“What the hell was that?”

Jared sat alone in his office, staring at the computer screen.

He was angry, he was embarrassed. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this way, and all because of that tiny nurse.

He groaned, running a hand over his face. Maybe he had been acting like a jerk? He remembered the way that her usually calm eyes turned on him, startling him into a silence. They were blazing, and if looks could kill, he would have been dead on the spot. Instant incineration. Most of all, he was just shocked. Over the last couple years, he’d gotten used to the nurses trying to stay from him as they all seemed scared of him. Not Dahlia, not that short girl, no. She went up to him, eyes blazing, fingers nearly snapping his nose off. He hadn't realized his mistake until she'd asked "Excuse me?" in a very angry tone and shut him right up.

She didn’t care. She wasn’t afraid of him, and she’d shut him up right away.

Ping!

The Messenger sound on his phone brought him out of his reverie. He groaned again when he saw that it was his mother who was sending him a message. She had been trying to talk to him since about a week ago, but he’d been ignoring her calls letting them go to voicemail. His voicemail had gotten full quickly, he had to empty it.

He was persistent and stubborn, but his tiny mother was straight up aggressive and didn't know the words "giving up."

Jared, stop ignoring my calls and pick up the phone. I know you’ve seen the missed calls.

He really didn’t feel like speaking to her. Last time they’d spoken it was for her to be angry at him for missing her birthday dinner. She gave him all sorts of hell for forgetting he had a mother—apparently—and wouldn’t let it go for a couple weeks. That was about three months ago. The last time they had been in the same place together was for Christmas day at the family home in Washington. He’d felt so out of place and annoyed. His sister, Karinne, hadn’t been able to make it since she stated the kids were sick, and only his younger brother Caleb had made it. By ten o'clock, Jared had stated loudly that he was too drunk to be up and about and headed to his room to avoid mingling with any more of his relatives. His grandfather had been badgering him about getting a wife and the “old family business" all night and he’d grown sick of it.

What better way to get out of it than drinking yourself to oblivion?

Ping.

Jared. I’m going to call you right now and you better pick up.

Sigh.

His phone began vibrating and he groaned when the dragon emoji he used for his mother’s contact picture popped up on the screen.

“Hello mother.” Just because he knew she was going to make the rest of his day feel completely off, he used his most bored-out-of-my-freaking-mind voice, the one he and his brothers would use to piss her off when she'd make them go shopping for school clothes every day. What would end up happening was that she'd scream at them and send them off to play in somewhere else so she could finish her shopping in peace.

“Jared Dale, do you know how long I’ve been trying to talk to you?”

“A hundred thousand times?” Probably more than that but she just wouldn't get the hint.

“Don’t get snarky with me, Jay.” He could hear the annoyed huff on the other end.

“What do you need to talk to me about? I’m kind of like at work right now, so make it quick. I have a patient waiting.”

“Your grandfather says that he needs to speak to you--"

“Gah. Please don’t tell me he is still going on about me taking over the canning company?” Jared wanted to gag. He loved his grandfather, but the man had gotten a little overbearing lately. He kept trying to throw women at him as well. The angry looking 78-year old man had it set in his brain that thirty-seven was too old for a man to go without a wife and that Jared needed a wife. One, for appearance reasons. Two, for loneliness. Three, so Jared would stop being such a grouch—because apparently a daily dose of sex was good for the attitude. Four, simply because Jared needed a wife.

“I don’t know. You talk to him. He doesn’t want to see me at the moment,” his mother grumbled into the phone. His mother and his grandfather were always arguing, they always had some sort of tiff going on. He didn't quite know what it was about, but he couldn't remember a day when they were not arguing.

“I wonder why...”

“Jared…”

“Fine. I’ll call him. But not right now. I’m still at work and I don’t have time.”

“Fine. But you better call him for real. I will send him a text that you’ll call later.” Jared frowned. Of course, she would. She liked to make his life difficult. “Jared?”

“I’m still here. I’m just trying to figure out how to get out of it.” He looked up when he heard a knock on the door, and then saw Dahlia poke her head in. She blinked, seeing him on the phone and quickly went in, dropped a stack of papers in front of him, and turned and left before he could say thank you. “Look, mom. I have to go, okay? I have a patient waiting.”

“Fine, Jared. And call me back as well, too, when you are free! You don’t call me, you don’t visit. Last I heard you were out of the country for a month and nobody knew except for your sister. I haven’t seen you since Christmas and even then, you left early.”

“I’ll see.”

“No ‘I’ll see'. Just talk to me every once in a while," she started quickly. She knew that he wouldn't call her. Every time they spoke, it was because she called him, nagging him until he'd pick up the phone.

“I’m hanging up, mother.”

“JARED…”

“Bye.”

“JA-"

That was it. He hung up on his mother. It wasn’t the first time he’d done that to her, and it would not be the last. She tended to get under his skin, to say things to him that she didn’t see as a big deal but would tick him off. She was passive aggressive to him most of the time, and very aggressive to people she didn’t like. Which brings back last Christmas when only himself and Caleb had shown up for Christmas dinner at their parents’ house. 

With Karinne, he knew it could’ve been in part that her kids had gotten sick and she didn’t want to travel that way, but he was also aware that she may have exaggerated the Sick Card just to get out of being in their mother’s presence. She wasn’t very nice to Nathan, Karinne’s husband, who happened to be a high school teacher. She'd nearly had a heart attack when she had found out who Nathan was to Karinne and had threatened to make a formal complaint to the school administration and get him fired. Karinne, being the only girl in the family of three boys, and just as stubborn as her mother, threaten back that she'd elope and she'd never speak or see her ever again.

Needless to say, Karinne won that one.

Camille had wanted, had planned for her sons to become either doctors or business men and her only daughter to marry some rich old man and inherit millions. Instead, Karinne had fallen for her high school student teacher, married him as soon as she could after high school and borne him three kids and counting. Camille disliked the man but liked her grandchildren and gave them whatever they wanted. They were too young to realize that there was tension between their parents and their grandma, but Camille made sure to make it clear that she would never approve of a simple teacher being her baby daughter’s husband. Karinne didn’t care about it, her solution was to stay away from her mother and keep her children away until she finally decided to act like a decent human being.

His grandparents owned a cranberry canning and juicing company in Washington that his father had decided not to be part of by making sure that he became a doctor before his father made the decision for him. Grandfather Dale-Miller let it go because his son had actually done something for himself. Jared had seen the way they kept trying to mold him to become a businessman and instead made sure to get the best grades possible in school and move away to college as soon as he could. His grandfather hadn’t been too pleased with the fact that his oldest grandson was not interested in the family business, but he let it go. He figured that as long as he was doing something for himself, that was fine. 

Maybe, when he was older and mature, he would understand the importance of the business and change his mind. Eighteen years later and he still did not really care much for it. Being part of the “family business” would only mean that he would be stuck in one place, be stressed out half the time, and would have to see his mother more often. He preferred what he did now, being a doctor, being free to leave whenever he wanted. He liked what he did, enjoyed the science and the aspect of helping people, making a difference.

His mother simply found another thing to badger him about.

Rolling his eyes, he tossed his phone in his desk drawer, picking up the stack of papers Dahlia dropped on his desk. He saw it was medical records. He dialed her extension, waiting for her to pick-up.

“Hello?”

He noticed the huskiness of her voice and the way she sounded bored. She was probably still mad at him about earlier.

“Hey, it’s Dr. Dale.”

“I know.”

He fought the urge to roll his yes. Of course, she knew. The way she said this making it sound like he was an idiot for not realizing that she could see who it was.

“I wanted to thank you about the records you got me,” he said as he flipped through the pages. He could hear her sighing on the other end of the line. “I also wanted to, err, apologize for being rude earlier.”

There was a pause.

“You’re welcome... Okay.”

“Yeah. I just get really—”

“Angry? Exasperated?”

“I was going to say impatient, but okay.” He could almost imagine her rolling her eyes at him. This girl was something else, and apparently, she had as much of an attitude as he did. “But yes, I apologize for earlier.”

“Okay. Just.... Okay.”

“Uh, thanks again.” She hung up before he could say anything else. He stared at the phone for a moment before grabbing his stethoscope and rushing out of the room again.

…..

Dahlia frowned as she stared at her burger.

“Was that what you ordered? Or what’s wrong?”

She looked to the blonde sitting across from her in the booth, Mary Anne. They’d become friends when they’d both worked for the post-acute floor in the main hospital. They’d both moved to the main clinic, trying to find a much calmer environment.

“Dale.”

“Oh.” Mary Anne made a face. Dr. Dale was beginning to turn into a thorn on their side. He was hot cold hot cold with the staff, and honestly, she’d rather stay as far away from him as possible. He had the tendency to make her feel like an idiot. Sure, she was a natural blonde, but the color of her hair did not dictate her intelligence and she sure as hell was not an idiot. Sometimes. “What did he say when you gave him the ER records?”

“I don’t know. He was on the phone when I came to drop them off. He looked pissed already, I was pissed off, too, and honestly, if he said anything to me, I would’ve said something stupid back to him. I just dropped them in front of him and left. He called me afterwards and said thank you. He also apologized for earlier.”

“That’s a first. He never apologizes to anyone.” Mary Anne made a face. She looked thoughtful for a moment. “I heard that you told him that you were going to break his fingers if he kept snapping at you.” Immediately, the blonde looked pleased.

“How did you—who said that?” Shit. Had she really been that loud? She didn’t think she had said that aloud.

“Apparently, everyone heard you at the nursing stations.”

“Dang it. If he says anything, I’ll get in trouble for threatening a doctor! Oh god!” Dahlia groaned, covering her face with her hands. That was horrible! First job as a supervisor and she’d get fired for verbal abuse to a staff member. And not just any other staff member, but a doctor. “I’m so stupid! He just made me so mad.”

“Yeah, he has the ability to do that to people,” Mary Anne agreed, taking a bite of her burger. “Don’t feel too bad. He deserved it, he can be infuriating.”

“Gah.” Dahlia stared at her burger morosely. “I keep telling myself it’ll be okay. That’s it’s not a big deal. That maybe we’re overreacting, you know? But he just brings out the worst in me!”

“You’re not the only one, though. He seems to do that to a lot of people on that floor.” Mary Anne grinned widely at her friend. “Now, come on. Eat something, lunch is almost over.”

“I’m not really hungry. Just stressed out.”

“Well, you have to eat. Don’t let his snarkiness mess your appetite.”

“Fine.”

The women kept talking, trying to forget their work for a moment and enjoy their break. Sometimes, working in a medical environment could really stress people out.