Chapter 6 #2
“That’s actually… brilliant,” I admit, thinking deeper on that.
The idea is like a massive storm cloud, kicking up lightning in my head.
Because Layla is a Fritz—her sister, who was her guardian, married Oliver Fritz, and so Layla took his name when she was a kid and he adopted her—and the Fritzes are a family of famous billionaires, but they all work in the medical field.
Some even work at MGH where Fallon and Callan work.
Where Wynter now works.
So she’ll meet people she works with in the hospital, which is great because she’s new in town, and then I can show her I’m not a total douche and tell her the truth. Before she cuts me open. Gulp.
“Okay. Text her,” I tell Fallon while Layla and Aurelia start to dig in with gusto and plan an impromptu party. I even volunteer my place because it’s big, and well, it’s the least I can do since I started this circus.
A few minutes later, as we settle in to finally play some poker, Fallon’s phone chimes with a text. She reads it and then hits me with a huge, dazzling smile. “She’s in.”
My heart jumps in my chest. I’m going to see Wynter tomorrow. And I have no clue how this will go.
* * *
Doctors are boring. Or at least they’re very different to party with than football players or rock stars.
Or maybe I’m just antsy while I wait for Wynter to get here.
I need a crazy distraction, like someone throwing up in the pool or having drunken sex in the guest bedroom.
Everyone here is tame, speaking in polite tones, using coasters, and being careful not to make a mess or drink too much.
As I said, boring.
“Why do you look like you’re about to throw up?” Callan asks, handing me a glass of something that looks and smells like my private stash of expensive as fuck bourbon.
“Now we’re talking. Did you snatch this for us, or is this out on display somewhere requiring me to go and crack some skulls?” At five hundred a bottle, who could blame me?
He sighs. “This won’t turn into the frat party you need it to.”
I hate how well my best friends know me. And love it.
“So, this is just for us?”
“Yep. Just for you and me and possibly Aurelia, who saw me take out the bottle. But she’s earned it, living with Zax so I topped her off.”
“Good man. I always liked Reils, but she’s got nothing on my ice queen. I might be in trouble here, brother.”
He walks me over to the floor-to-ceiling windows with the view of the public gardens and Boston Common beyond, giving us a bit of privacy from everyone else.
I actually bought this place from Layla’s uncle, Luca Fritz, who is here making disparaging remarks about how much better it was when he lived here.
The circle of famous, wealthy Bostonians is small, and we all know each other.
“I like her.” Then I laugh because, first, I have no idea where the words came from.
And second, I sound like I’m fifteen. “It’s weird that I do, right?
I mean, I met her in a bathroom over a year and a half ago, and Thursday and Friday she was nothing but antagonistic to me.
Hot and sexy—the smartest woman on the planet, but antagonistic.
Part of me wondered if I had been thinking about her so much because of how bad things went that night in the bathroom.
Like maybe it was more pride and ego than actual desire, but after seeing her again, I’m pretty damn sure it’s her.
” I turn to look at him, my face scrunched up. “Am I crazy?”
Callan laughs lightly and smacks my back as he takes a sip of his drink. “If she’s your doctor, you can’t fuck her. You know that, right?”
I smirk tauntingly. “You mean the way you weren’t supposed to fuck and fall for your med student?”
He grins in return. “Yeah, exactly like that.”
“Maybe I just need to fuck her again. And do it right this time. Get her out of my system, because a woman like that… she’s—”
The door to the condo opens, and in she walks.
Instantly, I know I’m a dead man.
Her long, dark hair is down in silky, bouncy waves. Her makeup is minimal except for blood-red lips that make my cock jerk reflexively. She’s wearing a black dress, something fitted without being too tight and a little flirty as the flared-out hem plays with the pale skin just above her knee.
My jaw hits the floor, and my tongue lags out of my mouth, rolling along the floor like it’s a red carpet just for her.
“Good luck with fucking that out of your system,” he deadpans and gives my back a shove, pushing me in her direction. “She already owns your balls; you might as well stick them in her purse and hope she plays with them later.”
“If only.”
“Then why are you still standing here with me? Go get her, man, before someone else does.”
I falter, casting him a quick glance before turning back to her. “And when she hates me after I tell her the truth?”
“No woman has ever hated you.”
“You’re looking at the first.” I toss back the rest of my drink, hand him my empty glass, and do as the man says; I go get her, a moth to her flame.
Before I can reach her, Fallon swoops in and steals her full attention, hugging her and laughing like two sorority sisters reunited.
Only I already know—since I made Fallon tell me everything she knew about her—that they’re both math and science geeks and had very limited social lives in college. Can’t say I’m disappointed by that.
Wynter looks like she’s in seventh heaven talking to Fallon. They’re gabbing on, probably about how excited they are that Wynter is now in town and how cool it is that they’re not only working in the same hospital together, but, blah, blah, blah, who cares?
“Sorry, Fall. I have to steal your date.”
Because I need to tell her, yes, but I also want to be alone with her, and as Cal said, I don’t want anyone else to get her before I can.
“Asher? What are you doing here?”
I grab her hand and drag her away from Fallon, who is giving me a Cheshire grin. “So, funny thing,” I say over my shoulder as I lead her down the hall, debating where to take her. “This is actually my place.”
“What?” She tries to yank her hand free, but that’s not going to happen. I pull her into one of the powder rooms I have because bathrooms seem to be our thing. “No, Fallon invited me to a work thing. “I’m here to meet people I work with.”
“You’re not actually.” I spin her inside the room, shut and lock the door behind us, pick her up by her hips, and drop her on the counter beside the sink.
“What the hell is going on?” she yells, her hands flying, and then jutting out to ward me off. “How do you know Fallon, and why is this your place, and what are you doing with a houseful of doctors I work with?”
“All really good questions. I love how smart you are. Keeps me on my toes.” I shove her hands out of the way and stand directly in front of her.
“I know all of these doctors because I’m sort of friends with them.
My best friend Callan works in the emergency department of your hospital and is with Layla Fritz, whose entire family is in medicine, and half of them work at your hospital as well.
Fallon works with Oliver Fritz, who is Layla’s brother-in-law, and Fallon is also engaged to my best friend, Greyson Monroe.
It’s a lot, and I’m likely confusing you, but that’s the best explanation I’ve got.
I also attend all kinds of charity events with the Fritz family, so your doctor people are also my people.
If that makes sense. To answer your other question, you’re here for me because I planned this party for you, so I can talk to you.
You ran out on me yesterday, and I needed to tell you something in person before Monday and work and Coach and surgery got in the way. ”
She stares at me like I have three heads, none of which she finds appealing. “You planned an entire party just so you could talk to me?”
I hesitate, shifting in front of her. “Yes. And when you put it that way with the tone you’re using, it sounds a little crazy and desperate, but both of those accurately sum me up right now.”
Her eyes hold mine. “Why would you do all that? What is it you have to say that couldn’t wait? I barely know you and this seems a little… much.”
“I get that. Just bear with me, okay?”
“Fine. Talk.”
I cup her jaw in my hand, no longer able to hold back. “I have to tell you something important, and I didn’t want to do it at the stadium or in the hospital. Especially not before you were about to take a scalpel to my shoulder.”
She swallows hard. “Okay. Tell me already.”
My heart starts to pound out a merciless rhythm in my chest, like a hammer striking at my ribs, making me winded.
“We met before Thursday. About a year and a half ago. In a bathroom. Of a club.” My hand drops to the counter beside her legs, and I hold still, standing close but still giving her space.
She blinks at me, staring harder and deeper than she ever has before. Then she gasps, loud and resonating, her hand clapping over her mouth. “I told myself I was crazy.”
“You’re not.”
“No.” She shakes her head violently. “It’s not possible. It can’t be. Not you. Not now. Not this.”
“You remember now, don’t you?”
Her eyes pinch into narrowed slits, and she nods slowly, her hand still over her mouth. “Oh my God.”
“You ran out on me that night too. It was the night I won the Super Bowl. I’d had a few too many drinks and a couple too many muscle relaxants, and well, you remember what happened.
Or maybe not since you didn’t recognize me.
It was your birthday, and I knew you had been drinking, but I didn’t realize you were that drunk. ”
“You had longer hair. And a beard. Right?” Her face scrunches up as she looks me over again. “I didn’t imagine that. But your eyes were... different.”
“I grew my hair and a beard that season because a few of us on the team made a claim that we wouldn’t cut it until we won the Super Bowl. I cut my hair and shaved my beard off the next day. And my eyes are the same.”
“No. They were blue. I could have sworn they were blue.”
“They’re gray,” I correct. “Kind of colorless, which means they change colors depending on the lighting. The bathroom had a slight blue tint to it.”
“You’re really him. The guy who fucked me without a condom, ejaculated inside me, and then ran out immediately after.”
I frown. “That’s not how I meant it to go down. I can promise you that.”
She’s shaking now. Uncontrollably. And her eyes… they’re filling with tears. Tears that immediately start spilling over and onto her cheeks as she stares at me as if she’s seen a ghost.
This is definitely not the reaction I thought she’d have.
“Hey. What? What is it?” I cup her face again, brushing away the tears.
“I’m sorry I ran out, and I’m so sorry I didn’t use the condom.
That wasn’t a ploy or me trying to be an asshole.
I swear. I wasn’t… hard as I always am in those situations, and I wasn’t thinking because I was flustered, and you told me to hurry up, and so I just shoved it in.
I was… freaked out. And upset. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before, and I was scared.
Not only that, but I also didn’t want it to be as awful for you as I knew it was.
I was a mess. A little too drunk, and the muscle relaxants—”
“Asher,” she cuts off my rant, her watery eyes on mine as she says, “I have something to tell you too.”