Chapter 8 – Catalina
The bar I pick is only a few doors down from the hotel our team is sleeping in tonight. It’s a cute little place in Denver strung with warm twinkle lights overhead, the kind that soften edges and make everyone look a little happier.
There’s an outdoor seating area, and I head straight for it without thinking. Fresh air, quiet, distance from the noise inside and privacy. I need all of it after the loud sounds at the rodeo.
I'm used to clinical silence, hushed voices, and the beep of machines that tell me my patients are still alive. Not cowboys and crowds shouting while animals grunt and try to kill my athletes.
I'm sure Jensen's exhausted after his ride and the hours he spent at the hospital with Heath, but tonight, I need a drink more than anything. And even though being around him still hurts, I don’t have the energy to fight with him anymore.
Usually, when I go back to my hotel room after dinner, I binge a show on Netflix or stare at the ceiling performing imaginary surgeries with just my hands and the air.
Sometimes I call my mom and listen to her talk the entire time in Spanish about whatever new hobby she's into while I do my ten-step skincare routine with her on speakerphone.
And even though any other night I would’ve told him no—just like I swore I would after our disaster of a dinner in Austin—I’m here. Giving him a second chance I can’t justify.
Maybe because I know that under my exterior, there is a heart beating, one I’m painfully aware exists even if everyone else pretends that it doesn’t. And that heart gets lonely sometimes. More so on the road surrounded by people in new cities.
There’s something about what Jensen’s going through that I understand.
Losing the thing that makes you feel alive, even temporarily, is brutal.
I know that kind of grief. I lived it when I walked away from surgery.
Identity and career are a tangled, messy knot.
And though he'll be back on a wild animal in a week or so, I'm sure he's disappointed.
I sink into one of the wicker chairs, letting my shoulders finally drop.
Jensen takes the seat across from me, his long legs stretching out like they’re aching, bumping lightly against the base of the unlit fire pit between us.
He moves like his body is held together by grit and tape, like he’ll fall apart if he stops.
I noticed the other scars on Jensen's chest when I operated on him. The faded lines. The old bruises. The marks left behind long before he ever landed in my OR. It's probably not something I'm supposed to pay attention to. But I notice everything. I have to.
Every surgery starts with a map. I catalog every mark, every vein, every place I can cut while doing the least amount of damage.
It's my job to leave people better than I found them.
The world isn't nearly so careful. Wild animals don't care what they leave behind.
Neither do most men when they're hurting you.
Looking at Jensen, I can tell he knows that too.
“Welcome. Can I get you two something to drink?” our server asks politely as they slide up to our chairs.
I open my mouth to order my usual glass of red wine, but something in me rebels. This whole job—this entire rodeo adventure side-quest—is supposed to shake me awake. Push me off autopilot. That's what Hayes said it'd do for me, and I'm resisting it at almost every turn.
Maybe that's why my ex cheated on me. Because I was boring and predictable.
He could order my meals at restaurants, order my wine without ever asking me what I wanted.
He knew my routine so well that he could sneak around and have a full-on affair without me ever noticing or catching him because I was like a robot caught up in my predictable world.
I know it wasn’t my fault he cheated. I know that. But I can’t help turning it over in my mind anyway. I can't help but wonder if I'd been a little more spontaneous, I might have realized a lot sooner what was happening directly under my nose.
Perhaps whiskey isn’t the most medically responsible choice, but neither is sitting in a spiral for the rest of my life being unhappy with where my choices have gotten me.
“I’ll try a whiskey sour,” I hear myself say.
Jensen’s brows shoot up so high they nearly hit the brim of his baseball cap. I guess the side effect of me doing something spontaneous is Jensen going into cardiac arrest. He shakes his head and chuckles when the server turns to him for his order.
“Water’s fine.”
When the server walks off, we fall into our familiar staring contest. Except… it isn’t uncomfortable for me or him. At least I don't think it is.
Tonight, I let myself look at him. Really look. The strong jaw, the sunburned cheeks, that small crease between his brows that shows up whenever he’s thinking too hard. The way his hair curls around the bottom of his cap attractively. How his hazel eyes look almost green in the softer lighting...
“Do I need to go find the nearest defibrillator? You look like you’re going to have a heart attack,” I say.
His mouth cracks into a smile. “I love when you make heart jokes.”
“Do you ever drink?”
He shakes his head. “My surgeon told me it wouldn’t be wise after a complicated heart surgery, so I’ve refrained ever since. Don’t miss it much.”
“Your surgeon sounds like a smart one.”
He snorts. “Humble too. But the best. She has every right to tell me what to do, and I'll listen to her from now on.”
"Not your friends or your coach?"
He shakes his head. "Just my surgeon."
"But not about giving up riding?"
A small, sad smile fills his face. His voice is rougher when he says, "Not about that."
The server drops off our drinks, placing my whiskey sour in front of me with a smile.
“Look, Doctor Alba,” Jensen says quietly, leaning forward. I hold up a hand to stop him because I might be determined to keep this professional, but it's after hours, and there’s something about tonight that has me wanting to forget that I’m only his doctor.
“You can call me Catalina when we aren't working together.”
He gives a short nod. “I want to apologize for not listening to you about riding tonight and my shoulder.”
I don’t respond. I just let the silence stretch.
He pulls off his baseball cap, running his fingers through messy, light brown hair that absolutely has not seen a brush today, but somehow still works for him. Everything about him fits him in a way it shouldn’t.
His knee pops as he stretches out again. He doesn’t react, but I catch it. Years of training mean I can practically diagnose a stranger walking down the street. Unfortunately, I can tell that Jensen's about three years away from a knee replacement if he keeps abusing his joints the way he does.
My ex always complained about me noticing these things.
He'd say that I was “always on.” Personally, I saw it as a perk.
I'll never forget the time I diagnosed an unmanaged thyroid disorder in a server at a restaurant we were dining at. He was so grateful that I said something, but my ex looked like he was embarrassed that I’d brought it up...
or disgusted that I noticed it before he did. I'm not sure.
I never showed that his disregard for me hurt, just shoved it deep down, but I could never grasp why I was too much for him. Too helpful for him. Too smart for him.
Maybe it wasn't just my parents that conditioned me to never show my emotions or ask for connection. It was my ex, too.
Jensen leans back, and the top couple buttons of his flannel shirt give me a quick, sharp glimpse of the bull horn tattoo on his chest and the nearly invisible scar there from where I cut into him.
I remember looking down at that tattoo, gloves on, chest shaved and cleaned and thinking why would a man this attractive do that?
Why ink something that's already perfect?
And in the same vein, I remember thinking why the hell am I thinking about that, right before I cut into this guy?
I’ve never slept with a patient before. Hell, I’ve only ever slept with one person.
And that experience looking back had been uninspired.
Embarrassing, even. But sex has always been mechanical for me.
Something to do, not something to feel. Check a box.
I have this awful suspicion Jensen would be rougher, rawer than my ex just judging by the way he shakes hands, rides on a bull, and carries himself.
Not gentle and tentative like sex with my ex was.
I don’t know if I’d like it to be rougher. I’m not sure I’d hate it. I don’t know anything anymore, and that's a terrifying place to be in for a woman who likes to have things figured out.
“I didn’t ignore your advice because I thought I knew better than you,” he says, finally, choosing each word carefully. He flips his cap backward while he wrestles with his next sentence.
I blink.
Oh.
Oh, I like Jensen in a backward baseball cap too much.
“…It’s that bull riding is all I have,” he finishes, his voice quieter. “And I’m not ready to give it up just yet.”
I take a sip of my drink to distract myself from how hot he looks in that hat.
Normally, I’d immediately think about the increased risk of heart disease or organ strain or whatever else my brain likes to throw at me.
But something in me quiets with the taste of the whiskey.
Softens. For once, I don’t want to analyze the dangers of what I’m doing.
I want to understand the man who’s sitting across from me without hyper-fixating on what could go wrong.
I wet my lips. “I understand that looking at me, and given what you know about my last job, you probably wouldn’t assume I know much about orthopedics, or sports medicine.”
He takes a sip of his water, watching me carefully. “That wouldn’t be fair for me to say.”
“I don’t care about fairness. I care about honesty.”
He lifts his brows, then nods slowly. “Okay. Yes. That’s true. That is an assumption that I have made about you.”