Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Gabe
Mia didn’t answer her phone and I didn’t bother leaving a message.
Instead, stalking around my empty apartment, I decided to call back.
I owed it to her, to watch out for her. I was being protective, not an asshole interfering in someone else’s business.
Matchmaking was a responsibility. Tapping in her number a second time, she answered after four rings.
I stopped where I was, in front of my refrigerator.
“Gabe, what’s going on? What’s so urgent you had to call me tonight?” Her voice held that now familiar teasing note, making me forget where I was, what I was doing, why I called.
“Of course I had to call—I’m your matchmaker. I had to find out how your date went.”
“Not buying it.”
“You didn’t like Tate?” The only way I could play this was purposefully obtuse.
She laughed. “I like him fine. That what you needed to hear?”
Letting the sound of her laughter lighten me, I opened the refrigerator door and took out a protein drink, shaking it.
“You sure? Maybe Denise was right—maybe I shouldn’t have fixed you up with a football player.” Maybe I shouldn’t be fixing her up with anyone at all.
“I’m a big girl, Gabe. I don’t need someone holding my hand while I meet new people.”
“You’re sure? No residual feelings for Paul interfering?” Or feelings for me?
She let out an exasperated laugh and I slugged down half the protein drink. “In some circles I’m known to be highly competent,” she said.
“What circles would that be?”
“At work. I have an important job, you know.”
“I do. Anything involving blood and guts is highly important.” I had a smile on my face now as I walked to my living room and sat in my oversize chair, putting my feet up. If I didn’t go near my bedroom, there was no harm in talking, carrying on a friendly conversation.
She chuckled, low and sensual. “You’re incorrigible. You know that?”
“Tell me more about your job.” I was far from ready to let her off the hook.
“What’s to tell? Blood here, guts there.”
I laughed. “Life and death. High stress. Lots of emotions. Sounds like hell.”
A beat of silence passed before she spoke.
“Hell if you can’t handle it. Important work if you can. Like my father told me, if you have it in you to handle life and death, then you have to do it, because someone has to do it. Not everyone can and people count on us.”
I was stunned into a momentary silence as I took in her words and felt the unusual sensation of being insignificant, inconsequential as the big football star next to her emergency room miracle worker.
“Gabe?”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Just feeling a little humbled.”
A soft tinkling chuckle drifted to my ear, soothing my ego, making me want to be there with her.
“Honestly,” she said, her voice quiet. “It’s a big job being in charge of the emergency room, triage, the EMTs, and I’m not sure if I’m ready for it. To be a leader.”
My heart cracked to hear the pain of self-doubt in her voice.
“You’re ready, Mia. You’re calm, cool, serious. You’re a natural leader. You have that central core of rightness in you.” Wherever you go I would follow. I wanted to tell her that, be completely honest with her, but I couldn’t. I had no right.
Instead, I said, “What made you get into it?”
“My father.”
No hesitation. I sensed there was more, waited as I stood leaning against my kitchen counter, holding the phone to my ear with one hand and the empty protein drink container with the other. I tossed the container into the sink. The housekeeper would get it tomorrow.
She finally let out a huff of air and spoke.
“The great and mighty world-famous heart surgeon. He inspired me. I know I may have resented his career, just a little, taking him away from the family, from me, so much when I was young, but I grew to really admire him and his passion for his work. My mother flat-out adored him, worshipped him, would have done anything for him.” She quieted, then finished.
“Including have a baby when she’d never planned to. ”
I felt the stab for her across time and space, and sucked in a breath. I said, “That’s tough.”
“Not anymore. She’s admitted to being more than glad Dad changed her mind. He said he didn’t have to twist her arm very hard. I say it’s because she wanted to do nothing more in life than please him first, and second, please me. In my family, my father always came first, for both me and my mother.”
“You must be pretty lost without him now. Both of you.”
She sighed deeply, giving away the hurt in her soul, making me feel the pain with her.
“Always. It’s been hard, I won’t lie. But he’s with me every day.
You know what I mean? He inspires me. That’s why this job means so much to me.
I know I got it partly because of him, because the chief resident, the doctor in charge of emergency room staffing, was an old colleague and admirer of his.
I didn’t have enough experience, not really.
But I’m going to make up for it with hard work.
I’m taking a page from your book, Gabe. I’ve been hanging around on my off shift, eating with some of the operating room nurses and EMTs, going out of my way to get to know people. ”
“Can’t hurt, but don’t sell yourself short. You have a lot to offer.”
She laughed when I didn’t mean for her to. I lifted myself from the counter and walked automatically to my bedroom. It was getting late.
“And you would know this how?”
“I have good instincts about people. You’re wise beyond your years, brighter than most, and you’re a giving and gracious person.” You make people want to be around you. You make me want to be around you.
“What kind words. It’s a good thing you can’t see me blush.”
“You went and gave your blushing secret away. I never would have guessed.”
She laughed and I breathed deep, closing my eyes, taking in the sound and everything under it, the pleasure, the delight, the easygoing nature, letting it soothe and buoy me. I stood on the threshold of my bedroom.
“I’ll have to let Denise know you’ve been good to me. A perfect gentleman.”
Those words opened my eyes, caught me up, brought me back to reality.
“Good. Talk her into coming up for regular conjugal visits while you’re at it.”
She laughed and I swear I could hear sympathy in it, not the sorry kind, but the kind that tells you you’re right, that you deserve better. I went to my bed and sat on the edge.
“I’ll make it my mission. The disclaimer is that I have little influence in the Gabe-the-boyfriend department with your girl. She has it in her head that—”
She paused. I knew she was torn about talking behind Denise’s back, but I pressed her.
“Go on. Tell me. I probably already know or could guess.”
“Then guess. I’ll tell you if you’re right.”
“She’s teaching me a lesson.”
“Not exactly.”
“She wants to make me miss her?”
“Bingo. She wants absence to make the heart grow fonder.”
“What does she expect to get out of it?”
“You know the answer to that better than I do.”
“A diamond.”
“I think you’re right.”
I didn’t like the direction of this conversation. A dead end, as if I were having the discussion with Denise.
“How did we end up talking about me and Denise? I thought that was a taboo subject between us?”
“You’re right. We should be punished for breaking that rule.”
The instant she said it, my mind went exactly where it had no business going, in a perverted direction about what kind of punishment I wanted to give Mia.
I was bad. I had to get myself under control.
I had more important things to do with my energy than waste it on the untenable situation Denise had created.
Hell, I was better than this. I could deal with Denise and my neglected cock. And Mia with her strange hold over me. I wish she had hold of my cock. Damn me. Taking a deep, shaky breath, I figured it was time to end the call. It was late.
“Gabe? I was joking.”
I chuckled halfheartedly. “I know. But when I see you next, I plan to take you over my knee.”
“Promises, promises.”
We were now officially flirting when I should be ending the call. “Good night.”
There was a pause. “Good night, Gabe.”
I disconnected, wishing it didn’t feel so much like a goodbye. A final goodbye. I’d passed her off to Tate, so my work was done, obligation met. I didn’t have to ever see Mia again.
But hell, Denise and flirtations aside, that didn’t feel right.
Mia felt like an old friend from college, from the old days before I’d become famous, as if the shared experience of Auburn U bonded us somehow now that we were past it, out here in the big world.
Abandoning her after a couple of dinners and one introduction didn’t feel right at all.
But having wet dreams about her didn’t feel right either.
I leaned back on my pillow and swore at my fate.
It was close to midnight. Not too late to call Denise for a late-night, long-distance booty call.
But my heart wasn’t in it even if my dick was.
I turned on the television to the NFL network and settled in to watch a rerun of an old Super Bowl game.
The one the Militia played in before I got there, when Trent Lockheed had been QB.
If I hadn’t seen the game a dozen times before, it would have kept me awake, but I knew I’d be asleep by halftime and I was.
Waking up at five a.m. the next morning wasn’t easy. I reached for my phone to turn off the alarm and realized it was the ringer. Some brave a-hole was calling me at this hour. I picked up the phone and was surprised to see who it was.
“Denise.” I breathed into the phone, a mix of annoyance and hope for sex making me fully alert.
“Did I wake you?”
“Sure, but you know I never mind it when you wake me.”
She laughed. “Sorry, but it’s not going to be that kind of call, sweetheart. Though I do have good news. I’m coming to Boston for next weekend’s season opener after all. I spoke with Mia last night and, well, she told me how sweet you’ve been. So—”