proudly. “I’ll take the blame because we had a blast in med school and not many people can say that. But poor, poor Stanley.”

“Oh, don’t feel so sorry for him,” I baulk. “I hate that any time you kiss a man he just assumes it’s going to end in sex. I mean, seriously. What’s the rush? Foreplay is bloody exciting enough.”

She shakes her head and giggles. “No. No, it is not, Indie. I’m telling you for the hundredth time, I know you went to all-girls schools and probably had to learn how to kiss on the back of your hand, but you are seriously missing out.”

I roll my eyes and grumble, “I didn’t learn how to kiss on the back of my hand.” If I’m being honest, I didn’t have my first kiss until University and it was horribly awkward. I think my teeth scraped his tongue on its way in because I didn’t even know it was coming. Shouldn’t there be some sort of universal signal for tongue insertion on a kiss? A little shoulder tap? Maybe a couple cheek clicks? Something that says, “Hey, lady! I’m about to ramrod your mouth with my tongue. Open sesame!” The guy probably thought I was mentally unstable because he never spoke to me again.

“Look,” Belle says, striding over by me to lean against the nearby locker. “We know that you are book-smart, Indie. You’re sharper than the majority of the third year residents here and probably some of the attendings. You are my little prodigy wunderkid after all.”

“Oh, shut it,” I snap, blocking her hand from pinching my cheek like a proud mum.

Her eyes glitter with determination. “But you have to stop saving yourself for Mr. Perfect. He’s not going to come. He most likely doesn’t even exist. Just give it up to someone like Stanley so you can stop obsessing over it so much. The Penis List we made is a solid plan, but not at the expense of spontaneity.”

My eyes widen at her blatant dismissal of the sacred list we spent drunken hours coming up with in order to give me the boost I needed to lose my virginity. I even made a Pinterest board for it and added her as an admin.

First Tequila Sunrise judging and now this.

Okay, so I’m a twenty-four-year-old virgin who’s slightly obsessed with how she’s going to lose her well overdue virginity status. As I said before, though, part of the reason I’m still holding on to my V-Card is Belle. It’s not her fault, per se, but when I met her, I was so focused on having fun with my first real friend that my virginity wasn’t a top priority. Hell, I’d never even been to a party before Belle dragged me to one.

Then, by the end of our three years in med school, I realised that I’d focused entirely on maintaining my scholarship and barely looked at boys. Sure, I’d had plenty of interactions with blokes. I learned how to accept and give a good French kiss, plus some basic foreplay stuff. But none of them felt right enough to go all the way with. I wasn’t ready. Med school had me over-flowing with firsts and the idea of getting intimate was overwhelming.

Enter the Penis List.

It was Belle’s idea. She thought that if I had a game plan and a clear type to look for, it would help me look at sex as an equation and not a conquest. It started out as a half-cracked idea, but I could see the strategy behind it, even when I was sober.

The list goes as follows:

The Penis List

Penis #1: The virginity snatcher.

Should be a bad boy. A player. A little sleazy. Should be hot—the hottest guy I’d ever see in real life. Cocky, confident, and even arrogant. Should administer the best sex of my life. Should be well penially hung.

Penis #2: The sweetie.

Should be kind, sensitive, nurturing, and tender. The ultimate nice guy. Should dress nicely. Should tuck his shirt in. Might cry when he comes. Should put your needs before his. Above all: A penial giver.

Penis #3: The ultimate cocktail.

The perfect blend of number one and number two. Should be both a giver and a taker. Both a DOM and a SUB. Both a lover and a fighter. A blissful penial balance. Husband material.

“Look, Belle, you were there when we made the Penis List.” I cup my hand and whisper the last bit, my eyes sweeping the room to double-check that we’re still alone. “I’m not saving myself for Mr. Perfect. I’m saving myself for Penis Number One.”

“We made that list two years ago, Indie. When are you going to find Penis Number One already?” she asks, her tone approaching shrill. “He shouldn’t be the Holy Grail of cocks for God’s sake. I love you, but you are in serious need of a push right now. Don’t make me mama bird you out of the nest. ‘Cause I’ll do it. I’ll shove you right out and make you fly.”

I exhale heavily and drop my head back against my locker, turning my gaze up to the ceiling and begging the heavens for some act of God so I could get on with it already.

“Is it too much to ask for the universe to drop a bad boy player on my lap? I don’t want to settle for a Stanley. Stanley is a number two. I don’t want to lose it to a number two. I want my first to be the most epic shag ever. A night that I will never forget. A night that makes me hoarse from screaming that I love life for giving me the experience. The kind of shag I’ll be able to tell my grandkiddies about someday.”

“You know you’re speaking out loud, right?” Belle’s nose wrinkles as she asks, “Why exactly are you telling your grandchildren about how you lost your virginity?”

I roll my eyes. “It’s just an expression. Although, I envisage myself as being that really cool, hip nan who shares all my wild party days with my own little faction of whippersnappers.”

Giggling, she says, “Okay, couple of things wrong with what you just said. Faction? We’re not post-apocalyptic, so stop being so dramatic.”

I adjust my glasses and shoot her a glare, but it doesn’t slow her down. “Also, nobody uses envisage in general conversation. Your prodigy-ness is showing.”

“Ha, ha,” I grumble.

“Okay, back on topic.” Belle walks back over to her bed and slips her feet into her trainers. Her eyes are slanted deep in thought. “I think we can fix this virginity thing. What if you try just the tip?”

“The tip of what?” I ask, distracted by my own internal thoughts about finding the right kind of player to do this with.

“The tip of Stanley’s cock.” Her face is deathly serious. Her eyes pierce me with encouragement.

“You are such a bloke sometimes,” I groan, disgusted. “That sounds exactly like what a man would say if he were trying to get in a woman’s knickers.”

“Indie,” a proud smile spreads across her face. “A tip can be quite nice if wielded properly. You just have to have him stroke—”

“Enough!” I cover my ears. I’m over virginity talk with Belle. I am maxed out on Belle’s advice on how to get this done.

She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I may still be a virgin, but I’m not immature anymore. My time hasn’t come and gone. I refuse to turn into a thirty-year-old virgin unicorn. That’s certainly not the type of majestic creature I want to be, even if it does entitle me to a forehead horn.

A tip from Stanley won’t be the way I lose this ridiculous cross I bear. I refuse. I’m not the under-developed, late bloomer I was in school. I will find the perfect Penis Number One. And I will do whatever it takes to complete this task.

Suddenly, my pager blasts from my scrub pocket. I glance down. “Yikes. It’s Prichard. 999. Gotta go.”

Without looking back, I turn and run out of the on-call room, bursting through the doors and skirting past a crowd of interns in the middle of rounds. Dr. Prichard is the attending ortho surgeon whom I’ve been working with for the past few months. His encouragement is the real reason I’ve developed such a focus on orthopaedics. If he pages 999, it means something big is happening.

My heart pounds as I fly into Patch Alley. Sirens blare through the automatic doors, and my face heats from the rush. This is why I love medicine. The exhilaration. The demand to think on your feet so you can save a life in the blink of an eye. The mature, capable confidence required to be a doctor.

My eyes squint at the flashing cameras outside the hospital doors, brightly popping off through the dark, pouring rain. I refocus to the foreground and see a pair of muddy boots hanging off the end of an evidently too-short stretcher. My gaze drifts up the muscular, socked legs beneath mud-soaked shin pads. Before I can clap my curious eyes on the patient, a pack of sweaty, shouting, and properly pushy men in kits comes ramrodding in behind him.

Rather than God answering my virginal prayer with a player, the devil answered it with four.