Chapter 14
Y ou would never know that Carter and I had a mini blow out by the time we reach the end of our shift. It’s like it never happened. Like he never lost the perfect control he’s known for.
It’s messing with my head.
I assisted him in a complicated crash C-section and after we’re scrubbed out and the sun is rising and we hand off our patients to the next shift, we’re walking out of the building together.
It’s silent and uncomfortable and tense.
At least for me, it is. You’d have no clue by looking at him what the hell he’s feeling.
Carter is an iceberg, I’m discovering. So much of his soul is submerged, held down deep beneath his cool exterior.
But after twenty-four hours awake and on my feet, I need rest. I need a real meal and then rest. Definitely a shower in there somewhere.
These shifts wreak havoc on my body, pushing it to its very limits, which in my case is a roll of the dice. I only have to do one of these a month with the way our rotations work and I’m grateful for that. But every time is like the first time. You never get used it. There is no adjusting.
It’s Sunday morning now and Monday I’m in our outpatient setting, much easier to manage than being in the hospital or the OR.
“Want to grab some breakfast before we head home, or are you needing sleep?”
I’m going to take this as his weird form of an olive branch. I don’t like it when things are strained between us. It makes for a fucked-up work and home dynamic. Challenging, sparing, fiery even, all that I can handle. But strained? Not so much.
“Sure. That sounds great.”
“You like waffles, right? I know a good place.”
My head whips in his direction. “How did you know I like waffles?”
“Staff breakfast. You ate like three of them.”
“Staff breakfast?” I question, racking my brain. “But that was… last November?”
He shrugs indifferently, pointing for me to turn up Boylston, but I’m stuck on this waffle revelation. I wasn’t even sitting with him. I was sitting in the back of the room with two other residents, and he was… I don’t even remember where he was, but it wasn’t near me.
His hand meets my lower back as he guides me into a posh restaurant that I am not at all dressed for overlooking The Public Gardens.
I glance over to him and then down at myself.
I changed sure—I hate wearing the scrubs I wore in the hospital out; it just feels nasty—but I’m also in ratty jeans and an old college T-shirt.
Not to mention my hair is a mess, I have no makeup on, and you know, I’ve been awake for twenty-four hours straight.
“Carter?”
“It’s Sunday,” he says by way of an explanation. “They have an amazing brunch here. You’ll love it.”
I have no doubt I will, but I was expecting some greasy spoon place, not a five-star dining experience. Carter is a Fritz so maybe I should have known? My parents had plenty of money, but they weren’t anywhere near Abbot-Fritz level. Then again, very few people are.
They’re mega billionaires, for Christ’s sake.
But ninety percent of the time, you don’t get the billionaire vibe from them.
They’re a close-knit, family-oriented, down-to-earth crew.
I mean, Rina is an ICU nurse. Oliver works in community health.
Carter is an OB-GYN, Landon a cardiologist. Only Kaplan and Luca ride the masters of the universe gig with Luca being a neurosurgeon and Kaplan a pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon.
I don’t even know what I’m thinking right now.
I’m sleep deprived and a bit batty after the week I’ve had and now I’m being led to a table overlooking the beautiful gardens and getting sneers from women wearing Chanel.
“What are we doing here?” I hiss under my breath after we’re left alone with our menus. The food does look amazing, I’ll give him that.
“Having breakfast together,” he says simply, his eyes all over his menu.
I want to bring up what happened between us in the on-call room but I’m not that brave.
Truth, I don’t even know what I would say.
He had no right telling me I can’t sleep with someone whether I plan to or not.
But why was he even doing it in the first place?
And why the hell was he that upset by it?
“Carter?”
He looks up at me, a soft smile warming his brown eyes. “I thought you’d like something nice. Something just for you.”
Oh. That’s… insanely sweet.
“Look at the menu, Grace.”
I do now, reading it over. Mostly because once again, I have no idea what to say back to that. “Carter, you’re giving me whiplash.”
“And you’re giving me heartburn. Did you pick out what you’d like to eat yet?”
There are all kinds of specialty waffles. Sweet ones, savory ones, all delicious sounding. And yes, waffles are my absolute favorite. He knows because he was… watching me? How does that make any sense?
“Next week is your birthday,” he muses, accepting coffee from our waiter. I shake my head, covering my mug. I need sleep, not caffeine. “She’ll have the mixed berry smoothie.”
I will? It sounds good. Like something I’d order for myself if I had bothered to read the menu more carefully. For once, I don’t argue.
“Very good, sir. Are you ready to order?”
“Grace?” Carter waves a hand in my direction.
Um. Jesus. Who knew breakfast with your boss could be this stressful? “I’ll have the chicken and waffles, please.” Because the spicy syrup with it sounds amazing and there are pieces of bacon cooked into the waffle itself though it was a close call between that and the Nutella and berry one.
“I’ll have the lobster eggs benedict, please.”
That sounds good too. I wonder if Carter is the type who shares or hordes all to himself. And is it weird if I take a bite of his breakfast? Why does this feel like a first date?
“Why does this feel like a first date?”
Carter grins, a twinkle of something in his eyes that I can’t read. “As I said, your birthday is next week. We should do something special for it.”
I take a sip of my water and sit back in my chair, studying the man across from me who just blatantly dodged my question.
The one who doesn’t look like he’s been up for more than a day delivering babies and doing surgeries.
The man who is becoming more and more unexpected and confusing as the days I’m spending with him tally up.
“What do you think we should do?” I throw back at him, curious if for no other reason than Carter seems to be the man with a plan. He brought me here this morning after all.
My smoothie arrives and I take a small sip, and wow, it’s fucking fantastic. If my waffles are anything like this, I’m in for a real treat. And maybe that’s why he did this? So I could have a treat? Something nice as he said.
Forget whiplash, he’s giving me a migraine the more I try to figure him out.
Is he… is he wooing me?
Have I been reading the signs wrong all this time?
Or is this just Carter being a good guy, looking out for his resident and his brother’s best friend? I legit can’t tell. All I know is Carter isn’t interested in dating me. If anything, he wants to fling with me. Sort of how Margot said. That’s what he does. He doesn’t do relationships, he flings.
I inwardly sigh at myself. I’m way overthinking something that does not require this level of insight… or oversight. This is what I mean. I can’t do casual. Hell, I can’t even have breakfast without dissecting every damn thing the man does.
“How’s the smoothie?”
“Marvelous. Want some?” I stare as I hold my glass out to him, but all he does is shake his head no. Huh. “How can you drink coffee before sleeping?”
“I’m not going to sleep until this evening. If I sleep today, it will mess with my rhythm and then I won’t sleep tonight, and I’ll be a mess to start the week.”
“I’ve tried doing that. I never make it past two without crashing hard.”
“I usually make it to about five or six and then I crash for the night.”
Ah. The life of a doctor.
“We keep skirting around your birthday,” he says, and I can’t fight my smile.
We do. We’re skirting around a lot of things it seems. It feels like a game, one I’m not sure how to win or lose, especially when I don’t know the rules or even the stakes.
“What would Tony have done for you?”
That’s an interesting question for him to ask.
“Usually, Tony would have bought me a piece of jewelry and then taken me out for an expensive dinner. But maybe I’ll do something with the girls this year?
I don’t know. I don’t care all that much about it.
Honestly, I never really did. All the jewelry he bought me I never wore because, well, life of a resident and most of it wasn’t my style anyway.
It was like he bought it for me because he read in a magazine somewhere that’s what you’re supposed to do.
I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, it’s just… ”
He never asked me what I wanted or gave any consideration to what he purchased.
Every birthday and every Christmas, the same thing.
Jewelry and dinner. Huge diamond drop earrings.
An emerald necklace. A sapphire and ruby pin—who our age wears pins?
If I were ever meeting the Queen of England, I would have had the right jewels, short of that…
It was always from the same jewelry store too and now I can’t help but wonder if he was fucking the woman who helped him pick out whatever he bought for me.
That’s where my mind goes now whenever I think of him and the things he did for me.
Right now, I only know about two women, but I know there were more. I just do and I… I hate him.
I’ve moved past disgust and now I’ve officially reached the hate stage of this.
“No jewelry or even fancy dinners for you then. How about a party?”
I stare blankly at Carter. A party? That could be—
“It could be just what you need.”
I smirk at him. “Are you reading my mind now?”