Chapter 4
FOUR
TAY
Late October, New York City
Night shifts had this way of blurring the contours of the world, like everything happened with a half-beat delay.
By the time Gregg and I made it to Dean’s apartment, we were hungry, sleep-deprived, and fueled by bad coffee.
Breakfast, lunch, brunch? My body had long since lost track of what meal it was meant to be eating or whether I should be upright at all.
Somehow, when I’d considered studying medicine, the brochures hadn’t covered how I’d be driving myself into the ground.
“I want my money back,” I told Gregg just as we got out on Dean’s floor—elevator, too tired to take the stairs. We’d done enough running all night anyway.
Gregg didn’t even bother to hide a massive yawn. “Don’t we all?”
“Morning, guys,” Dean said from the doorway, his tone warm but maybe a shade brisk, efficient.
“Coffee?” He looked unfairly rested in a soft gray sweater and dark jeans, his hair doing that casual sweep thing.
By comparison, I felt mildly feral even after a post-shift shower, deodorant, and an extra three minutes in front of the mirror to look presentable.
“Please,” Gregg said, wide eyes and grabby hands.
Dean stepped aside with measured precision. “Come on in, then.”
I wasn’t sure what kind of place I’d expected—clean and organized for sure, unless he was one of those people who showed a very different side at work than they did in private.
Clearly not: The apartment was immaculate.
Open-plan living room, white kitchen, pale walls, and the kind of grown-up muted couch I’d only seen in catalogs.
No clutter, barely any art. A lone framed photo stood sentry on a narrow shelf—Dean and two women, all squinting into the sun. His mom and sister, probably.
The place wasn’t awful. It was just… sparse. Like a hotel suite someone had decided to inhabit for a while.
The smell, though. Oh, the smell. Roasted garlic and lemon, herbs. I’d have been happy with bread, butter, and jam, frankly anything that didn’t come from a vending machine or the sad salad bar in the hospital cafeteria. This, though? Wow.
“Smells amazing,” I said, toeing off my sneakers near the entrance, before I dug through my backpack for the Tupperware container. “Mousse au chocolat. Thank my roommate—they did all the work. I mostly just stirred.”
“Roommate?” Dean asked.
“Best friend, too.” I grinned. “Not all of us are fancy enough to live by ourselves.”
“Hardly fancy,” Dean said. “One bedroom, decent view, fairly quiet.”
Fair enough. He had the salary to upgrade ten times over, but apparently zero interest in pretending his life was bigger than it was.
Gregg stretched with another hearty yawn. “For the record, Tay kept the mousse in the staff fridge with a Post-it note that said, ‘Touch this and die.’ Didn’t think he had it in him.”
“Thought I was meant to be the intimidating one.” Dean’s smile flashed briefly, the brightest thing in this ode to minimalist adulthood.
“Not intimidation,” I said. “Accuracy.”
“Sure, babe.” He infused it with all the indulgence of a fortune teller in one of those weird late-night shows. Also, though—babe? He hadn’t even paused, like it was just a prop in our shared charade. Which, yeah. It was.
“Pet names?” Gregg tossed in. “Excellent effort, ten out of ten.”
I laughed, ignoring a hint of warmth along the back of my neck. Yeah, my crush hadn’t entirely dissipated, but it was only a matter of time. “We do try.”
“And we’ve got another month to perfect our act,” Dean said.
One month. It sounded like ages, except I knew how time worked at the hospital—two blinks and you were elbow-deep in December with no clue how you’d gotten there. Jesus. A fake boyfriend, a shared bed, and a week of pretending to stare only the exact right amount. Yep, totally fine.
Dean took the container from me and put it in the fridge while Gregg and I sat down at a table that was neatly set already. What a surprise. Not.
Even in my head, it sounded fond.
Dean fiddled for a moment, then came over with a tray—coffees, orange juice, a bottle of prosecco. I watched him set it all down with straight-backed precision.
“You own a tray?” I asked as our fingers brushed over the cup he handed me—a perfectly executed flat white. Huh, he must have been paying attention as early as when we’d first met at that café. Well, that made sense, didn’t it? As my supposed boyfriend, he needed to know how I took my coffee.
“My mom insisted,” he said.
I lifted an eyebrow—or maybe both, since I’d never really mastered the art of the single eyebrow raise.
“What?” he asked, faintly defensive.
“Nothing.” I smiled and shrugged with my hands. “It’s just very… you. Organized and all.”
“He also alphabetizes his spices.” Gregg was sprawled across the table like he owned the place, sipping his coffee with a half-lidded gaze aimed my way. “In case you were wondering.”
“Gregg.” Dean’s sigh carried just enough martyrdom to make me laugh.
“Honestly,” I said, “it’s kind of hot. Very adult. I’d rather fake-date you than some twenty-five-year-old party animal who thinks that reading a nonfiction book is a cruel and unusual means of torture.”
Unlike me, Dean had perfected his meaningful eyebrow arch. “Speaking from personal experience?”
“Yep.” I didn’t elaborate.
Curiosity flickered in Dean’s eyes, but he left it at a nod. I watched him carry the empty tray back to the kitchen, then remembered that tired or not, my parents had raised me better than to sit idly by while others were doing all the hard lifting. Or light lifting, in this case.
“Need any help?” I asked.
“Thanks, but that’s all right,” Dean said, already halfway back to the counter. “I’m not the one coming off a night shift. Think you’ve both earned a break.”
“Amen,” Gregg said.
A brief silence fell while Dean arranged the food and Gregg and I contemplated the murky depths of our coffee cups.
The amazing smell turned out to be oven-roasted potatoes, sprinkled with herbs, still steaming when Dean served them in a large bowl.
I stole one when his back was turned and nearly burned my fingers.
Ouch. Reflexively, I stuck my thumb in my mouth to cool the sting.
Dean glanced over—and his gaze caught, lingered, then smoothly moved on. But not quite fast enough.
A prickle of heat sparked in my chest. So. Not just me, then? Maybe?
Or maybe it’d been idle curiosity, nothing more.
He turned away to pour three glasses of prosecco with a subtle, measured rhythm.
It held the same economy of motion I remembered from the OR, handling instruments with calm certainty, his steady voice murmuring guidance.
Even beneath the spotlights, he never seemed hurried, just laser focused.
I’d watched him, both awed and acutely aware of my own sweaty palms, painfully sure I’d never radiate that kind of quiet authority.
“A little brunch bubbly,” Gregg said when Dean set the glasses down. “Very gay—I approve.”
“Says the guy whose work mug says, ‘Trust me, I’m fabulous (and also a doctor),’” I threw in. “In rainbow colors.”
“I fail to see your point,” Gregg said.
Dean sat down with a chuckle. “Feels like your tagline, buddy.”
“You love me.” Gregg’s tone was utterly confident, delivered with the same casual air one would use to comment on the weather. “Anyway. Guys—time to get down and dirty. Tell me how you met.”
“Is this part of your test?” Dean asked.
Gregg tilted his head, a grin playing about his mouth. “What do you think?”
Dean glanced at me, face unreadable, just as I glanced at him.
He motioned for me to start as he began dishing up the potatoes with a side of marinade, possibly homemade, eggs, and fried tomatoes, definitely homemade.
I took a sip of prosecco that sparkled along my tongue and considered how to interweave truth and lie.
It didn’t exactly help that yesterday, I’d spent a good thirty minutes researching the resort and ended up in a rabbit hole of drone videos and influencer commentary.
Private plunge pools, staff in actual uniforms, welcome drinks in hollowed-out coconuts.
I was equal parts excited and intimidated, not even sure I owned enough shirts that didn’t wrinkle in the heat.
Dean, on the other hand, probably had a skincare routine specifically designed for tropical humidity.
Being there with him, pretending I belonged? Just the thought felt like playing dress-up with someone else’s life.
“Well.” I dipped my chin and glanced up at him through my lashes, smiling. “It was during my CT surgery rotation. He was this brilliant guy, you know, more experienced, highly respected. I was impressed.”
“Intimidated, more like,” Dean interjected dryly, and I dropped the saccharine act and grinned at him.
“Well, what did you think, then?”
He didn’t miss a beat. “That you were the hottest resident who’d come through in a while.”
“Really?” My voice came out a little too curious. Joke? He didn’t sound like he was joking, but I didn’t know him well enough to tell just yet.
While he didn’t answer right away, the faint upward curve to his mouth gained a smug tilt. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Huh.
“Well, boys,” Gregg said, rapping his knuckles lightly against the table. “Not bad for a start—some teasing’s good, nice. But let’s dial up the flirting a notch, all right? I want to buy what you’re selling.”
“Noted.” Dean frowned just enough to betray a hint of tension, and Gregg flashed a grin.
“Oh, lighten up, man. It’s not a performance review.”
“Kind of is,” Dean said while I took another sip of prosecco and leaned back in my chair.
Yeah, right—of course it was. And it was Dean’s family we were trying to fool, so it made sense that he’d feel some complicated way about that when I still didn’t really get why he’d opted for a fake date in the first place.