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Chapter Text

Abbot nearly kills a patient, which is not specific at all given that there is not a week in the Gregorian calendar where Jack Abbot doesn't nearly kill a patient under the guise of saving them, but it is a bigger shit show than usual this time. Walsh storms down to the ER straight from the OR and doesn't heed the charge nurse's call to "just hold on for one sec, Dr. Walsh" as she makes a beeline towards where Abbot is tearing off a blue gown covered in blood while exiting Trauma 1.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she shouts at him despite already being close enough to trigger an HR violation by then, her fingernail pressing so hard into his chest that there will be an indentation there when he goes home. "Did you know that the patient was on warfarin when you cut her open with a scalpel?"

Their patient – his mess, now her problem to solve – nearly coded twice on the table because Abbot, in his infinite wisdom, filleted a woman on blood thinners in the ER for abdominal compartment syndrome instead of waiting four seconds for the surgery consult where the recommendations would have been to do nothing of the sort. 

He rolls his eyes at Walsh and delivers the same refrain he always does: "Did you want me to let her die down here?" 

His reasoning is particularly unsound this time because Mrs. Johnson was already bleeding out from the wound he created when they rushed her upstairs as Walsh barked orders to the blood bank over the phone for FFP and cryoprecipitate and six units of O neg while pinching the mesenteric artery between two fingers on the elevator ride up to the fifth floor.

"Christ, you really like living on the edge," the anesthesiologist on standby grumbled when they wheeled the blood bath into the OR with a BP that was barely above palp. Walsh wanted to tell him that this was not on her, that she only inherited trauma cases that the ER created, but she couldn't spare that many words to Davis while grabbing two clamps to take over for her fingers before running back out of the room to scrub.

"Did she make it?" Abbot asks Walsh now.

"Barely!"

"That sounds like a yes so what's the problem, Walsh?"

"The fucking problem is—"

"Maybe you'd like to take this conversation somewhere else," Lena hisses because now the residents have come out of Trauma 1 to watch her kill him.

Walsh catches a glimpse of a sheet over a body past the curtains and briefly considers that maybe Abbot's night has been shitty enough without them having this argument, but the other part of her – the one that's still got Mrs. Johnson's blood on the soles of her Danskos – decides that it is more educational for his trainees to realize that they can't just do whatever they want to get someone off the board because this woman might still die in the SICU in a few hours and then what will the rush to put a band-aid over a bullet wound have accomplished?

To prove that he can follow directions when they don't come from her, Abbot nods at the charge nurse and places a hand between Walsh's shoulders to nudge her down the hallway. She is compelled to snap his wrist in half when Walsh spots Gloria moving towards them at the same time he does so she speedwalks past the scrubs machine with the petty hope that having a bum leg will mean that the hospital administrator catches Abbot before he can make his great escape.

Unfortunately, the universe isn't that kind so as soon as Gloria is out of earshot, Abbot picks up their fight like they weren't interrupted by reminding her that Mrs. Johnson's intra-abdominal pressure was forty and she was going into respiratory failure.

"Then crank up her PEEP and wait for a surgeon to put in a percutaneous drain until we can reverse her anticoagulation with PCC and Vitamin K!"

Abbot insists that it had been the right thing to do because the patient was too unstable to take upstairs to the OR – which really should've told him something about how that also meant that the patient was too unstable to bring the OR to her – and her family would at least know now that they tried.

"Oh, I'm sure that will be of great comfort to them when they realize that we killed her," Walsh deadpans. "I'm so tired of cleaning up your messes!"

"She made it out of surgery because I bought you time!"

"You handed me a fucking time bomb!" 

Walsh yanks open the door to a call room that she is pretty sure no one in the ER has ever used and walks in primarily to put some distance between them before she throttles him. Never one to take a hint, Abbot follows her inside like a moron, the cramped space going dark the moment the door closes behind him. The only illumination comes from the sliver of light leaking in through the gap between the bottom of the door and the floor. They stand in the shadows glaring at each other even though neither one of them can make out more than the shape of the other person because they're both too stubborn to reach for the light switch.

Not being able to see how close to homicidal she is, however, doesn't stop Abbot from continuing his argument with, "If you're worried about getting sued, don't be. Her husband herniated two minutes before you came back downstairs. Maybe I should've cracked open his head instead."

Walsh knows that the right thing to do would be to mumble that she is sorry and there was probably nothing Abbot could have done except call time of death, but she is so mad at him for always being so convinced that it's okay to do the wrong thing for the right reasons that she snorts, "So now you're going to go upstairs and press a pillow over Mrs. Johnson's face to spare her the burden of loneliness?"

"Fuck you."

"No, fuck you, Abbot."

Even though Walsh can't see him, she can hear the shuffle of his sneakers over linoleum. The next time he speaks, his voice is much closer than it previously was. The room feels a lot warmer from his body heat when he declares against the shell of her ear, "I knew that if anyone could get her back, it would be you."

It is the nicest thing that he has ever said to her and she hates him for doing it now almost as much as she hates herself for reaching into the darkness until her fingers brush against his cotton scrub top. She has barely grasped the fabric to yank him towards her when Abbot's hands curve around her waist to close the gap between them like he wants to prove that they can be on the same page without a body count to show for their cooperation.

"That's because I'm good, not because you're helpful," she says without nearly enough bite.

She can practically feel the air shift between them a second before he kisses her, open mouthed and desperate with a hunger that feels contagious. Jack's lips are softer than she remembered them being to the point where she can almost convince herself that she is making a colossal mistake with someone else in the darkness. But when his teeth tug on her bottom lip to elicit a groan from her, Walsh feels his mouth twisting into an irritating smirk at the obvious knowledge that she wants this as much as he does so there's no tricking her brain into believing that she isn't once again making out with the most irritating man she has ever met.

She hates that she was too busy being surprised to jockey for the upper hand and then immediately decides that getting the last word is much more satisfying. Of course, this – like everything else they do – feels like a competition to see who will break first. The hand hooked against his collar pulls him closer while Walsh uses the other to trace the outline of his dick against his scrubs.

"God," he groans so Emery chuckles that she prefers to go by Your Eminence actually.

She doesn't need to be able to see him to know that Jack rolls his eyes before pulling her flush against him, the tent in his pants brushing against her hip as he takes his time undoing the drawstring knot holding her scrubs pants up. Even though it's antithetical to what her body really wants, Walsh keeps trying to distract him by nipping at his jaw and tugging at his collar to suck a bruise that his shirt will barely cover later.

With a frustrated huff, Jack walks them back until her spine hits a bookcase, a surprising interior decorating decision in a room that is the size of a closet. She's still thinking about feng shui when Abbot pins her wrist against a shelf crammed with American Journal of Emergency Medicine back issues. He's close enough that she can lick into his mouth while Jack pushes down her pants enough to slip a hand between her legs. It would be embarrassing how quickly his thick fingers pressing into her makes Emery moan if he didn't immediately swallow up the sound with a bruising kiss of his own.

This is a bad idea. This is a terrible idea. This is—

"Condom?" Walsh has enough presence of mind to ask.

"Yeah."

He lets go of her wrist to reach into his back pocket – because of course he is prepared for every eventuality – and then presses the foil square against her palm so he can go back to working her up to a maddening frenzy. Walsh pops the button of his cargo pants and pushes his pants down his ass, Abbot already stroking himself as she mumbles in frustration that it's too fucking dark in here.

"I feel like goddamn Helen Keller," she groans like this is his fault.

Abbot chuckles, but instead of turning on the lights, he guides her hand to his cock, his palm molding itself against her fist as he directs her pace. It is both extremely hot – her walls clench around the two fingers still moving inside her when she realizes that he is trying to get her to match the speed at which he is touching her – and extremely annoying – because she is not his fucking resident and doesn't need him to walk her through this.

Emery shakes his hand off hers before stroking faster until he begs her to slow down. She rolls the condom on, but before she can tell him that he better not make her do all the work, Abbot hitches her thigh up to his hip and presses into her. It's too dark for her to see his cock, but she can feel every inch as he slides into her. Walsh gasps staccato ohs that are just on the right side of the pleasure-pain line as she stretches around him with a groan. He won't shut up about how good she feels, how warm and tight she is until Emery's nails are digging a constellation of crescent moons into his back to keep from saying anything complimentary back to him.

"You take me so well," he marvels.

Walsh snorts, "You need to spend less time watching Skinemax, Abbot."

Her derision would be enough to flag anyone else's boner, but Jack gets even harder if that's possible. He chuckles obnoxiously, which is almost enough for her to consider shoving him away, but of course she doesn't because this feels too good to let even his stupid mouth ruin it. Abbot groans as she clenches around him, his voice strangled when he asks, "Can I—"

"Move already."

He doesn't have to be told twice to fuck her, but at some point, Walsh cannot help but be a bitch and order him to put his back into it. She feels him grin against her lips as the bookshelf rattles behind her, prompting Emery to hold on tighter to the nape of his neck. It is unreal how good at this he is, how he keeps pulling back to slow down and drag the anxiety out of her until all the aggravation and anger she felt half an hour ago unspools from her muscles like gossamer threads slipping through her fingers.

The logical part of her brain knows that this Zen feeling is short-lived and the second they step out of this room, she'll want to kill him again. But pressed between Jack Abbot and a row of publications that might be as old as she is, Emery can't bring herself to care right now about how ephemeral this is.

Abbot groans. "Baby, I'm so fucking close."

The only reason she is still upright is because of the stupid bookshelf and Abbot's core strength. She grinds down to chase her pleasure because she can't trust him not to fuck her over in the way she doesn't want.

"Don't fucking call me that," she snarls, biting down on his lip just shy of drawing blood.

He doesn't wait for her to tell him that he better not come first before he circles her clit with his calloused thumb until she's right there with him. It is surprisingly conscientious for a guy who acts like a one-man army barreling past standard of care to do whatever the fuck he thinks is right even though no one around him has cleared the blast radius. 

"Given that you're riding my dick, the least you can do is call me Jack." She catches a flash of his pearly white teeth as Abbot leans in to notch incrementally deeper. It's so fucking infuriating but she's so close that she simply cannot stop now to prove some sort of misguided point. The tip of Abbot's tongue traces the shell of her ear before he blows warm air over it and whispers, "Your Eminence."  

"You're such an asshole," Walsh shoots back.

"And yet you're dripping for me," he laughs.

She doesn't know how his hips are still going at a rhythm steady enough to set her watch when Emery feels like she's on the verge of begging him to please make her come already.

"Stop holding back, Jack," Walsh demands, making sure to moan his name into his ear so that whatever upper hand he thinks he has gained is immediately lost as he presses his forehead to her shoulder to steady his breathing so that this doesn't end abruptly.

Before she can get high off her success, Jack pulls nearly all the way out and then thrusts in so deep that the burst of light she's been chasing catches Walsh completely by surprise. The elastic band holding her together frays with each roll of his hips until it finally snaps altogether, Emery biting down on his shoulder to keep from screaming his name as she comes, Jack following soon after. As the tension leaves her body, Walsh's brain is already whizzing forward in time to when they'll do this again.

*

It can't happen again, of course, but sometimes when Abbot calls her down for a consult just to have her bear witness to him doing something crazy, Walsh steps in between him and the sterile tray, holds her gloved hand out, and orders, "Scalpel to me, Jack," while pretending that she doesn't see the tips of his ears go red at the use of his first name. While his brain stutters on the shared memory, Walsh grabs the scalpel from him, rolls her eyes, and asks the nurse to call a timeout for the procedure that she will be performing because if they're going to do something crazy, there's no way in hell she's letting him fly the plane.

*

Emery's college roommate keeps trying to set her up with her "very blonde, very GQ cover star handsome" divorce lawyer like this is the project her friend has taken up in the wake of her dipshit husband getting caught with his tongue down the neighbors' nanny's throat on their Ring camera of all fucking things.

"Do you know that I'm less mad at Steve for the cheating than I am at how basic his mid-life crisis was?" Torrance groans. "It wasn't even our nanny!"

"That's because you don't have kids, Tor."

It is only out of respect for their friendship and the many nights they spent stumbling out of downtown Philly bars drunk while shout-singing The Spice Girls lyrics in undergrad that Emery doesn't point out that Steve was always basic. How else would one describe a man who thought Steely Dan was the epitome of good music? Not enough time has passed yet for Emery to tell her artsy Jean Seberg-esque best friend that the relationship never made sense because Torrance was then – and is still now – completely fabulous whereas Steve seemed destined to spend his life making lateral moves in middle management while whining about how his true passion was to open his own brewery one day in the nonexistent future.

"It's like he went out of his way to be a fucking cliché, Em!" Torrance heaves a world-weary sigh on the other end of the line before telling Emery that she didn't call to talk about Steven, like Steve is listening in on their conversation and learning from her use of his proper name that he's in the doghouse. "Matt is perfect for you, Em! He's primarily Philly-based so your eighty-hour work week actually works out great!"

Emery laughs. "Leave it to you to encourage a relationship based solely on how we'd never have time to be in a relationship."

"Not solely," Torrance protests. "Besides, aren't you the one who told me that the dating pool in Pittsburgh is basically a puddle of fragile egos who need to be soothed on the first date that they'll take priority over a Level 1 trauma just because they made reservations at DiAnoia's?"

Emery had, in fact, said that on one of those nights when she'd had too much red wine and stumbled onto one of those reality tv shows about finding love on a beach resort full of six-pack abs and baby oil. She really hates it when Torrance proves that she's not spacey by weaponizing Emery's confessions against her under the guise of making sure she has some sort of work-life balance.

"Did you make a side deal with your lawyer or something? He makes sure the divorce settlement includes the waterfront in Pasadena and you get him a date with your hot surgeon friend?"

"I hate that house, you know?" Emery can practically hear Torrance's grin when she explains, "But Steve wanted 'a little Maryland getaway' that I will now sell to a builder who wants to demolish it so he can put up a Lobster Shack."

"That sounds more than fair to me."

Any hopes she has that Torrance will get distracted by expounding on her revenge plot are squashed immediately.

"Now about Matt…"

"I really don't have the time."

"Oh please, Em! It's not like you're fucking anyone else in Pittsburgh," Torrance snorts. Off Emery's silence, she gasps, "Right?"

Kissed once. Fucked once. That hardly warrants use of the present participle. It's a blip in the radar, a one-time mistake that she can't stop thinking about and doesn't know how to put out of her mind. Except, of course, that's a lie. She knows exactly what to do – what she wants to do – but Emery's pride will not let her go there.

"Fine!" Emery relents. "One coffee date."

"I told him that you like Italian."

"Torrance!"

"You can work out the details when he texts you. I just sent him your number."

This might be a worse mistake than the one she is avoiding, but how's that old saying go again? If you're going through hell, keep going? Well, Walsh is in hell, but she draws the line at asking Jack Abbot for directions.

*

"Why do we both have to attend?" Abbot asks as Gloria moves to block his clear sightline to the ambulance bay.

"It is a joint project between the emergency medicine and surgical departments, Dr. Abbot!" Gloria bristles like she can't believe she needs to spell this out to someone who is a named author on the study. When she turns to Walsh with an exasperated cry for help, Emery simply shrugs.

Walsh had similar questions when Eileen told her after the staff meeting today but hers were more along the lines of whether they needed two attendings to go to the conference when she was obviously a better influence on the trainees than Jack Abbot. At which point Shamsi reminded her that Garcia and Ellis' research on the incidence and outcomes of a five-year retrospective cohort study on emergent laparotomies in the PTMC ER had gotten accepted for a platform presentation at the annual Society for Academic Emergency Medicine conference so, yes, an emergency medicine attending did have to be there as well.

Abbot scrubs his face with his palms now before tilting his head towards Walsh and sighing, "So you want to carpool to this thing?"

She stares incredulously at him. 

"Are you strapped for cash or something?"

Emery would rather do an emergent laparotomy on herself without a numbing agent than spend five hours driving to Philadelphia with Jack Abbot. Before she can ask Gloria how empty the emergency department's CME coffers are, Gloria tells Jack that her secretary will make all the flight arrangements so they don't have a repeat of the last ACGME leadership conference he was asked to attend when Jack left Robby to be the sole representative of the residency program because he "got lost" on the way to Baltimore.

"Dr. Walsh, I trust that you will—"

"Babysit him?" Emery laughs. "Oh, not on your life, Gloria!"

*

"This sucks, Em!" Torrance whines. "I can't believe you're going to be in Philly on the one weekend when I'm not there!"

Walsh skims through the dictation pending review in her inbox and frowns at the gross misspelling of diverticulum. What's the point of dictating her surgical reports if it takes twice as long to read over them afterwards and try to figure out what she was saying versus what the person transcribing thought she was saying versus what the person transcribing thought they were spelling?

"So I take it you sold the house in Maryland?"

"I'm going there next weekend to sign the papers. The guy buying it said he'd let me demo the kitchen myself!"

"Should you really be around a sledgehammer right now?"

Torrance rolls her eyes over FaceTime and tells Emery that the buyer also went through a divorce recently so he was sympathetic to her rage.

"I was going to ask you to come with me so we could blast Limp Bizkit while destroying that hideous crab patterned backsplash for catharsis."

"And spoil a meet-cute engineered by the universe?" Emery gasps. "What would your psychic say, Tor?"

Emery doesn't have to look up at her phone screen to know that Torrance is giving her the middle finger while she tells her that Crystal Star has recently adopted a hos-before-bros attitude when interpreting love lines after discovering that her long-term boyfriend had been sexting a cartomancer from Duluth for the past six months.

"And before you ask: no, she did not see it coming."

Walsh snickers.

"Maybe you need to find a new oracle."

"Oh, hey, why don't you meet up with Matt while you're in Philadelphia for this conference?"

Emery finishes editing the note and signs it before pivoting in her chair so she can give Torrance her full attention once more. With a frown, she tells her friend that she doesn't think that's going to go anywhere.

"Last weekend, he texted me, 'Do you know why marriages are so expensive? Because they're worth it!'"

Torrance is not quick enough to hide her wince with a faux aww before insisting that Matt was probably just nervous and trying to be charming. Frankly, that seems even more concerning than if he was just into stupid dad jokes. If that was his best attempt at making a good impression, then he was already a lost cause.

"You always do this, Em!"

"Do what?"

"Be hotly intimidating—"

"That can't be helped," she smirks.

"—and then kibosh something potentially good by grasping onto one minor flaw as proof that the guy won't be able to meet your impossible standards."

"I think they're just called standards, Tor."

"I think that's why you're perpetually single, Em."

*

On the first night of the SAEM conference, Walsh and Abbot drop a couple of hundred dollars at Butcher and Singer to congratulate Garcia and Ellis on a job well done – Walsh specifically says, "Thank God you two did not embarrass me up there" – and make sure there is enough real food lining the stomachs of their trainees to slow down the absorption of alcohol once they split off to go to a club with some of the west coast residents after dinner. Emery is willing to drop a premium to keep from getting a phone call at two in the morning to pick up her intoxicated resident from the drunk tank and Jack has learned by now that sometimes it is easier just to agree with her when he doesn't have a questionable case report to back him up. After the residents leave, she and Abbot polish off another bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon that PTMC won't comp before making their way back to the hotel.

He waits until the elevator dings open on their floor before asking if she wants to join him for a night cap in his room. Walsh tosses back a ten-dollar mini bottle of Chivas Regal to be polite before grabbing Abbot's belt buckle and pulling him down onto the plush mattress with her. He looks as glassy as she feels, but Jack's movements are reverent when he peels Emery's dress off and starts kissing up her sternum and along her collarbone. His index finger glides featherweight under Emery's bra strap as he kisses down the path like he's following a map.

"This is so unfair," she groans, his stubble grazing everywhere he kisses like he's trying to leave his mark on her.

Emery's nails scrape against his scalp, her fingers tangling into his curls when she feels the low rumble of his laughter against her chest as he asks, "What do you want me to do to put us on more even footing then?"

Her eyebrows quirk up from the shock of hearing Jack Abbot ask for directions. Normally, she'd sarcastically clarify whether he was asking for a consult whose recommendations he planned to heed for once, but she feels too far gone to have a conversation about his poor collaborative skills.

Instead, Emery tugs on his navy-blue button down to loosen the tails and commands, "Off, Abbot."

"You're so bossy," he says with a grin. "I fucking love it."

Wonders never cease.

"Since when?" she starts to ask as Jack undoes three buttons on his shirt before giving up and yanking the whole thing over his head. He is saying something about how nuanced he can be, but Emery has stopped listening to gape at him instead.

"What?" he frowns when he realizes that she's staring.

Jack's chest flushes pink when she asks how long he has looked like this. It makes his freckles pop out even more. The temptation to familiarize herself with all of them is too great so Emery gives herself permission to run her hands over her body like she has all the time in the world to take stock of everything she couldn't see in the call room. She lets her fingers skate along the spaces between his ribs until she's grasping onto his paraspinal muscles and pushing him forward.

Jack goes with the motion until he's blanketing her, his lips blazing their own path down her neck while he worries her nipple between his index finger and thumb. Emery tries to push his pants down, but of course he's wearing a belt that won't give so easily. She's about to complain that he's making her do all the work when his hand slips against her back to undo the clasp of her bra so he can pull off the offending item of clothing and wrap his warm mouth around her nipple. He licks at her so lightly that Emery almost can't be sure that any of this is happening if not for the scratch of his stubble as he switches to the other breast while his hand ghosts down her stomach. By the time Jack nudges his knee between her legs with a grin that she can feel against her belly button, Emery feels like she is going to combust. 

"Stop being annoying and take off your pants already, Jack," she says in lieu of telling him how badly she wants to feel every inch of him fusing against her right now.

Emery thinks that he'll ignore her to keep working his mouth down, down, down until he can taste everything that she is unwilling to say, but he chooses to be an even bigger asshole by lifting himself off her to lose the jeans but keep his boxers on. It is only when he is distracted with taking off the prosthetic that Emery decides that she must take matters into her own capable hands if she wants them to get anywhere.

Walsh waits until he has placed his titanium leg off to one side before dragging him back down to bed and rolling over him so she can pin Jack under her. She slips one hand under his waistband to curl around his cock while she paws at his hip with the other until Jack finally takes the hint and lifts himself up so she can tug his boxers off. He's already at full attention, thick and veiny and so eager to make her feel good that it makes her laugh.

Jack pulls Emery back onto him before shamelessly admitting, "I'm extremely easy."

Which is not at all what the general consensus at PTMC is. When they were short staffed last year, the locums trauma surgeon they hired had spent all summer trying to flirt with Abbot after learning from a scrub tech that he was devoted but functionally single, only to sign out to Walsh at the end of Labor Day weekend that her priest practiced abstinence less rigorously than Jack Abbot did. So either Walsh is the devil on his shoulder working to blur the lines between Abbot's work-life balance or he is specifically—

"I am not remotely surprised," she lies to keep from completing that thought. Her nail trails along the throbbing vein on the underside of his cock while Abbot groans that she has got to stop doing that if she wants it to be good for both of them. Walsh kisses along every rib until she gets to the happy trail leading her home. As she slides farther down the bed, Jack's surprised oh like this was ever going to end in any other way makes her chuckle against his hip.

"You don't have to—"

"I've been thinking about this for weeks," she admits because the soft warm hues of this Downtown Philly Marriott hotel room make everything feel like it is outside the grasp of their real lives.

"Well, I would have been more than happy to oblige—"

His words are lost to a punched out groan when Emery licks at the wetness beading around his tip with her tongue while she strokes his cock lazily enough to drive him crazy. As Emery takes him into her mouth, all she can think about is how this is the longest he has ever gone without talking in her presence.

*

Walsh spends the second day of the conference anywhere except at the conference. She isn't avoiding Abbot because that would be stupid given that they are on the same flight home tomorrow and she is on nights for the next two weeks. She is merely utilizing her time wisely. There isn't enough crossover between ER presentations and trauma surgery to warrant her presence here.

Keeping herself busy is work, but Emery is doing her part to keep from repeating her mistakes. She visits her former UPenn campus, has lunch with a med school professor who is retiring at the end of the academic year, and gets roped into giving a guest lecture in the spring term as a retirement gift.

But then she runs into Abbot and Ellis in the lobby on her way back and he fumbles around a dinner invite that is so awkward that even Parker looks at him like he is having a stroke. Walsh says no – of course, she says no – but then Jack's eyes flick to her lips as he tells her to have a good night and all of Walsh's intentions to be good fall to the wayside. She tries valiantly to ignore it with a shower and a room service burger and half an hour of mindless reality television, but when none of that quells her desire, Emery shoots off a quick text and tells herself it'll just be this one last time.

*

"What do you mean you asked Ellis to translate?" Walsh asks as she reaches over her shoulder to grip onto Abbot's hair.

Instead of answering her, Jack's mouth goes back to working at the junction between her neck and her collar. There is no doubt that she's going to wake up with a hickey tomorrow that she'll then have to cover up with a ludicrous scarf before leaving for the airport even though it's seventy degrees outside, but Emery has no desire to unpin herself from under Jack when his free hand has finally reached the waistband of her sleep shorts.

"I thought you were hungry," Jack says, his minty breath hot against the back of her neck. It makes her shiver.

Even though the air conditioner is blasting, Emery feels hot and Jack's body pressing hers into the comforter isn't really helping matters. At the same time, she enjoys the weight of him against her and how it feels familiar in a way she can't understand and safe in a way she doesn't want to give up.

Jack doesn't seem to mind the salty taste of her skin as he licks the spot behind her ear that has her gasping that he needs to stop being such a tease. It is ridiculous that he's been in her room for an hour and neither one of them is naked yet. She considers herself somewhat successful that she had divested him of the Italian Stallion t-shirt he was wearing the moment Jack knocked on her hotel room door with a grin and said, "Ellis and I went to The Rocky Steps today, which got me thinking about endurance…"

To his credit, Jack had responded to Emery climbing him like a tree by pressing her against the door and fucking her open on his fingers, her orgasm coming so fast that Emery didn't even have time to muffle his name against his shoulder. Her limbs felt so loose afterwards that she'd flung herself onto bed face first and star fished across the king-sized mattress before she remembered that he hadn't even come yet. She was about to apologize for being a bad host when Emery felt Jack at her back, his hot hands slipping between her Liz Phair concert tee and her heated skin to knead up her back before he whispered against her ear, "That was just round one, baby," because he knew it would infuriate her.

And now they're on who even knows what round and Jack still seems to be in no rush to do anything other than make Emery want. His erection brushes against her ass as he shifts slightly to his left to give her more room to arch up against him while he slides his hand under the band to work it between her legs. Emery feels the brush of cotton as he rubs himself against the back of her thigh with a groan, his other hand momentarily releasing her left wrist so Jack can squeeze himself through his boxers to keep from getting too worked up.

She tries to focus on the conversation to keep from begging for more.

"Is that why you texted back the pasta emoji?" Emery's laugh catches as his index and middle fingers trace along her folds, parting them so slowly that Emery has half a mind to skip the middleman and get herself off again.

"Patience," he chides with a grin when she releases a frustrated huff. "I'll give you what you want."

"I doubt that you even know what I want, Abbot."

After all, hadn't Jack come to the most deranged conclusion a person could reach when texted an eggplant emoji before Parker apparently made him a decoder ring? Walsh is tempted to ask if the primary mode of communication in his youth was through telegrams, but when she turns her head to get a look at him, he swoops in and kisses her so thoroughly that Emery forgets what she was mad about in the first place. He lets go of her other hand so that this time when he tries to move off her, Emery is free to hook her arm against the nape of his neck and turn over with him. Jack's arms bracket either side of her as she flips onto her back, finally free to see the blush coloring his cheeks as he admits, "Ellis now thinks I'm boning an ex-pat on assignment in Pittsburgh because I've got your number saved on my phone as Her Majesty."

Emery raises her eyebrows. "Is that so?"

"Hmm." He nods. His brown eyes are bright and clear when his face splits into a grin. Jack presses his mouth to the corner of her lips and confesses, "I'm really glad you texted."

"And why is that?"

She knows why, but it wouldn't hurt to hear him admit that he's been doing a bad job of not wanting to spend all day doing this instead either. If Emery thinks that Jack Abbot is going to use his words for once, the sex has obviously made her dumb because his reply is to push himself down lower on the bed as he slides her shorts off and nudges his shoulders under her legs before settling himself at the apex of her thighs.

"It would be rude not to swear fealty to the queen."

Emery isn't sure whether she wants to kiss him or kill him once Jack alternates pressing the flat of his tongue against her and licking into her while his thumb rubs lightly against her clit. As promised, he doesn't give her a chance to get frustrated before his tongue flicks up and he slides two fingers inside to quicken the pace. She clenches around his digits as he laughs against her thigh and applies exactly the right amount of pressure to where she needs it to feel the boughs break. When Walsh bucks up, Jack pushes her back down with his forearm before diving back in as she grinds against his nose, every synaptic connection in Emery's body lighting up with frantic desire and anticipation of release. It is Jack's teeth scraping against her clit that splinters her into a thousand different pieces, but still he doesn't stop licking into her, drawing out her orgasm until Emery feels like she may never come down and that maybe this right here is what they meant by the divine right of queens.

*

The next day, Walsh is half-heartedly looking through paperbacks at Hudson News in the Philadelphia airport when her phone lights up with a single text from Abbot containing the bone emoji and Delta Lounge accessible bathroom in 5?

Who says that you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

*

What happens in Philadelphia does not stay in Philadelphia. In fact, what happens in Philadelphia keeps happening in Pittsburgh too. It's not ideal, but since it only happens after a stressful day, Emery thinks it's probably fine. Hell, if fucking Jack Abbot keeps her from burning out, then it's actually quite healthy as far as coping mechanisms go. She tells herself that it is as routine as showering before she leaves work or grabbing a matcha smoothie after her morning run on the weekends.

The problem, however, is that Emery Walsh is a trauma surgeon so most of her days are stressful. And she's also not a selfish asshole so this stress relief arrangement they have obviously goes both ways. Given that Jack is an ER physician with a penchant for hoisting the world on his shoulders, what all of this adds up to is that a lot of her off time is spent between the proverbial sheets with Jack Abbot.

But like all addicts, Walsh tells herself that this is a fun and completely meaningless thing that she can stop doing at any time until her mother comments that she sounds a lot happier than usual during their weekly phone call on her way back from Pilates. Emery is at a loss for how to respond so she pretends to lose signal in a tunnel to keep from freaking out over the realization that she might be totally and irrevocably screwed.

Chapter Text

Technically, they are supposed to be on a time out.

Or more specifically, Abbot pokes yet another hole in yet another patient so Walsh tells him and the rest of the ER to patch up their own mess because she stopped being on call five minutes ago. It is now Shamsi's problem to deal with, the good luck with that heavily implied as Emery spins on her heels and heads towards the elevators while the charge nurse shoves Abbot in the same direction to go make amends.

"Life would be easier for everyone if you both learned how to play in the same sandbox," Lena chides before assuring him that Shen can handle supervising three residents who haven't killed anyone so far tonight, which is as promising of a benchmark as it gets when it comes to the first of the month.

Eight minutes later, Jack's body is crowding Emery's against her locked office door, her hand gripping the doorknob to keep from curling her fingers into his hair as he kisses along her jaw. She's really trying to stop encouraging bad behavior; it's like her own personal quality improvement project whose methods make it impossible to reproduce and entirely unfit for publication.

"This is not what Lena meant," Emery laughs into Abbot's ear.

Instead of apologizing, Jack decides to justify his continued malpractice by reminding Emery that he was right about the bowel obstruction case earlier tonight. It should be concerning that this is what passes for pillow talk between them, but instead of wondering if it's another sign from the universe that she is a workaholic who needs better balance in her life, Walsh slides her free hand down his back to push him closer.

"Tell that to the guy's ileocecal valve, Abbot."

"Shit. Really?" he asks with a frown.

It is clear that Jack is now replaying the tape in his head to pinpoint what he could've done to make the middle school basketball coach's bowel less necrotic even though the answer is nothing, but would he be Jack Abbot if he didn't kick himself for things that were not his fault?

"Good thing he had a great surgeon who is in the habit of pulling off miracles."

It only takes half a beat for Jack's lips to curl into a stupid grin. Emery rolls her eyes and interlaces her fingers at the nape of his neck before tugging him closer.

"And she's so humble too!" Jack chuckles against her mouth.

Her mentor in fellowship once told Emery that humility was just a way of normalizing everyone else's mediocrity so if she wanted to force the people around her to bring their A-games, she shouldn't shy away from celebrating her own victories. But Emery knows that saying something like that to Jack now will only prove his point so, rather than give him that satisfaction, she whispers against his ear, "Don't feel too bad, Abbot. At least you were right about the peritonitis patient from last week."

"Hmm?" Abbot raises an intrigued eyebrow.

"ICU admission was a good call. She got better with broad spectrum antibiotics and didn't need surgery—"

"That is great for her, but let's go back to the part where you say that I was right again."

"Even a broken clock is right once in a while."

"But specifically this time…"

It is impossible to miss Jack's erection pressing against her thigh as he steps into her space.

"Did you just get—" Emery glances down at the tantalizing outline of his cock straining against the fabric of his scrubs. She arches her brow and groans, "God, Abbot, is that what gets you going? A little praise?"

"Praise from you is very hard to come by, Dr. Walsh," he replies, his hips jerking up at hard like he needs to confirm that they've both been on the same page this whole time.

She could – probably should – play hard to get and really make him work for it, but Emery still has half a dozen notes to sign off on before she can go home so the only responsible and professional thing to do is to climb up his body so she can grind down against the only point of contact that either of them can focus on right now. 

"That's because you have to earn it, Dr. Abbot."

Emery tries to keep her tone unaffected, but her voice tilts up at the end when Jack pins his hand to her hip and whispers breathlessly against her collarbone, "My place is twenty minutes away."

Like she doesn't know that. As if he hasn't fucked her on most of the solid surfaces in his apartment already. The hot press of him between layers of thin cotton is enough to get Emery to slip her hand into his back pocket and pull out the condom he keeps there. Holding it between them, Emery counters, "Or my couch is right here."

"Indeed, it is."

It's almost as if he doesn't think that she's serious because Jack's eyebrows lift to his hairline when Emery shoves him until he's staggering back against the arm of the couch and dropping unceremoniously onto the cushion. She needs a moment to catch her breath, but Jack is too impatient to let her slowly approach the sofa. His hot hands find the back of her thighs to pull Emery closer before making quick work of the drawstring tie holding her scrubs bottoms up.

Jack leans forward to kiss a sliver of exposed stomach with so much reverence that Emery feels holy. She feels him sigh against her skin and quickly pushes Jack back to wiggle out of her underwear while he frantically pushes his own scrubs down his ass while still half seated. He's barely got his boxers around his ankles before Emery's knees are on either side of him. Jack looks up with so much fondness when she cradles his face between her hands that Emery's only thought is to capture his lips in a desperate kiss to keep from responding in kind.

His knuckles brush her thigh as he strokes himself with one hand while pushing up the hem of Emery's scrub top with the other. It takes so long for Walsh's brain to switch her focus from his lips to pull her shirt over her head that by the time she does, Jack's already got the condom rolled on.

"Eager, Abbot?"

Mocking him would be more effective if Emery wasn't so hungry for him. Jack presses the blunt end of his cock against her experimentally, the drag enough to draw out a moan from her that would be entirely embarrassing if not for the fact that it gets him to do it again. Rather than wait for him to get more naked, she lowers herself onto him impatiently. As she rocks to bring him deeper, Abbot's hand slides up her spine until he's undoing the clasp of her bra. A second later, he's nudging her forward on his lap, on his thick cock until she gasps at the stretch. Jack mouths at her breasts. His tongue laps featherlight against her nipple. Emery's back arches so she can push her chest against his mouth. Jack laughs, which is enough to drive her crazy, but not enough to scratch the itch so Emery threads her fingers through his hair to get even closer.

"You are such a control freak," he murmurs into her overheated skin, the low rumble of his voice sending a shiver through her body. Before she can quip about how it seemed like he needed the direction, Jack presses the thumb of his free hand against her clit and keeps it there, the pressure steadily increasing as she grinds against him to get closer. "I'll get you there."

She's already there, which he must know from the oh Gods she can't stop gasping when he finally starts to move beneath her. Emery's brain feels like it's flooding with too much sensation to process at once. Jack worries her nipple between his thumb and index finger while his other thumb traces circles against her clit, the cadence matching up perfectly to the rhythm of his cock driving into her until it feels like a feedback loop that Emery never wants to break. The pleasure starts low in her belly and builds, and builds, and builds until Emery can't figure out how to hang on.

"Jack, I need—"

She presses the heel of her hand against his left shoulder to get him to look up.

"I know, Em," Jack interrupts before she can do something insane like admit how much she needs him. He pushes up for a bruising kiss and then keeps moving up until his hips jack knife into her. Emery bits down on his lip as she feels herself clench around him with a groan.

"Don't stop," she begs like they're not so close to falling off the precipice.

Emery wants him to slow down as much as she wants him to keep going, but her baser instincts get the best of her and she rolls her hips to match his frantic pace until they're moving like those sine waves she hated solving for in school.

His breath is hot against her ear as he traces the curve with the tip of his tongue before nipping at her earlobe. A strangled sob escapes from Emery's lips, but before she can beg him to stay focused, Jack maneuvers them so that she's on her back. His fingers press so hard to frame her hips that she is sure they're going to leave a mark, but Emery can't bring herself to care if it means that he'll finally stop holding back and fuck her like he's got something to prove.

"What do you need, Em?"

They're both so close already that it won't take much, but even her sex-drunk brain knows that he's asking a different question. She could tell him to go faster, move deeper, put your back into it, Abbot. But in a rare moment of honesty, the only words that leave her mouth are, "Just this."

"Fuck."

Again, Jack breathes her name like he's worshipping at her altar before pushing in so deep that any resolve Emery had to hold out shatters as she comes. Jack fucks her through her orgasm and it is only when Emery pulls him down for another kiss that Jack allows himself to chase after his own release. She feels every muscle in his back go from taut to relaxed as he comes with her name on his lips, his sweaty body slumping against hers like a rag doll afterwards.

Emery's lips chase the thump of Jack's erratic carotid pulse as she smirks against his neck, "Good boy, Jack."

His ragged laugh is like a surge of electricity that she wants to feel forever.

*

"Figures that you wouldn't practice jungle medicine the one time that I'm not on," Emery laughs as she lets Jack into her apartment.

"Yeah, well…" Whatever he's going to say is lost with Abbot's lips on hers. She barely has time to kick her door closed before his hot palms slide under her shirt to press against the small of her back. Emery lets the momentum close the distance between them, her own hands winding around the nape of his neck until he breaks away to release a breath it doesn't seem like he knew he was holding in. "Heard your voice in my ear telling me not to do anything stupid."

"Liar," she says with a grin.

Except, of course, Walsh knows that he's not lying. Eileen texted her an hour ago to tell her that, against all odds, the call they'd swapped wasn't a nightmare despite Abbot bringing all his chaotic night shift energy onto a day shift.

"I might've missed you," he admits, adding enough of a hypothetical so she won't completely freak her out.

But he sounds so earnest that it threatens to shake something loose in her. Emery quips that Gloria needs to give her a raise for reining him in by being the better angel on his shoulder.

"Gloria said she was proud of me for getting through a shift without doing anything that would cause the hospital to shut down."

"Oh, is that why you're so worked up?" Emery chuckles as she walks them backwards down her hallway into her bedroom, her fingers flying to undo his shirt buttons while she wonders out loud if he tried to charm the pants off their hospital administrator too.

"So you think I'm charming?" Jack asks with a very charming smile.

Emery rolls her eyes. "Haven't you gotten enough praise from Gloria today?"

Jack stills her wandering hands and says, "You know the only person whose opinion I care about is yours, Walsh." She absolutely did not know that, but before she can say as much, Jack adds, "I like it when you're not mad at me."

She raises her eyebrows. Isn't being mad at each other like foreplay for them?

Jack must realize a second too late that he said that last part out loud because he quickly swoops in to kiss her like he's trying to make her forget what he just said – a confession he didn't mean to make, maybe didn't mean at all.

*

Emery wakes up before the alarm that she did not set to the sound of clanging pans and Abbot yelping, "Goddamn dish towel!" To say that she is surprised to hear his voice first thing in the morning is an understatement. He never spends the night. It's practically an unspoken rule. He always leaves before she's awake and locks the door with the emergency key hidden under her welcome mat on his way out.

"Coffee?" Abbot asks when she pads into the kitchen and heaves herself onto one of her breakfast stools. He doesn't wait for her to stop gaping at him before pushing a Snoopy mug across the counter towards her. He also doesn't wait for her to ask why he's still here before informing her that breakfast is almost ready. "I didn't know how you liked your eggs though."

The maniacal laugh that pulls out of her seems to alarm him. He knows how to make her come in less than five minutes and has traced every inch of her body with his tongue, but her breakfast preferences remain an enigma to him.

"We've been sleeping together for six months and you don't know how I like my eggs?"

She's not mad about it. It's not his fault that he's living up to exactly what she wanted out of this thing, but the unexpected blurring of lines – Jack Abbot in the daylight; Jack Abbot in her kitchen wearing the Kiss The Chef apron that her brother bought her three Christmases ago after they almost burned down their parents' kitchen making microwaveable popcorn; Jack Abbot looking sheepish that this might be the first instance of eating that they've done together that wouldn't make a nun blush – has made it painfully clear to Emery just how fucked up it is that her longest lasting relationship in years isn't even a relationship at all. Maybe Torrance had a point about how Emery has been screwing herself over with impossible standards.

Jack crosses his arms in front of his chest with a frown before sputtering, "Well, it's not like you know how I like my eggs either!"

Emery doesn't point out that she has never wanted to know how he likes his eggs.

"Hard boiled," she answers with all the confidence of a nepo baby trying to break into show business. It is utilitarian enough to be right up his alley: an egg that he could drop in hot water and forget about for twenty minutes while he did twenty other things, a to-go breakfast for his go-bag, a foolproof—

Abbot makes an obnoxious buzzer noise before triumphantly correcting her: "Soft scrambled finished with a dollop of crème fraîche."

"No way are you choosing something that fiddly," Emery scoffs incredulously.

Jack grins and confesses, "I used to watch a lot of late-night cooking shows back when I couldn't sleep."

The before we started fucking goes unsaid but since Walsh isn't going to be the one to say it, she uses the time to wonder what else they don't know about each other. She must stay silent for too long because Jack finally clears his throat dramatically and asks for a quid pro quo on the Q&A portion of this morning.

"Poached." After a beat, she mockingly adds, "Finished with Hollandaise sauce."

Jack rolls his eyes.

"Well, I made a crustless quiche—"

"Also known as a frittata?"

"Crustless quiche," he repeats pointedly, "so I guess we'll both have to be a little disappointed."

"That's hardly a new phenomenon when it comes to you," she replies with a grin.

"Tell your neighbors that."

Emery ignores the blush starting to creep down her neck. She is about to ask where he even got the ingredients to make a crustless quiche when she remembers the HelloFresh order that she forgot to cancel when Eileen begged her to double up on shifts while Hendrickson recovered from an emergency appendectomy. As Jack brings a casserole dish out of the oven, Emery can see the Frankenstein-ed components of the black bean and pepper quesadilla meal combined with what she was supposed to use to make artichoke and zucchini flatbread if she hadn't gotten most of her nutrition from a hospital vending machine this week.

"Seems like binge watching Food Network paid off," she says as she inhales deeply.

It looks better than anything she could make from the building blocks in her fridge. She is half tempted to tell him that he should spend the night more often, but Emery doesn't know if they're acknowledging the elephant in the room so she keeps her mouth shut and clinks the tines of her proffered fork with his. Like a pair of savages who cannot be bothered to dirty more dishes, they nod at each other before leaning over the counter to dig in from either side.

*

"Em, I don't think you're just fucking this guy," Torrance says with the same overly sympathetic tone her mother used when she told the Walsh siblings that all goldfish go to heaven. "I think you might actually like—"

"Don't," Emery warns as she increases the speed on the treadmill even though it won't help her outrun this existential crisis or her best friend's voice in her AirPods telling Emery what she doesn't want to hear. "That's impossible."

"What's impossible about it? You're dating each other."

"We are absolutely not!" she huffs, sacrificing a breath she needs to keep from falling off this treadmill for the sake of righteous indignation. "We're only sleeping together so that the stress doesn't make us nightmares to everyone around us."

She can practically hear Torrance rolling her eyes when she deadpans that fucking for the greater good is not a thing. It's especially not a thing when they have started to seek each other out even when work hasn't been a nightmare, when that desperate scramble to rip each other's clothes off has settled into telling each other about insane cases when they're on opposite shifts.

"He made you breakfast, Em," Torrance reminds her again. "And then wanted to hang out afterwards."

Which was such an asshole move. Emery had to lie about a Reformer Pilates class she didn't have and then pay extra for the drop-in rate so she could tell herself that she really was trying to practice wellness instead of just avoiding him. It freaked her out so much that she packed the rest of what was supposed to be a lazy weekend with activities just in case Abbot showed up at her door with groceries and an offer to make dinner.

Torrance is in the middle of asking why this would be such a bad thing when Emery feels the stitch at her side and nearly flies off the treadmill before she can hit the cool down button to let up on the pace. She's still trying to catch her breath when Torrance tells her that the last time her friend was this worked up about a guy was when she was smitten with their Post-Colonial Lit TA.

"I am not smitten, Tor!"

"The lady doth protest—"

"Quoting Shakespeare is not helpful! Besides, Sean was a dipshit!" It turns out their Post-Colonial Lit TA didn't have anything intelligent to say. They'd gone out on four dates before Emery admitted that his spectacular abs were not enough to compensate for how dumb he sounded when talking about anything that wasn't in the syllabus. As she wipes her sweaty brow with a towel, Emery tells Torrance, "I already know that Jack is a dipshit. I don't need to date him to figure that out."

Her friend clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "And yet…"

*

While the residents spill out onto the bay to greet the two ambulances carrying patients involved in an MVA, Abbot grabs Walsh's elbow to hold her back. From the door, she can tell that it's probably all superficial lacs and a couple of broken bones that'll make the ortho service's evening a pain in the ass, but otherwise it's nothing that Garcia shouldn't be able to handle as her protégé.

Jack points his index finger at one of the gurneys in the distance like they're discussing a patient, his head huddling against hers as he whispers that she smells great tonight. Emery rolls her eyes and shoves her elbow into his spleen to knock him back just a little.

"Can you behave?"

He tilts his head and grins at her. "Tacos later?"

"You can order whatever you want."

"You said that last time and then—"

"I have a date tonight," she blurts out gracelessly.

Jack chuckles, but when her poker face doesn't show signs of faltering, the upturned corners of his mouth start to sink. It feels like giving in to look away before she can clock that he looks like she just punched him in the gut, but it feels equally terrible not to say something more even though she doesn't owe him an explanation. In the end, Emery settles on a shrug that might be crueler than if she just left well enough alone.

"Oh," Jack finally says like he's on some kind of time delay. He runs a hand through his hair and looks down at his shoes before mumbling, "I didn't realize you were dating."

"I'm not."

Abbot's head snaps up. "So then…"

"I mean, I wasn't. But now I am. Obviously."

"Obviously," Jack says and this time he does step back to give her some breathing room. Walsh has never been sadder to accomplish an objective before.

This compulsion to make it okay like she's guilty of anything is bizarre, but Emery can't seem to stop offering information that Jack doesn't need to know so she tells him that it's a first date and then lies about how much she has been looking forward to it.

Abbot starts to ask how they met when Garcia shouts that they've got Grey Turner's sign. Walsh has never been more grateful for a case of retroperitoneal bleeding in her life.

*

Despite Abbot's best attempts to make every non-surgical case something surgical that afternoon, Emery manages to get out of work on time to meet Matt at the wine bar fifteen minutes away from the hospital. She hadn't wanted to feel guilty about bailing on dinner reservations if work ran late so she had suggested tapas with the option to extend the night if they were still hungry.

"The lawyer in me appreciates that you presented a contingency clause," Matt says when she sits across from him at the table in the center of the restaurant. It feels like poor form to tell her date that this evening is less about him and more about clawing back a bit of the power she hadn't realized that she'd ceded to Jack in the first place. Emery feels especially bad when Matt sheepishly adds, "Hopefully we don't need it though!"

Like the dork she suspected he was, Matt holds up his crossed fingers. Objectively, Emery knows that anyone in their right mind would find him endearing. He's as Abercrombie handsome as Torrance told her he was, all sharp jaw and sandy blonde hair that falls in a wave so perfect across his forehead that it must have been doctored through very skillful grooming.

She should give him more of a chance. After all, he didn't hesitate to blow off his previous dinner plans when she asked if he wanted to finally meet up while he was in town ("They won't kick me out of the guild for missing one dinner," he had joked before telling her that he was here all weekend for a law conference and therefore had ample time to get bored of his peers) and was more than willing to suffer through downtown traffic to meet someplace that was far more convenient for her than for him.

But the truth is that she gave them both an exit strategy because she knows within ten minutes of ordering that she's going to need it. She pokes at the eggplant caponata while Matt tells her about a celebrity divorce he worked on when he was an associate at a New York law firm ("Rhymes with Hennifer"), gesturing wildly with his hands as he talks about the nightmare of a time they had trying to split up assets when the more affluent party hadn't bothered drawing up a prenup but still expected to walk away with everything like they had.

As Matt drums the beat of a Top 40 hit from the multihyphenate in question, Emery finds her mind wandering to a different pair of hands. She takes a gulp of her Alpataco like the red wine can stop her from remembering the way Abbot's fingers danced across the vicryl as he threw two stitches into a leg lac while Emery placed a chest tube in the patient on the stretcher next to his tonight, Jack's eyes on her the whole time like there was no point in pretending it wasn't something now that it was nothing. When Emery closes her eyes, she can feel Jack's palms curve along her jaw and ghost across her back and dip down—

"Is everything okay?" Matt's voice breaks through the memory. Emery's eyes snap open to find Matt looking at her with concern, the flush no doubt having crept up to her cheeks by now. "It's pretty hot here. I should've asked for a table by the window. Maybe they can move us—"

"It's fine," Emery insists before flashing Matt a quick smile. "Let's order a wine flight."

*

Walsh is infinitely less drunk than she wants to be when the Uber drops her off in front of the industrial loft building in the Strip District. She takes the elevator up three floors to the penthouse unit and keeps her thumb pressed against the button until the shrill sound of the doorbell ringing continuously throughout the loft is the only thing her mind can focus on. It's so hypnotic that she doesn't register the door opening until she's tumbling straight into Jack. He reaches out to grab her by the waist before she takes them both down, the indignity of falling into his arms almost too much for Emery to bear as she pushes off him to straighten up with a frown.

"You okay?" Jack asks.

"What took you so long?"

"I wasn't expecting company," he answers. When Jack takes a step back, it has the sobering effect of getting splashed with a bucket of ice water. "How was the date?"

It's probably the most annoying thing he could've said right now. Obviously, it was a bust if she's at his door right now, but instead of dignifying that question with an answer, Emery juts out her arm to push him out of the way as she invites herself in.

"Did you order tacos?"

"What are you doing here, Em?" Jack asks with a sigh.

He lifts the towel hanging around his neck over his head and rubs at his still-wet hair with the terry cloth like he's conducting an experiment on static electricity. Emery hates that she finds this effortlessly endearing when poor Matt tried so hard to make a good impression and all she could focus on was—

"I couldn't stop thinking about you."

Jack arches an infuriating eyebrow at her.

"What about me?" Jack flashes her a curious look and adds, "Specifically."

"Your hands."

Jack looks down at his palms to examine them before holding them up as if to ask oh-so-innocently these hands?

Emery is considering whether she has already reached the point of embarrassment where it's too late to save face by simply leaving when Jack takes a massive hopscotch step in her direction. He's close enough to touch, but Walsh refuses to give in so Jack tilts his head a fraction of an inch closer and asks, "What do you want me to do with them?"

"I want them on me," she blurts out and then winces at the admission. Straightening her spine once more, Emery offers more evenly, "Which is a real problem when I'm on a date with someone else, Jack."

His face splits into a lopsided cat-that-ate-the-canary grin.

"I'm sure if put our heads together…" Jack leans forward until his forehead is pressing against hers. His breath smells like mint. The Emery of six months ago would've made a crack about it being past grandpa's bedtime, but the Emery of now wants too much to do anything but lean in and listen as he suggests, "We could troubleshoot that."

He is still holding his hands up like he's on Cops. It wouldn't be her life if she didn't have to lead by example so Walsh curves her palm against the column of his neck. The rapid thud of his pulse gives away that he feels just as crazy as she does, but he's inexplicably better at waiting her out.

"Jack." It sounds like a whine. "Stop being part of the problem."

"I'm not sure I know what you mean," he hums. "I recently learned that I'm not very good at reading between the lines."

For all his nonchalance, Jack can't hide the hurt that creeps into his words. She feels so bad about it that Emery forgets about trying to maintain the upper hand and whispers, "Jack, touch me. Please."

She barely gets the words out before Jack's hands fly to touch her all over, never pausing in any one spot to bother with the pretense of control anymore. It's like he's trying to relearn her body all at once under a time crunch. Maybe that's her fault for making him think it would be easy for her to walk away. Maybe it's her fault for believe it would be.

"Will there be a second date?" he asks in the same tone he uses whenever he's calling a bogus consult to give Emery an excuse to come down to the ER. Only this time, he doesn't bother with the thin veneer of professionalism as he punctuates his words with kisses. "Could've saved yourself some time by cutting out the middleman and dating me instead."

Emery can feel Jack grin against her temple. She could kill him, but that wouldn't stop her from still wanting to kiss him so she ignores whatever he is trying to ask without asking it.

"Shut up," Emery groans with so little conviction that it's almost embarrassing that she's even bothering to put up a front. "I don't want to date you."

"You're so hot when you lie, Walsh."

This is going to be a big problem, but Emery Walsh is nothing if not avoidant when she needs to be so if kissing Jack Abbot into silence is the only way to put off thinking about how much of a problem it will be, then she's willing to make that sacrifice tonight.