Chapter 2
XAVIER
I’d been out of line. There was no doubt about it.
But Honovi Baptiste was a gorgeous man—slender and olive-skinned with sleek, black hair pulled back into a low bun. This late in the day, a few rogue wisps had worked their way free and caught the evening sun as it streamed through the conference room window.
In our previous meeting, I’d had a chance to see the put-together hospital attorney lose his cool. And when he’d gotten angry, the apples of his cheeks had turned a delicious ruddy pink.
I’d simply wanted to see if I could make it happen again.
Wanting Honovi was out of line, too. I’d only been back in Hobie for a few months, only been working here at the hospital for the same. The last thing I needed to do was fuck up my fresh start by sleeping with the attorney defending us all from an entitled patient.
As I made my way back to the surgical wing, one of my favorite post-op nurses lifted her eyebrows. “Why are you still here? I thought you left hours ago.”
I tilted my head back toward the admin hall, where the conference room was. “Meeting with an attorney about the Loflin case.”
“Again? I thought you already met with them. Multiple times.” Bobbie’s forehead scrunched. “What’s complex about an appendectomy?”
I didn’t bother explaining it. The truth was, I wasn’t supposed to discuss the case with people without an attorney present anyway.
“You know how legal stuff is,” I said instead.
“I’m headed home in a bit. Just wanted to check our post-op patients’ charts, now that I’m done being interrogated by Mr. Baptiste. ”
Her eyebrows furrowed as she followed me to the nurses’ station, where I took a seat at one of the computers to log in and review the charts. “Oh, Hon was the attorney you met with?”
“Yes, why?”
She shrugged. “It’s just weird. He specializes in family law. The hospital’s legal team is based in Dallas.”
I looked up at her while the information sank in. The hospital and I were being sued for millions, and they’d farmed the case out to a divorce and custody attorney?
She continued without needing a response from me.
“Well, I guess no one can complain about having to spend time with Hon,” she said, a dreamy look coming over her face.
“He’s so sweet. And good-looking. My sister has a huge crush on the guy after he helped her with her custody case.
I keep trying to tell her he’s gay, but she still thinks she has a shot. ”
The news that the angry attorney was gay was unexpected.
He’d been so damned generic, so neutral in our meetings thus far, that I hadn’t been able to discern a single thing about him.
But maybe that was because he was out of his depth.
Surely a small-town family attorney didn’t have the slightest idea of how to handle a large medical malpractice suit.
As Bobbie continued sharing her thoughts about how attractive the man was, I couldn’t help the coil of heat in my gut. I wouldn’t mind taking my frustration over this case out on the pretty lawyer’s naked body.
Unfortunately for me, my parents were still hanging on to hopes that I’d reconnect with West Wilde, the man I’d met in high school and dated in med school, now that I was back in Hobie. I hadn’t disabused them of the notion because of my pride.
The truth was, West had found me dull and uninspiring.
“There’s just no passion there, you know?
” he’d said. No, I hadn’t known. What I’d thought was a perfect relationship had, apparently, been mediocre at best. That revelation had been soul-crushing.
It had taken me a long time to let anyone else in, but I’d finally found someone special in Atlanta.
And that had turned to shit, too.
After West, I’d been once bitten, twice shy. And after Zach, I’d been twice bitten, don’t even fucking think about it shy.
So I was done. Done with relationships and completely here for quick and dirty fucks wherever I could get them.
Unfortunately, Hobie, Texas, wasn’t a hotbed of activity on the apps. And almost the entire town’s gay population seemed to sport the last name Wilde.
Which meant I was coming up on desperate times. And that attorney was a delectable treat.
“What makes you think Mr. Baptiste is gay?” I asked as casually as possible. My sexuality wasn’t a secret because I assumed most people knew that West and I had been a thing back in the day. But I made a point not to talk about personal stuff at work.
Bobbie waved her hand. “People are always trying to set him up with different guys, but he’s never all that interested. Says he’s too busy with work, and I believe him. Man works impossible hours… kind of like you’ve been doing lately.”
I shrugged. “Maybe if they find a replacement for Khidhri, things will calm down a little. But it’s no problem for me. I like what I do. And if I have too much free time, my own parents will jump on the matchmaker bandwagon.”
I winked at her and turned back to my charts. Unfortunately, the slipup into mentioning my private business didn’t go unnoticed.
“And you wouldn’t want that?” she asked, clearly fishing.
I answered without looking away from the screen. “Hell no. I have no interest in dating right now. I just got out of a relationship in Atlanta. Moving here was a good chance to put it behind me, not replace it.”
“Mm. Well, if you change your mind, let me know. There are about a thousand nurses in this hospital alone who’ve tried to call dibs on you since you arrived.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head with a laugh. “Please don’t tell me who, or that will make tomorrow’s OR very uncomfortable.”
She said good night through her own laughter and took off toward the elevator.
I finished my notes and gathered my things, happy for once to be heading home to my own bed, even though my rental house was still half-empty of furniture and half-full of boxes.
On the way home, I stopped to pick up a grilled chicken salad I’d ordered from a local bistro that definitely hadn’t been here when we’d moved to Hobie my senior year in high school.
When the hostess turned to reach for my order on the to-go shelf, I noticed the order two over from mine had the name Baptiste written on it in black marker.
“Is that Baptiste order for Honovi?” I asked.
The woman glanced more closely at the order. “Yes, sir.”
“Can I pay for that one, too?”
She shrugged. “Sure, if you’d like. That’s awfully nice of you.”
I handed her my credit card. “Not really. I made a difficult meeting even more difficult for him today, so buying his dinner is the least I could do.”
That wasn’t the real reason, but I wasn’t quite sure what the real reason was. To be nice? Hardly. To exert control over the man? No. So why did I want to buy his dinner? It certainly wasn’t to apologize for the colossal waste of time today’s meeting had been.
For some reason, seeing that Hon’s order was only comprised of a single entree made me feel both relieved and disappointed. Relieved because I didn’t want to imagine buying dinner for Hon and his date. Disappointed because I also didn’t want to imagine him going home to eat alone.
As I signed the receipt, I considered sticking around and asking if he wanted to share our meals somewhere.
Maybe a bench outside or possibly a spare table in the restaurant if they were willing to let us have it.
But then I pictured the look of disgust on his face from our meeting today and decided I wasn’t up for that kind of rejection tonight.
So I went home and ate alone with only the memory of Hon’s narrowed eyes and ruddy cheeks to keep me company.