26. Chapter 26
Chapter 26
Walker
T here’s a zero percent chance that I wake up tomorrow without a hangover, but I can’t bring myself to care. It feels good to let loose, even if Beau keeps trying to pimp me out to every group of females at this damn pool party.
“What’s the wildest thing you’ve ever seen at the hospital?” a raven-haired girl with fake tits asks, batting her also-fake eyelashes at me.
If I wasn’t already feeling my liquor, I would audibly groan and walk away because that’s the absolute worst question you can ask someone who works in healthcare. It’s not like the shit we see most days in ortho is even as traumatizing as other specialties. But we all have that one story that comes to mind—the story that haunts us, and will continue to haunt us, for the rest of our lives.
Usually, I make up something about a professional athlete, but I’m still in a foul mood after last night so I answer honestly.
“A college kid was on Lake Lanier with his friends and backed his boat into a telephone pole. Most of them died instantly from the live wire, but he survived. They flew him to the trauma hospital where I was on rotation, and we had to amputate all of his limbs. He would have done fine, but his electrical burns were so bad that he was permanently disfigured and in a fuck ton of pain, so he ended up killing himself a few weeks later.”
I don’t add the fact that I can still see his face and the screams of his family. I’m drunk and irritated, but I still know when I’ve gone toofar . . . which it appears that I have because fake tits face goes white, and she excuses herself to go get a drink.
This type of thing is exactly why people in healthcare tend to end up together. You don’t have to pretend like you’re living a glamorous life because you both understand the realities of the job. Even when I was married, I never felt like I could be completely honest with my wife about work. Especially because the few times that I tried, she didn’t seem to fully comprehend the emotional and physical turmoil that it takes to witness the things that we do, so I eventually got tired of trying.
Beau looks over at me with an appalled expression, but I just shrug and slurp down the final sips of my drink.
“Bro, that was dark.” He shakes his head as he watches the woman retreat into the crowd. “It’s like you never want to get laid again.”
“I wasn’t going to fuck her anyway. She was plastered.”
I don’t tell him that I have no interest in hooking up with anyone other than Morgan, even though I haven’t been acting like it today. Each time I glance at her, my heart feels like it’s being ripped open because we’re on two different sides of a game of tug of war—I want more, and she’s never going to give it to me. I doubt she even cares that women have been coming up to me right and left this afternoon, vying for my attention, or that the only place I want to put that attention is on her.
“Still.” Beau furrows his brow, like he’s worried about me. “You know that’s not how you flirt, right? Come here, we’re going to practice. ”
Before I can protest, he pulls me into a headlock and drags me over to his girlfriend and Morgan. I try to escape his hold, but the fucker is strong and determined to piss me off.
“How many Sharpies do you think you could fit in your ass, big boy?” Claire giggles from her seat at the edge of the pool.
The fuck? What kind of greeting is that?
These two are a match made in heaven.
Beau’s hearty laugh shakes his arm around my neck. “Not as many as I could fit in yours. Especially not after that—”
Claire squeals and slings her body into the water, covering his mouth before he can finish his thought.
I wriggle free from his grasp right before they start making out, not eager to inadvertently become part of a threesome with my friends.
Morgan watches them make out with a disgusted grimace on her face. “You guys are insufferable.”
She looks so fucking good, it’s painful. And now that I’m less than a foot away from her with no one to distract me, there’s no way I could even try to keep ignoring her.
With our friends occupied, I give in to the pull between us. Leaning in, I lower my voice. “Hate to break it to you, but so are you, little devil.”
Her green eyes flicker with surprise but remain glued on Beau and Claire. “Am I now? Well, it’s a good thing you’ve avoided me all day then. None of the girls you’ve been flirting with looked insufferable .”
Warmth spreads through my chest—she’s jealous. “I’m surprised you care. What is it that you said last night? That this is a transaction? Didn’t know paying attention to you was part of the fee.”
I know I’m goading her—that for the first time ever, I’m giving her a taste of her own medicine. But if I’ve learned anything about Morgan over the past few months, it’s that she isn’t going to admit to anything that makes her feel vulnerable. And there’s nothing more vulnerable to a fiercely independent woman than commitment.
Her throat works as she drops her focus to the empty drink clutched in her hands. “Maybe we need to revisit the terms to something more exclusive.”
I glance to make sure that our friends are still distracted before I take her chin between my fingers, directing her attention back to me. “Maybe we do.”
For a moment, she’s silent. Her hooded eyes search mine like they’re trying to read my thoughts, but I’m not going to step in. I’m going to let her tell me what she’s ready for. Because whatever it is, I’m ready too.
“Uh oh,” Claire sings right as Morgan is about to open her mouth. “Morgs, are you in trouble with Walkie-talkie?”
We both freeze, and the look in her eyes tells me that we’ll continue this discussion later.
“He’s the one in trouble,” she jokes, pulling out of my grasp. “Especially now that he has a new nickname.”
Beau snickers, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “So I take it the flirting went well?”