Russian Roulette

The next couple months flew by. Me and Geno were taking things slow and I was the happiest I felt in months. I was crawling into his bed after a long shift and he was on his laptop.

“When you come live?” he asks.

“We’re supposed to be taking it slow remember?”

“Da but you always here.” He was right. I was practically living there already but it technically wasn’t official.

“One day,” I say yawning. I close my eyes and drift off to the sound of Geno typing.


“Geno I swear if you let go,” I threaten. We were at the Penguins annual family skate and Geno had somehow convinced me to go.

“Relax, I not let go,” he says smiling. He gently holds my hands while I ungracefully attempt to skate.

“Look at you go Doc,” Beau says clapping. I concentrate on moving my feet and I think I’m getting the hang of it.

“You great. You try now,” Geno says encouragingly. I let go of his hands and inch by inch I slowly skate forward.

“Это моя девочка! (That’s my girl!),” he says excitedly. I smile and take longer strides. I didn’t know how to stop so I lightly bumped into Sid.

“Hey Doc catch!” I hear James say. I look and see a hockey stick heading my way and I panic and fall backwards, the stick falling onto the ice beside me.

“Thanks for that James,” I say rolling my eyes.

“Shit sorry,” he says guiltily. Geno helps me up to my feet and I brush the snow off my behind. I look at Audrina and she’s giggling. We spend the rest of the afternoon skating and by the end of the day I was able to start and stop on my own.

The next day at work I get paged to the E.R. and Dr. Cohen gives me the patient file and scans. I swallow when I read that the patient has a torn ACL. I open the curtain and there’s a handsome young man holding his knee.

“Hi Danny, I’m Dr. Eriksson. It looks like you’ve ruptured your ACL and your MCL,” I tell him.

“Yeah I was playing soccer and got tripped,” he responds. I preform the Lachman test on him and it confirms the diagnosis.

“Well we’re going to repair it right away.” I go over the procedure in detail and he signs the consent form. I tell Dr. Cohen to page me once he’s prepped for surgery. I head to the cafeteria and find Matt and Elias at a table.

“Hey Quinn, what’s up?” Elias asks.

“I’m doing an ACL repair,” I reply.

“Oh shit. Are you nervous?” Matt asks.

“It weirds me out.”

“Are you doing the cadaver and synthetic ligament graft?” Elias asks.

“Are you kidding? I’m finally off probation. I’ll just be doing a simple hamstring graft reconstruction.”

“But Geno’s worked so well,” Elias says with his mouth full.

“Yeah and I almost lost my license doing that.” He shrugs and I quickly eat my lunch. My pager goes off and I head to the O.R. to get scrubbed in.

I’m finishing rounds when I decide to check on Danny. I get to his room and he’s watching TV.

“How are you feeling?” I ask him.

“Great,” he replies smiling.

“So what position do you play?”

“Defense. You play?”

“No, I was never good at sports,” I say honestly.

“I was never good at school,” he laughs.

“Well I should go. If something’s wrong be sure to tell the nurse and she’ll page me.”

“Sure thing Doc.” I wave goodbye and head to the locker room. I walk past Elias talking to a nurse and I shake my head. I head home and lock up. Geno was on a road trip, which meant I’d be sleeping alone. His large house seemed creepy at night but I stayed anyway. I’m sitting in bed when he facetimes me. I answer and I can tell he’s in the hotel room.

“Hey babe,” I say smiling.

“Hi. How work?” he asks.

“Interesting. How’s Canada?”

“Cold but not as cold as Russia.” I see someone walk by in the background.

“Tell Brooks I say hi.”

“Quinn say hi,” he tells his roommate. All of a sudden Brooks shows up on the screen.

“Hey Quinn how’s it going?” he says warmly.

“I’m good. How’s rooming with Geno?”

“Awful. I don’t know how you put up with his snoring,” he jokes.

“I no snore,” Geno says defensively.

“You guys better win tomorrow,” I threaten.

“Yes mam,” Brooks says smiling. He leaves and then just Geno is left.

“Where are you?” he asks.

“Your place,” I respond. All of a sudden the power goes out and I’m left in the dark.

“Why dark?”

“Zhenya did you pay the electric bill?”

“Da.” I get up and walk around the house. This all felt very creepy to me.

“Don’t hang up,” I tell him. I turn the flashlight on my phone and make my way to the basement.

“Where you going?” he asks.

“I’m trying to find the electric panel.” I feel something jump in front of me and I scream.

“Quinn what’s wrong?” Geno says panicked. I point my flashlight down and Luka is sitting in front of me.

“Our lovely cat just gave me a heart attack,” I reply. I find the panel and flip all the switches and nothing happens. “G I’m so creeped out right now.”

“I not know why lights are off.” I flip the breaker and still nothing happens. I give up and head back upstairs. Geno yawns and I know it’s later there than it is here.

“I should let you go, you look tired.”

“I not tired,” he says defensively. I crawl into bed and smile at him. His hair is a mess and he can’t stop yawning.

“Okay I’m going to bed. I love you.”

“Love you Quinn.” I end the call and lay down. The power turns back on so I get up and turn the light off. I crawl into bed and feel Luka curled up on the edge of the bed so I close my eyes and fall asleep.

Christmas and New Year’s came and went and Geno’s parent’s had visited for a couple weeks. I was sad Natalia was gone because I loved her cooking. I walk into the living room and plop down on the couch beside Geno. I take the controller from him and start playing COD.

“You good,” he says impressed. I beat his kill count and hand the controller back. Me and Geno both had an off day, which never happened so we were both just hanging out at home.

“Play against Sid,” he says handing the controller back. I start running around trying to shoot Sid’s character. All of a sudden my pager goes off and I roll my eyes. I hand the controller back to Geno and stand up.

“Sorry babe, I got to go,” I tell him. I kiss his cheek and head upstairs to get ready.
I get to the hospital and head to the E.R. where I see Elias standing there wearing a yellow gown. I put one on and we head outside to wait for the ambulance.

“What happened?” I ask him.

“Car accident, that’s all I know,” he replies. Dr. Turner and Dr. Reid come outside and waited with us. The ambulance pulls up and I open the door.

“What do we got?” I ask the paramedic.

“Car accident victim. Tachycardic and hypotensive on route. Obvious head and chest injuries,” the paramedic tells me. They wheel him down and there lying on the stretcher was Matt covered in blood.

Notes

Enjoy!