Chapter 4 — The Appendix
1949 Words
By the time Leo Reyes arrived at St. Raphael Medical Center, the emergency department had already begun behaving as if a royal family member had been stabbed in the parking lot.
Two security guards stood near the ambulance entrance. A hospital administrator in a navy suit was speaking too quickly into his phone. Three nurses who were usually immune to panic kept finding reasons to pass by trauma bay two. Even Claire, who had once eaten a sandwich beside a man with a knife in his thigh, looked more entertained than annoyed.
Maya Bennett noticed all of it and disliked it immediately.
Celebrity made people stupid. It turned basic processes into theater. It made grown professionals whisper, stare, and forget that a famous abdomen could still rupture like any other.
She took the chart from Claire’s hand. “Vitals?”
“Heart rate one-ten. Temperature thirty-eight point one. Blood pressure stable. Right lower quadrant pain, nausea, guarding. White count is elevated. CT is being rushed, because apparently the appendix of Leo Reyes has political influence.”
Maya scanned the labs. “When did the pain start?”
“Yesterday morning. He thought it was muscle strain. Then food poisoning. Then, according to his club doctor, ‘something he could play through.’”
Maya looked up. “Of course he did.”
Claire leaned closer, lowering her voice. “For the record, he is even better-looking in person.”
“Good. Then his appendix should be honored.”
Claire grinned. “Please say that to him.”
“I intend to say as little as possible.”
“That may wound him more than the surgery.”
Maya ignored that and pushed through the curtain into trauma bay two.
The room was crowded in the way only VIP rooms became crowded: too many expensive coats, too many worried voices, too many people who believed proximity was the same thing as usefulness. A man in a tailored gray suit stood at the foot of the bed, arguing with a nurse. Another man with a club badge on his jacket was reviewing a tablet with the intensity of someone reading a peace treaty. The club doctor hovered near the monitor, pale and tense.
And on the bed, slightly curled on his right side, one arm pressed against his abdomen, was Leo Reyes.
Maya had seen him on television less than an hour earlier, sliding across a football pitch with his arms open and thousands of people screaming his name. Up close, he looked less like a national fantasy and more like a man who had made several bad decisions and was beginning to regret at least one of them.
His skin was pale beneath his tan. Sweat darkened the hair at his temples. His jaw was tight with pain.
Still, when he opened his eyes and saw Maya, he smiled.
Not fully. Not easily. But enough to suggest that smiling was a reflex he had never learned to turn off.
“You must be general surgery,” he said, voice rough.
“I am Dr. Bennett.”
“I was hoping general surgery would look less serious.”
“You have the wrong specialty.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Noted.”
Maya turned to the room. “Everyone who is not medically necessary can leave.”
The man in the gray suit straightened. “I’m his manager.”
“Congratulations. You can manage from the hallway.”
Leo made a sound that might have been a laugh if it had not ended in a wince.
The manager’s expression hardened. “Do you know who he is?”
“Yes,” Maya said. “My patient. Out.”
For one second, the room went beautifully silent.
Then Leo lifted one weak hand. “Mate, if she can remove whatever is trying to kill me, let her insult you a little.”
The nurse looked away, clearly trying not to smile.
The manager opened his mouth, thought better of it, and left with the rest of the unnecessary entourage. The club doctor stayed, as did Claire, who positioned herself near the curtain with the delighted expression of someone watching premium entertainment for free.
Maya pulled on gloves.
“How long have you had pain?” she asked.
“Emotionally or physically?”
The club doctor closed his eyes.
Maya did not pause. “Physically.”
“Since yesterday.”
“Where did it start?”
“Around here.” Leo gestured vaguely toward the middle of his abdomen. “Then it moved.”
“To the right lower side?”
“Yes.”
“Nausea?”
“Some.”
“Vomiting?”
“Only when my coach said I was being dramatic.”
“That is not a medical answer.”
“It felt medically relevant.”
Maya pressed gently over his abdomen. His muscles tightened beneath her hand.
“Does that hurt?”
“No. I always make this face when beautiful women touch me.”
“Mr. Reyes.”
“Leo is fine.”
“Mr. Reyes,” Maya repeated, increasing the pressure slightly.
His smile vanished. He inhaled sharply through his teeth. “Yes. That hurts.”
“Good. We are making progress.”
“I disagree with your definition of progress.”
She released and watched the involuntary guarding. Localized tenderness. Fever. Nausea. Elevated white count. The story was almost too predictable.
“You most likely have acute appendicitis,” she said. “We’ll confirm with imaging, but based on your exam and labs, you need surgery.”
Leo blinked. “How soon?”
“Now.”
“That feels soon.”
“Appendixes are rarely considerate.”
He shifted, then immediately regretted it. “Is there any chance we can negotiate with it? I have a semifinal in four days.”
Maya looked at him.
He looked back, hopeful.
“No.”
“No negotiation at all?”
“Your appendix has already filed its resignation.”
Claire made a small choking sound near the curtain.
Leo laughed properly this time, then grabbed his side with a groan. “You are dangerous.”
“I’m honest.”
“That too.”
Maya turned to the club doctor. “Keep him NPO. Start IV antibiotics. I want CT expedited, but do not delay preparation. If this is perforated, I don’t want to discover it because someone was worried about a match schedule.”
The club doctor nodded. “Understood.”
Leo raised a hand. “For the record, I was also worried about my match schedule.”
“Your appendix does not care about your career.”
“That is rude. My career is very impressive.”
“I’m sure it is. Your immune system remains unimpressed.”
His eyes narrowed slightly, not in anger, but in fascination. Maya recognized the look and disliked it immediately. Men usually enjoyed being charming until charm failed. Then they became bored, embarrassed, or offended.
Leo Reyes, unfortunately, looked entertained.
“You really don’t care who I am,” he said.
“I care whether you sign the consent form before your appendix ruptures.”
“I’ve been called many things, Doctor. Appendix is new.”
“You are not the appendix. The appendix is the problem.”
“And here I thought I was always the problem.”
Maya paused with the pen in her hand and met his gaze. “Not in my operating room.”
Something shifted in his expression.
The smile remained, but it softened. Became less practiced. Less public. For the first time since she had entered the room, he looked at her not like a man performing through pain, but like someone who had heard exactly what he needed and did not know how to respond without turning it into a joke.
Then he turned it into a joke anyway.
“Will you be the one operating?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Maya arched a brow. “Most patients ask about the risks.”
“Most patients don’t wake up to you.”
The club doctor groaned quietly.
Claire whispered, “Oh my God,” from the curtain.
Maya handed Leo the consent form. “You’re assuming you’ll wake up.”
Leo stared at her for half a second.
Then, despite the pain, he smiled like she had just scored against him in front of a full stadium.
“I like you, Dr. Bennett.”
“That is not required for surgery.”
“No,” he said, taking the pen from her hand. “But it might motivate me to survive.”
Maya should have had a sharper answer. Usually, she did. Instead, for one brief and inconvenient second, she noticed the warmth in his eyes beneath all the arrogance and performance.
Then she remembered herself.
Noah had smiled warmly too.
Sienna had smiled in gold lights with her hand on his arm.
Warmth was not proof of anything.
“Sign the form, Mr. Reyes.”
He signed.
As Maya turned toward the door to arrange the operating room, Leo called after her.
“Dr. Bennett?”
She looked back.
He was pale, sweating, and clearly in pain, but somehow still smiling.
“If I die, tell the media I was brave.”
“You are having an appendectomy,” Maya said. “Not leading troops into battle.”
“Still. Use flattering lighting.”
Maya left the room before the corner of her mouth could betray her.
In the hallway, Claire fell into step beside her.
“You know,” Claire said, “most women would have asked for a selfie.”
“Most women are not responsible for removing his appendix.”
“He flirted with you while febrile.”
“He also ignored abdominal pain for more than twenty-four hours because he wanted to play football. That lowers the score.”
“There is a score?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
Maya stopped at the nurses’ station and began entering orders. “CT first if ready. OR on standby. Antibiotics now. And someone keep his manager away from me unless he develops peritonitis.”
Claire leaned against the counter, smiling. “You liked him.”
“I liked that he signed the consent form.”
“That is your idea of romance?”
“That is my idea of efficiency.”
Claire laughed and walked away, leaving Maya alone with the chart.
For a moment, Maya allowed herself to look through the glass.
Leo was speaking to the club doctor now, one hand still pressed to his abdomen, his expression animated despite the pain. Even miserable, he had a strange brightness to him. Some people entered a room and took oxygen from it. Leo Reyes seemed to bring his own sunlight and scatter it carelessly over everyone nearby.
Golden boy, the commentators called him.
Maya understood why.
Then her phone buzzed in her pocket.
For one irrational second, she thought of Emma’s message. Noah and Sienna beneath gold lights. A caption about stories finding their way back to where they belonged.
Her chest tightened.
She pushed the thought away and returned to the chart.
Leo Reyes was not sunlight. He was not a distraction. He was not a story beginning.
He was a patient with probable appendicitis.
That was all.
Behind the glass, Leo turned his head as if he had felt her looking. Their eyes met.
He smiled again, slower this time, softer around the edges.
Maya looked away first.
By the end of the night, she would remove his appendix.
She had no idea he would be much harder to get out of her life.
- Writer
