Ethan Morrow let out a sigh as he listened to his mom rant on about how he needed to start being more serious about finding a wife and having children. He had just told his parents at their monthly dinner that he had broken up with his most recent girlfriend, Miranda. Truth be told, he managed to make her break up with him, but he didn't bother to tell his parents that. It wouldn't have mattered anyway.
"You're almost thirty-three, Ethan," Abigail Morrow chided him. "At some point, you have to make the choice to get serious."
Ethan rolled his turquoise eyes at her. It was an eye color he had gotten from his mother's side of the family, but neither of his parents had it. The last Morrow to have that eye color was his great grandmother. "Mother, I am more than serious about my life. I'm an ER doctor, and a business owner with my friends. Having grandchildren for you and dad is not the end all be all of my life."
"And who does that business go to when you are too old to run it anymore, huh?" she asked him.
"Jeremy and Chloe's kids," Ethan grumbled. "Or it could become publicly traded. There are a lot of options in that direction."
"Publicly traded? Really, Ethan," Peter Morrow shook his head at the very thought. "You're a better businessman than that."
Ethan just shrugged at that and went back to eating. They hadn't actually talked about that much, as a group of co-owners, mostly because it wasn't necessary yet. The kids in their group were still fairly young and if they were going to set up anything for later, they wanted to wait until everyone had their kids and had decided not to have any more so things would be decided fairly. Ethan figured the others were curious whether he would eventually have kids, but he was mostly neutral about the idea. He had heavily considered having a vasectomy so no surprises could happen, but he hadn't gotten around to deciding yet.
This wasn't a new conversation. His mother had been telling him to get serious about his life since he was twenty-five years old, but back then he had medical school and residency which had been keeping him busy. He was still busy, as he worked long hours in the ER constantly, as well as running the business with his friends and going to their various charity events or going to support Wayne during his football season after he went pro, though Ethan complained before every game just to get Chloe to roll her eyes at him.
Abigail Morrow was far less patient with her son now, though.
"I don't want you to regret it later when you haven't married or had children," she told him.
"If grandchildren was your ultimate goal, then you should have had more children," Ethan groaned, and then immediately regretted saying it.
His parents had tried for more, but after miscarriages and a very dangerous pregnancy with Ethan, it was decided that they would only have the one and Abigail had gotten her tubes tied for safety reasons. She looked at him now with a stony face and he mumbled an apology before getting up from the table, allowing their kitchen worker to take his plate away.
"I don't want to be late for work," Ethan sighed. "I'll see you next month. I love you."
He gave his mom a kiss on the cheek, which she allowed, before bowing his head to his dad and went out to his car. He had his scrubs in a bag in his car, and he quickly changed out of his suit before getting into the front seat of the car and driving off toward his job in the Emergency Department of Mount Sinai Hospital.
"Dr. Morrow," one of the nurses, Lily Reynolds, said to him as he walked in after putting his things in his locker and putting on his white coat with Dr. Ethan Morrow embroidered on it. "You have impeccable timing. I have a man in room thirty-five that says he has a vibrator lodged up himself, and it's still vibrating."
Ethan chuckled. "How have you not managed to hand that off to another doctor yet?"
"I was about to, and then I saw you," she replied and motioned to the computer for him to pull up the file.
"You know, you can't just hand every single sex incident over to me," Ethan joked with her.
Lily grinned at him. "Oh you don't get all of them. Just the fun ones."
Ethan laughed and walked toward the room to start his night off on a decidedly amusing foot. It didn't stay amusing, but it did stay busy. Whenever Ethan was at work, he very quickly let himself get focused on the testing and decisions he had to make. Half the night was spent in front of his computer, his blue and purple rectangle-framed glasses framing his face as he looked over test results and put in orders for medications, prescription orders for patients to take home, and calling for specialists to come in to see his patients.
Tonight he was glad when his shift came to an end, as the conversation with his parents had drained him. He went to his home, a nice three bedroom, two bathroom house he had all to himself, and let out a sigh of relief at the silence that marked his solitude whenever he was there, other than the small fluffy calico cat that Ethan shared his busy life with. Ethan set his alarm before eating dinner and getting into bed.
The next day, he went to meet his four friends for lunch. They always put aside time every week to get together for a meal, and this time it happened to be lunch because Ethan had the night shift again that night at the ER. It was the full moon, and a Friday the 13th, so he could only guess what kind of craziness the department would be that evening, but for right now, he just had to focus on catching up and seeing his friends.
"You guys will not believe what we had to retrieve out of a person last night," Ethan said as he sat down.
"Can't you wait until we're done with food?" Chloe Wright asked him, making her friend grin at her.
"Why, pregnant again?" Ethan asked her.
She glowered at him. "Not even Wayne's super sperm can beat this IUD, thank you very much. I don't need to be pregnant to hate some of your emergency doctor stories."
Jimmy Sparks thought about it and asked, "Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral?"
Ethan thought about that one for a moment. "Technically a mineral, I believe."
Jeremy Thayer rolled his eyes at that. "Just tell us so Chloe can get back to her menu."
"Well, it was vibrating the entire time," Ethan replied. "How he got the whole thing up there, I'll never know, though."
"Was it... made to go up there?" Jimmy asked, curiously, always happy to ruin Chloe's appetite.
"I don't believe so, no," Ethan said with a grin. "I think it was meant for women, but that didn't stop him."
"Alright, you guys," Chloe grumbled. "Besides, vibrators getting stuck in people is so cliche. Come back to us when you find, like, an entire squash or something."
