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Medical Center. Adam's Private Office.
When Adam dropped the "37 degrees and 45 degrees" line, George just stood there, totally clueless, not catching on at all.
Still, that didn't stop him from picking up the gist of what Adam was saying. And honestly, it hit home—right at the biggest realization he'd had lately. Being the "guy best friend" was easy enough, but it never got him what he really wanted. Instead, he always ended up as the scapegoat, the warning sign, the sacrificial chicken—whatever you want to call it.
Unlike George, Lexie had always been known as the "Lexie Encyclopedia" back at Harvard Med School. Basically, she had a killer memory, loved reading, and knew a ton about everything. So, the second Adam brought up the 37-and-45-degree thing, her brain started spinning like crazy.
37 degrees? Easy—normal body temperature. But 45 degrees? She racked her brain, digging through her mental encyclopedia until she finally found it. Her cheeks turned bright red, and she couldn't even look Adam in the eye. Inside, she was all tingly, thinking to herself:
"Everyone's sensitivity to temperature is different, but after professional testing, 45 degrees is generally the point where most people start feeling that heat… Dr. Duncan's got a way with words, doesn't he? He called George a 'warm guy,' so 37 degrees—normal body temp—fits that vibe perfectly. And if a warm guy's always stuck being the nice-guy backup, then the opposite would be the bad-boy troublemaker… Huh, Dr. Duncan's kind of a bad boy himself…"
As the saying goes: "Good guys finish last, bad boys win hearts."
Once Lexie pieced together Adam's little wordplay, she couldn't help but think he was just too clever. All the anxiety and frustration from messing up earlier and getting scolded by him? Gone in a flash.
Dropping her residency at Mass General to come to New York Medical Center was hands-down the right call. Forget chasing some medical peak in the future—right now, working under Dr. Duncan was a dream. The guy was drop-dead gorgeous, insanely talented, and had a way of talking that she absolutely adored. She was loving it here!
Adam had no clue Lexie was thinking all this. But even if he did, he'd probably just smirk and say, "That's only the first layer. I might not whip up a five-story metaphor or reach the stratosphere with one line, but I've at least got a second layer going."
Emmm.
The Bel Canto Choir, where the guys sing an octave lower than the girls, had nothing on Owen Lee—the legendary tuner and supreme conductor who founded the Eternal Spear Choir. That guy knew his stuff. Back in the day, Owen Lee was the ultimate bad boy, the public enemy of every guy in school, with a thousand fingers pointing his way.
"Adam, so what should I do?" George asked, genuinely seeking advice.
"Simple," Adam said with a grin. "You've gotta have something that makes you stand out—either talent or money. Get one of those two shining on you, and even a warm guy like you can heat things up. Honestly, you're not doing too bad as a nice guy already. Meredith, Liz, Callie, Olivia—every woman who gets close to you ends up really close, doesn't she?"
He shot a playful glance at Lexie as he said it.
Lexie instinctively took a step away from George.
"Liz and I never—" George started to protest.
"Sure, Liz just didn't break that final barrier before she left," Adam said, shaking his head. "The way you two acted like inseparable besties, no boundaries whatsoever—if you'd stayed around each other longer, something was bound to happen."
George didn't have a comeback for that.
He and Liz were the closest. Close enough that he'd be in the bathroom showering while she brushed her teeth and chatted away, or they'd end up lying on the bed together like it was nothing. With Liz's looks and figure, saying he'd never fantasized about her would be a total lie. Truth is, he had—not just her, but even Cristina got roped into those daydreams.
"Being a guy best friend and not wanting anything more? Honestly, very few pull it off as well as you do. You're top-tier at it," Adam teased. "But it's pretty clear you're not satisfied with that. You're always overthinking, putting all the energy you should be using to sharpen your skills into figuring out your gal pals instead. 'Oh, she's in a bad mood—what happened? Should I comfort her? How do I do it?'—yada yada yada.
"The result? You're good at everything but great at nothing. You're just… average. No standout qualities. When there are so many exceptional guys around, tell me, which woman's going for the average one? As long as they've still got their eyes on those top-tier dudes, you'll always just be their warm-guy bestie.
"Of course, if you're willing to stick it out for a decade or two, outlast the competition or wait until they give up, that could work too."
"So I should focus all my energy on medicine?" George muttered, half to himself.
"You don't have money, and your looks aren't gonna pay the bills," Adam said matter-of-factly. "If you want to be a guy with talent, what better option do you have than busting your ass in the field you've already spent five years studying? Work hard, grind it out, become a legendary doctor. Tell me—would Meredith be so hung up on Dr. Shepherd if he wasn't a top neurosurgeon? Would Cristina, who's all about medicine, chase after Dr. Burke so hard if he wasn't a leading cardiothoracic surgeon?"
George shook his head instinctively.
How could he forget? At the intern welcome party, he was the one who approached Meredith first. And he'd seen it with his own eyes—Dr. Burke was laughing and chatting with some gorgeous woman when Cristina, the newbie, marched right up, cut through the vibe, and kept gushing about how much she admired him. According to Meredith's gossip, Cristina and Burke got together later because she straight-up walked into the on-call room, locked the door, and woke him up.
Dr. Shepherd might have the looks to lean on, but Burke? George figured he and Burke were about on the same level there. The only thing that tamed sharp-tongued Cristina and made her—the woman he sometimes fantasized about—take the lead was Burke's status as a top-tier doctor.
"Yeah, George," Lexie chimed in from the side. "Dr. Duncan's right. Women are drawn to strong guys. You've got the potential to be one of those. You're working under Dr. Duncan, after all! As long as you focus and put in the effort, you can totally do it!"
"Uh-huh, uh-huh…" George nodded repeatedly, then paused, frowning. "But Callie seems to like me just the way I am…"
Emmm.
Up until now, he'd been fixating on Meredith as his goal, totally forgetting his current girlfriend was Callie. So, what—Callie was backup George's backup? AKA, Callie was Meredith's second-string replacement?
"It's the same as how guys like pretty women," Adam said with a laugh. "At first, everything's perfect, right? But after a while, if that pretty woman doesn't have an interesting personality, the guy gets bored fast. Right now, Callie's into your warm-guy vibe—everything's all sunshine and rainbows. But six months, a year down the line, if you're still the same old same old, do you really think she'll still feel the same? Don't test human nature like that.
"You've gotta forge yourself into something solid! If you can't keep leveling up, you'll get left behind eventually."
George went quiet.
This whole spiel was like a wake-up call. He'd taken a psych class or two—he knew Adam was spot on. When the gap between two people gets too wide, one ends up as the sidekick. And as that gap keeps growing, even that lopsided dynamic can't hold together.
Take his girlfriend Callie—she was already a chief resident, the boss's boss, treating fancy hotels like her second home. She even had her own office rented out at the hospital, just like Adam. Her family probably had money. The gap between them was huge, and their whole relationship was hanging on the fact that Callie liked him… for now.
That was the logic, sure. But something felt off. As he walked out of Adam's office, it hit him—Adam had basically treated him like a "pretty woman" with no soul to speak of.
(End of Chapter)