The Doctor’s Simple Life (Love Heals All Wounds #3)

25. Reece

CHAPTER 25

REECE

I order another round of drinks and wink at Jenna, the server, as I do. She smiles back, and I catch Mikey’s approving nod out of the corner of my eye.

Meanwhile, Sienna’s being boring and just gets another soda. Whatever, though, because Mikey and I are going hard. We’re two tequila shots down, and I’ve decided I want cocktails.

“You sure you don’t want a cocktail?” I ask Sienna before Jenna goes, and she shakes her head and says nothing.

The entire time we’ve been out, she’s hardly said two words. I guess she’s probably shy around Mikey, just like she was with me, but she could at least try to be friendly. I know Mikey is an interesting kind of person, but she doesn’t have to be rude.

This is one of my friends. I had at least hoped she could pretend to like him.

Instead, it’s like that cold, detached, unfriendly woman I met has come out with us. It’s giving her and the town a bad look. If I want any chance of persuading Mikey that this place isn’t so bad, I need her to be on my side. I need her to act like her normal self around him.

At least I’ve still got his attention. I’m halfway through telling a story about one of the old men who’s been through the hospital recently. Sienna is frowning as I tell it, but Mikey is absorbing every word.

“He was like, I think my finger might be broken. And I look at it, and it’s half hanging off, and I want to say, no shit, son, I think so too.”

Mikey laughs heartily, and a warm surge of validation rushes through me. I’ve always liked it when people in power like me. I guess that’s why Mikey and I get on so well. He’s my boss, and he definitely does think I’m funny. At least he laughs at my jokes.

I can take that. It’s as good a base for a friendship as anything else.

“It was funny, wasn’t it?” I say to Sienna.

She shrugs. “I guess.”

“Oh, Reece,” Mikey sneers at her. “You forgot. We take medicine so totally seriously in a small town.”

I laugh before I can stop myself.

Sienna withers, sinking back into her seat as if she’s trying to disappear. It makes me regret it immediately. She doesn’t deserve to hear Mikey talking crap about her and the town.

It’s just easy to forget how not to be like that in his presence.

“You know what?” says Mikey, totally unaware of any hard feelings he might have caused. He chugs the last of his beer and slams the glass down on the table. “You’ve handled this admirably. Way better than I’d ever have expected. I know you technically have a week left here, but I’ll let you out of the bet early. It was only funny while I thought you would hate it, but it looks like you made yourself right at home.”

It’s a loaded comment, and I noticed Sienna prickling beside me. It’s clear what he’s insinuating: You’ve settled in so well here because you’ve got a girl to follow you around . I can’t tell him that that’s not true because it kind of is.

Or at least I thought that Sienna was fun and hanging around with me because she wanted to. From the way she’s acting now, it’s hard to imagine the woman who’s been in my bed for the last few days, the one who smiles and makes fun of me and cares about me more than I deserve.

Then what Mikey’s saying sinks in.

“Wait,” I say. “Do you mean that I can come back to civilization?”

Mikey grins. “Whenever you want, my friend. Just say the word. It’ll probably take me a day or two to get your shifts set again at home, but you’re free whenever you want to be.”

“Great!” I grin. Home! I’ve been dreaming about leaving this place from the second I got here, and to be going early seems like a joke I’m about to be on the wrong side of.

And then I noticed the look Sienna’s giving me, and I’m hit with the punchline. That’s the face she makes when she’s dealing with someone difficult, or something hard. The face of trying to be strong.

It breaks my heart a little.

Does she not want me to leave after all? Or is she offended that we’re being cruel about the town that she loves? It’s hard to tell.

“Well, I should at least finish my shifts here,” I say. “I don’t want to give these guys more work than they need.”

“How noble of you.” Mikey raises an eyebrow, and I ignore whatever crude things he might be trying to get me to reveal.

“I have nothing booked past Thursday, so I guess I can come back then.”

“Awesome,” says Mikey. “We should play some tennis to celebrate when you get back.”

“No,” I scoff. “I’ve already let you catch me out with that once. I’m not going to let you punish me again.”

“Afraid you’d lose?”

“Afraid you’d think of a punishment that was actually bad if I did.”

“Did he tell you that he’s a complete coward?” Mikey drawls at Sienna, acknowledging her presence almost for the first time all night.

“I’ve noticed,” she mutters under her breath, and hearing that is like being stabbed in the chest.

She still thinks so little of me. Really?

“Hey,” I frown. “Have we not shared some good times together?”

“No,” she says, and I can’t tell if that’s a challenge or what.

Because we have. Maybe it hasn’t been everything she wanted, or maybe I’ve been a letdown. I don’t know. But it can’t just be me who thought we had a good time. There have been plenty of moments that sucked, but it wasn’t everything. It can’t have been everything.

“Well, I’ll be gone soon enough,” I snap, more harshly than I intended.

Sienna’s face is an unchanging mask of stone.

I’m aware of Mikey’s eyes burning into us.

I’m embarrassing myself.

I take a deep breath and turn back to Mikey with a smile. If Sienna doesn’t want to talk, then fine. She can sit and be moody in the corner.

The conversation turns back to things we’re going to do in Miami and what the gang at home has been doing. Mikey says that nobody will play tennis with him anymore because they’re all afraid that he’ll send them out to a backwater town like he did to me.

“Between you and me,” he says, leaning in conspiratorially, “I wish I had sent one of the others. You’re one of the least annoying of them all.”

Sienna huffs in the corner, and we both ignore her. I don’t really feel like getting told that I’m the worst again, not by a woman who I thought had changed me to my core. Not by the woman I had been falling for.

Guess that all means nothing to her now.

“Well, I’ll be back before you know it. Maybe next time we can go doubles and exile Joe and Nathan while we’re at it.”

“See, that’s a great idea. This is why I need you back.” Mikey laughs at himself again, and I steal a look at Sienna.

She’s not looking at us. I guess she has no reason to. None of this is going how I thought it would. I had thought that she would hold her own against Mikey, to show him who’s boss instead of moping in a corner. I had wanted her to be awesome and brilliant so I could say to him, See? This is the kind of person I’ve met here .

But she’s sitting there frowning. And I don’t know what to do to make it better.

So, like the coward I am, I turn all my attention to Mikey and think about going home. My real home.

I just hate that going home means leaving the home I thought I had found here.