Chapter 13 #2
Carter was older, god-like, devilishly handsome, and untouchable. So serious and reserved unless you were part of his inner sanctum and then you saw him. The real Carter Fritz.
It was like discovering a rare gem among lumps of coal.
That’s what this past week with him has been like. Glimpses, flirts, teases of the man beneath. He keeps so much of himself closed off and all it makes me want to do is dig deeper. Search harder. Uncover more.
But any attraction I’ve ever felt for him, I was quick to brush aside. I was engaged.
Now I’m not and though I’m trying still not to think about him in that way or confuse myself further, it’s getting harder to do so.
“Still, he would be fun for an easy fling,” Margot muses. “That’s all Carter does, right? That might be exactly what you need to get over what Tony did once and for all.”
“When is a fling ever easy?” Rina challenges, dropping her plastic spoon in her now empty cup before throwing it in a nearby trash bin. “It certainly didn’t go that way for me and Brecken.”
Margot laughs, leaning against the wall and playing with her hospital ID badge while throwing Rina a no-shit look.
“That’s because Brecken always had other ideas when it came to you.
Carter doesn’t strike me as that type. Just the kind who flings hot and fast and then moves on.
He’s a total workaholic and so is Grace. That’s why it’s perfect.”
I shake my head, holding up my hand. “Stop. I’m not going to have a fling with Carter, hot, easy, fast, or otherwise.”
“If not Carter then someone else,” Margot persists. “You should definitely fling with someone. We’ll set the whole thing up. I might even have the perfect guy for you. He’s sex on legs and—”
“Evening ladies,” Carter drawls, coming up behind me out of freaking nowhere, and my eyes bulge out of my head. Oh shit!
Rina looks like she just swallowed a bug and I think Margot is about to pass out since all the blood has officially left her face.
“What brings you two to our neck of the woods?” he continues, coming to stand beside me and I think I want to die. If he heard our conversation… But it’s not like I said anything, right? Just that we’re not going to fling. Totally true.
Rina holds up her hand. “Patient decided tonight should be his night.”
“Was it?” Carter queries.
“No, thankfully, but I still felt life-affirming ice cream was in order along with seeing new life.”
“I’m just here for the girl talk and babies,” Margot states.
Carter turns to me, ever the stern attending. “No patients, Dr. Hammond?”
“My lady is only five centimeters and is still walking the halls with her wife. Dylan is on it. I was going to check on them after my lunch break.”
“And this is your lunch break? At one in the morning?”
I hold up my half-eaten protein bar. “What would you call this?”
“Pathetic. Come with me, Doctor. I need to speak with you. Good night, ladies. Rina, you have whipped cream in your hair.” He walks over to her, removing it with his fingers and kissing her forehead. “I’m sorry about your patient. Call me later if you want to talk.”
“I’m good. That’s what the ice cream is for.” She throws me a wave and grabs Margot’s hand. “Night.”
Carter turns back to me and the second he’s no longer able to see their faces, Margot mouths, Oh my god , I’m so sorry to me.
Yeah. No kidding.
“Later,” I say, but it’s cut off as Carter grasps my arm and drags me along after him, all the way down the mostly empty hall and then into the empty on-call room where he shuts the door behind us. “What are you—”
Only I’m cut off as Carter pins me to the wall, getting right up in my face, his expression feral. “Tell me you’re not seriously contemplating having a random fling with a random guy,” he seethes.
“What were you doing listening in on my private conversation with my friends?”
His eyes narrow. “You were in the middle of the hall. Not exactly a private place. Answer me.”
“What business is it of yours what I do in my own personal, private time?”
His hand slams into the wall beside my head and I start. He inches in closer until we’re practically nose to nose. “Because you live with me now.”
“What does that even mean?”
He growls, his dark eyes turbulent, blazing as they penetrate mine. “Dammit, Grace.” He slams his hand again. “You can’t just jump into bed with some random guy simply because you’re now single.”
I shake my head, at a total loss. I’ve never seen Carter like this. Undone. Frantic almost. I doubt many have.
“I can do whatever the hell I want to, Carter. Last I checked, I’m a grown woman and temporary roommate or not, you’re not my keeper.”
“Grace. I fucking mean it. Tell me you’re not going to do that.”
Is he joking with me? “I’m not going to tell you anything of the sort. If I decide to sleep with someone that’s my decision. It has no bearing or impact on you.”
He lets out a mirthless, pained laugh.
“Why do you even care?”
His other hand comes up, bracketing me in and my heart starts to thrash in my chest. So violently I know he can see the pulse at the base of my neck.
“I care, okay? I care. I don’t want to see you get hurt again. I can’t watch as some loser who doesn’t deserve you get his hands on you. Not when…” Frustrated, he runs his hand roughly over his face and back through his hair, panting out a heavy breath as he does. “Dammit!”
“Not when what?” I press.
His eyes bounce back and forth between mine; he opens his mouth to say something when his pager goes off, beeping loudly against his hip in the small room.
He holds my gaze a second longer, takes a deep breath, and pushes off the wall, away from me.
Without checking his pager, he storms out, slamming the door behind him and leaving me here reeling.
What the hell was all that?