"Mhmm, yeah. Oooh, that's it, that's the spot. Come on, you can go deeper than that!" She wailed and gasped, alternatively.

"Yeah, is that better now? Is that deep enough for you?"

Caliana halted short outside the bedroom in response to the noise. Two densely-packed plush suitcases remained in tow as she trailed them through the dimly lit hallway. The last thing she was anticipating on move-in day was for her new housemates to be engaging in the Devil's tango, but lo and behold, she couldn't deny the apparent sexual sounds arising from the chink of the door. She set her ear against the door, and the confirmation was there. Yep, they were going at it.

"Ugh, that actually hurts a little. I think it's still too dry. We're going to need more oil."

Her mouth sloped open in a single instant, nose crinkling in sheer distaste. Not only was her housemate being completely inconsiderate on the first day, but he also didn't seem to have a clue about how to satisfy a woman. Figures.

She positioned her suitcase down on the carpet, and repeatedly ploughed her fists against the doorframe.

"Hey! Can't you hear it's ocupado in here?" She heard the male in question hiss through the door.

Caliana released a small growl before finally barging in. "If we're going to be living together for a year, we're going to need to set some house rules—" She was rendered dumbfounded when she witnessed an ash-blonde-haired girl lying prone on the bed, her face swerved sideways against a plump pillow, as the male was situated to one side of her, currently pouring excess coconut oil into his open palm, before smothering it against the tense muscles of her back. "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought—"

"Oh, I can tell exactly what you were thinking, darlin'." He teasingly winked up at her. "A bit of a voyeur, are we? Hoping to catch some action on your first day?" He patted the vacant spot beside him on the bed. "There's always room for another cute one in my bed."

He was tall, despite being sprawled upon the bed, legs dangling to one side of the girl's body. His ochre skin emanated the dulcet shades of golden-brown light that bathed a rainforest. Caliana noted how his jaw was completely clean-shaven, a miniature cut on his right cheek from where the razor had unexpectedly caught him. But the most striking thing was his twinkling eyes; not dissimilar in colour to melted cocoa. Homely in their own right, yet carrying all the impishness of an adolescent boy being caught watching porn. A subtle dent graced his chin; one that seemed to abscond depending upon the movement of his mouth.

"Oh, look, she's blushing." The blonde girl resumed the playful teasing. "I think you struck a nerve there, Roscoe. She totally thought she was in for a threesome."

"I did not!" Caliana attempted to feign confidence, but the sound arose rather high-pitched.

"They're going to eat you alive at Little Oaks Hospital if all it takes is a little mention of sex to get you all worked up," Roscoe explained, a faint chuckle playing at his lips. "We're messing with you, unless..." The twinkle re-emerged as he patted the soft mattress beside him again.

The girl beside him interjected. "Oh, give it up, Roscoe, she's not going to sleep with you. So get back to my massage. Stat."

Roscoe rolled his eyes. "I'm Roscoe. Roscoe Garcia. I take it you're my new housemate. Caliana, was it?"

"Yeah, everyone just calls me Callie though." She murmured before crouching down slightly, to gain the attention of the girl. "And that makes you Amari? Our other housemate?"

"Nope, I'm not your housemate. I'm just visiting Roscoe here. My name's Dawn." She drawled. "Or, you can just call me Doctor Swain. God, I don't think I'm ever going to get used to being called that." Dawn sighed with glee, before emitting a rather exaggerated moan as Roscoe's hand plunged against her muscles once again, the oil sloshing against her skin. "So, voyeur girl, are you joining the medical or surgical team?"

"Ugh, tell me that's not going to stick as my new nickname," Caliana responded, before answering the question, "medicine. What about you?"

"Dawn's a medic, through and through. I'm surgical if you didn't notice," Roscoe held an arm out, bent at the elbow, stretching the biceps and then swivelling his arm around to show the enhanced bulge of his triceps, evidently demonstrating more than just one or two visits to the gym in a week. "Who needs a scalpel when you've got this as a weapon?"

"And here I was thinking that we'd left the class clown act back in university." Caliana quipped in response. "So, erm, what exactly is the dynamic here?" She held her hands out in question. "Dating? Friends with benefits? Am I going to need to invest in a good pair of earplugs for the nighttime?"

"You're kidding!" Dawn piped up, lifting her body from the mattress. "Roscoe and I went to medical school together, I've known him for five years. I know that his farts smell like chilli heat wave Doritos. He's like my brother at this point."

"Step brother." Roscoe mouthed to Caliana once Dawn's back was angled away from them once again.

Dawn was a pretty girl. The kind of girl that would make you double-take if you passed her in the street, Caliana thought. Her hair slipped over her shoulder like a sheet of golden sand, and coupled with sea-green eyes, she carried all the essence of a mermaid. The rose-tinged ivory skin of her face conflicted with the almost orange shade of her limbs, indicating that she'd been the victim of a failed attempt to fake tan. Caliana's eyes drew to the blinking silver stud in Dawn's left nostril.

"Aren't you guys...at all nervous for tomorrow? You both seem pretty calm considering it's our first day as doctors." Caliana enquired, hesitantly.

"We're both actually from Little Oaks. We trained at the local hospital, so we're already kind of a part of the team. Makes it much less scary." Dawn shrugged, shimmying her body down the bed to regain comfort.

"Oh, right," Caliana mumbled, slightly dispirited by the comment. She had sought solace in the fact that everybody would be in the same sinking boat; everybody's first day as a new doctor in an unfamiliar environment.

"Don't worry. I'll take care of you, darlin'." Roscoe affirmed. "Little Oaks isn't all that bad. Don't listen to what people say. It's quite a small hospital, but most of the staff are like one big family."

"Wait, what? Rewind." Caliana plopped herself down onto the bed. "What do people say about Little Oaks?"

Roscoe and Dawn shared a startled look. "You didn't do any research on the hospital you're going to be working at?" Dawn replied, slowly, as though it were the most basic thing to do.

"Well, no. Reviews for hospitals are never that reliable, are they?"

Dawn soughed, using her hands to leverage herself up against the bed, using her elbows as a prop to rest her face against. "It's just that...Little Oaks has a bit of a reputation. It was shut down like five years ago. After an inspection, it was deemed that it wasn't a safe place for patients or staff. But new management took over, and it reopened like two or three years ago. It's much better now, but it's by no means perfect."

"To be fair, we don't know how it was before," Roscoe continued. "But from what I've heard, there's way more senior support than before, less expectation to work twelve-hour shifts back-to-back, although that does still occasionally happen. The hospital runs a mentorship programme for new foundation doctors as part of the management scheme. You're attached to a senior doctor who guides your progress, most of your clinical work is overseen by them, and at the end of the year, they produce a report that decides if you're good enough to pass into the next year. Most of the supervisors are really supportive."

"Roscoe, did I tell you I got Dr Chopra as my supervisor?" Dawn crooned, before turning to Caliana. "Dr Chopra is one of the sweetest doctors in the whole hospital. I'm going to have the best year with her! Who did you get, Callie?"

"Um, I think the email said, Doctor Rhys? Do you guys know what he's like?"

"Doctor Rhys as in Isaac Rhys?" Roscoe let out an uneasy laugh. "No. He can't be your supervisor. Check again."

Caliana gulped after absorbing the puzzled countenances carved across their faces. She drummed the back pocket of her jeans in search of her phone. She unlocked it and began filtering through her emails until she reached the 'Introduction to Little Oaks Hospital' email. She held her phone out to the two, confirming their suspicions.

"No way. I thought he got banned from being a supervisor last year." Roscoe rasped under his breath.

Dawn nudged him, throwing a pointed glare in his direction. "He's not actually that bad. He's just kind of—"

"A prick. An asshole. A complete bellend. Take your pick. They're all synonymous with Doctor Rhys." Roscoe said matter-of-factly. "He gets a thrill out of traumatising the new foundation doctors. There was one a couple of years back, I think his name was Doctor Netherlands, and Dr Rhys nicknamed him Doctor Neanderthal. He's still called that to this day." He paused almost comically. "It's been two years."

"Stop trying to scare her, Roscoe! He's a really good doctor. And he's proper fit. There was this one time, he bent over to tie his shoelaces, and the whole hospital was stunned to silence."

"What? Why?" Caliana's eyes widened as she awaited a response from Dawn. "What did he do?"

"It's not what he did! It was what we saw — which was the juiciest butt cheeks ever seen on a man. Honestly, the sight of it nearly made up for all the shit that comes out of his mouth."

"He has competition in being the fittest doctor the hospital has seen now that I'm going to be working there." Roscoe jested in return.

"This is just the worst!" Caliana lamented. "I'm going to spend my first year of being a doctor in a failing hospital, with a douchebag supervisor."

Dawn wavered. "It could actually be worse. Some of the senior doctors are pretty sexist. And Doctor Rhys isn't one of them."

"Right. He'll treat you like the shit under his shoe, no matter who you are. Man or woman." Roscoe persisted.

Caliana squeezed her eyes shut, allowing her body to plunge onto the bed, beside Dawn's still prone body, she released a puff of air from pursued lips. She didn't get a chance to begin her thoughts of self-wallowing before she heard the front door unlocking.

All three of them pivoted towards the front door and noticed a five-foot-eleven man hovering with a rather small travel bag perched on his broad shoulders. He offered an uncertain wave towards them. "Hi."

"Hi. I'm Callie." She immediately jumped off the bed, realising that her current position as the second girl on Roscoe's bed probably wasn't painting the best picture for their new guest.

"Amari." He mumbled as he trekked down the hallway. He had bronzed-fawn-coloured skin, which the sun had seemingly kissed to an absolute blessing, with complimentary light caramel-hued eyes.

"It's really nice to meet you. Maybe we could all have dinner together later. Get to know each other a little better." Caliana called out after him, but Amari had already slammed the door behind him before she completed her sentence. "Or not?"

"Maybe he's just shy," Roscoe suggested.

"Or, maybe he'd rather not fraternise with the competition." Dawn snapped.

"Competition?" Caliana repeated. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, come on," Dawn yawned. "We're all going to be applying for speciality training in the next few years. And spaces are tight. Whether we like it or not, we are each other's competition. Maybe Amari knows that." She shrugged. "It's dog-eat-dog out there, and some of us are famished."

And with that, she bounced off the bed. Caliana instantly averted her gaze when she realised that Dawn had stripped completely nude whilst receiving her massage.

But not quick enough to miss the former girl's left nipple piercing; a straight silver barbell to match the silver stud in her left nostril. Dawn took her sweet time reaching for her plain white vest, seemingly enjoying the less-than-subtle ogling of Roscoe. "Right, thanks for the massage, Roscoe. I'll see you both bright and early tomorrow. Oh, and make sure you get some rest Callie. It sounds like you're going to need it."

—

A/N - hope you enjoyed this first chapter! It's definitely more of an introduction to (some) of the main characters :)

I really struggled with the cover for this one. Lemme know what you think?! I think I may use the current one as a placeholder until I find one I really like.

Always open to all types of feedback (: x

Please do vote and comment if you enjoyed xox