Chapter 6 – Skylar
SKYLAR
Would it be wrong to hit the cocky, new, hotshot trauma surgeon in the nuts again? As we walk down the hall, I take a quick glance down at his family jewels and wonder how I could make it look like an accident. Happened once, right? I’ve also been known to be clumsy on occasion.
“I see you plotting over there. Leave my boys out of this.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say sweetly.
“Staring at my dick is sexual harassment. What would Josh say about where your curious little eyes are venturing?”
Josh. That’s another thing. What the fuck does he want? What is this? Ghosts of bad exes and mistaken kisses day?
“You’re an ass.”
“Not a dick?”
“Are you always like this?”
“No,” he answers with a note of honesty. “It’s something about you that drives it out of me.”
“Yeah. Like I said. You’re an ass.”
His head snaps down toward me. “How am I an ass? I simply wanted my tour before lover boy asked you some basic, inane question he already knew the answer to just so he could talk to you.” A large hand on my arm that happens to graze my boob pulls me to a screeching halt.
“Wait. Is he the guy who bought you the chocolates? Is he who you were with last night? You mentioned an ex, not a new boyfriend.”
A bitter laugh catapults from me. “You know I’m twenty-five, right? I graduated from nursing school at the top of my class. I even earned an award for it. I’m a damn good nurse, and I save lives on a daily basis. That means no one gets to play games with me. Not anymore and not ever again.”
He frowns. “I’m not playing games.”
My hands fly frantically about. “Bullshit, you’re not. Sky was going to show me around,” I mock his voice. “Never in my life have you ever called me Sky.”
“I would have called you Swan, but I felt that was revealing my hand a bit too much, and I didn’t want him to think we’re together. Just wonder enough to fuck off since I’m his new boss.”
“Argh. Stop.” I shove at his chest, more than a little frustrated by all things men. "I don’t need another big brother playing the role of protector. One is enough. I know Micha asked you to babysit and cockblock me.”
He laughs. Kind of loud. “Sure. Yeah. You got it, Swan. No more acting like a big brother. Since that’s obviously what I was doing.”
I squint at the sarcasm in his voice but move on to the next hot button. “Why do you call me Swan? Is it meant to be ironic?”
His eyebrows take a nosedive. “Ironic?”
I fold my arms over my fleece and adjust the stethoscope around my neck.
“Do you think I don’t know that people used to call me an ugly duckling?
Do you think I didn’t hear them when they talked about me behind my back?
‘Poor Skylar, so short and awkward, she’ll never be tall and graceful.
Poor Skylar with those vomit green eyes that are a little too big and lips that are a little too thick and wide and a nose that’s a little too small for her face.
She’ll never be beautiful. Such an ugly duckling’. ”
He shifts into me, his hand on my upper arm, and his expression fierce. “Who the fuck said that about you? Not Micha.”
His extreme reaction throws me back a step.
“No. Not Micha, but everyone else. The kids at school, my dance instructors, and even some parents and teachers.” And it didn’t stop there.
High school kids can be brutal. Especially rich, elitist kids.
In college, guys weren’t much better and only pretended to be interested in me because of my family.
Then I met Josh after I started here and was so broken and affection-hungry that I fell for his love bombing.
All the gifts and gestures and affection.
It was incredible. Like waking up to a bright sunny day after a never-ending nightmare.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before he started treating me like shit and making me feel like the old, chewed-up gum you step on in the street and then curse at for being there.
They all made me feel so small, so ugly, so insignificant, and useless, but he was the worst of them. And my wake-up call.
“That’s pretty fucked up.”
I remove his hand from my arm. “No less true, though.”
“That’s not why I call you Swan.” The strong, sober note in his eyes and the hard set of his jaw demand I take him seriously.
“I think it suits you. Beautiful,” he emphasizes, “smart, protective, untouchable, and a little mean. Plus, your skin is so fair, and your hair is so blonde it’s almost white.
” He takes a strand between his fingers, and my belly jumps.
I huff a breath and swat his hand, along with that feeling, away. “I’m not mean.”
“You are to me. All of those things, actually.”
I close my eyes. “Ugh. Stop. Why are you here?”
“I work here.”
I cock an eyebrow, unimpressed with his deadpan response. “I meant, why did you ask for me to show you around?”
He sighs and runs his hands up his face and through his hair before he nods as if coming to some sort of conclusion.
“We’ve somehow gotten on the wrong foot since Saturday night.
Perhaps since the kiss. I’m known for being cocky, and I guess I am in a lot of ways, but mostly around my job.
I used to be cocky and confident with women, but I haven’t been in a very long time, and something about you brings it back out of me. It’s kind of addictive.”
He holds up his hand to stop me, as he can see I’m about to argue.
“Since my divorce, I’m an idiot a lot. I say stupid things.
I’m also really bad at saying the right thing at the right time with women, and a lot of my confidence has vanished.
You say you’re awkward. Well, I am too now.
Then you didn’t come home last night, and I feel like shit about it.
I don’t want to kick you out of the home you’ve been living in, but I also don’t want to live with you.
I was hoping to clear the air between us.
You’re Micha’s little sister, and I’ve known you your whole life.
Yet despite my best intentions, I keep setting off stink bomb after stink bomb with you. ”
My nose scrunches. “That’s kind of gross.”
He tosses his hands up. “See what I mean? Regardless, it’s no less accurate.
It’s been a rough couple of years for me, and there’s something about you that gets me going and makes it so I don’t know how to stop.
But you’re not someone I want to be enemies with, and you’re definitely not someone I can flirt with.
I’ll behave. No more teasing or stepping in with your new boyfriend. ”
I don’t correct him about Josh. Just as I didn’t tell him who the chocolates were from.
I don’t even know why. Maybe old protective instincts die hard.
Or maybe it’s because I stupidly and immaturely like that he called me beautiful and acted, well, jealous.
Even if he was just trying to be brotherly or noble on Micha’s behalf or whatever that was.
It has been a rough couple of years for him.
He got divorced and then lost his ex-wife and had to deal with whatever Zoey’s stepdad put him through and is now a single dad.
We all deserve a pass and a second chance.
“Fine. Let me finish showing you around.”
He smiles, and I wish he wouldn’t. It’s a damn good look on him.
“Thank you.”
I nod and take him on a tour of the floor, showing him where the storage and supply rooms, the crash carts, and the Pyxis MedStations are.
I don’t bother with the break room or locker room because he’s a surgeon, and they have their own on a different floor.
As we walk, I explain that the floor is mostly divided between surgical and medical patients and how we keep them separate to prevent unnecessary exposure and infections.
“Big floor,” he notes, looking around now that we’re back where we started. “My last hospital had a separate SICU.”
“We have forty beds and are one of the highest-volume pediatric ICUs in the country.”
He grins. “Now you know why it wasn’t such a hard sell for me to move back here.”
“Should we come up with rules?”
He peers down at me, stepping in a bit closer than he should. Closer than I’d like. Especially when he smells like expensive manly bodywash and not the hospital. “Rules?”
“Rules for living together. I haven’t had a roommate since college, and the only man I’ve ever lived with was my boyfriend. I don’t know how this works, and you’re a grown man with a child.”
He chuckles lightly. “I think the rules are still the same as they were in college. Stay out of my shit, and I’ll stay out of yours.
As for cleaning up after myself, as you said, I’m a grown man and a father, and I do that already.
I won’t eat your food, but since I have a tendency to overbuy groceries for Zoey, you can help yourself to whatever I get.
I’m good at making breakfast, but I’m not the best at dinner, so if you want takeout, just let me know and I can order you stuff. No men. No parties.”
I smile up at him. “No men?”
He smiles back. “Those were Micha’s orders, but I’m not sour on them.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m not bringing men home, but that has nothing to do with you or Micha. And the only people I ever have over are my people, who you already know.”
“Then we’re good. Other than no more hitting me in the nuts or kissing me in dark rooms, I’m not sure what other rules we need. Since you’re moving out soon anyway.”
I flip him off, and he chuckles.
“Thanks for showing me around. I have to get going. Will I see you tonight?”
I peek up at him. It’s annoying how good he looks in blue scrubs. They match his eyes almost perfectly, and his blond hair is a little too long on top, like he’s gone a while between haircuts, but it totally works on him. Sucks he’s so pretty. And he knows it.
“You’re done for the day?”
“Half day. Zoey has a preschool meet and greet.”
I smile thinking about that for her. “That’s exciting.”