Chapter 2
Tank pushed back his glass of Klingon blood wine to quizzically regard the man sitting across from him.
“Allow me to review the sequence of events.
You started sleeping with 'Ella' in September. Except right before she slept with you, she also slept with Satan from Orthopedic surgery, and the Man-Whore-Redhead from the ER.”
Neurosurgeon Alex Casserty hung his head, Roan’s fellow anesthesia attending, Andrew Crozier, who had asked to be called Drew, elbowed him on the shoulder. “Pretty much how I heard it.”
The two doctors were the friends Roan had texted to meet up at the Sci-fi themed North Star Cafe. Per Roan’s plan, the combination of quirky Sci-fi décor and Casserty’s messy love pyramid-square-dodecahedron had successfully occupied Tank’s attention for the past hour.
“Right...” Tank had gotten out a pen, drawing a tree with names on a napkin adorned with a combination of the logo from Star Trek, the Galactic Rebellion, and Battlestar Galactica. “In January, you found out you are one of the possible three fathers of the pregnancy. Which is confirmed to exist?”
“Confirmed.” Crozier answered for the neurosurgeon again. “Ultrasound proof by OB in the presence of the MetroGen ER and a mere fifty witnesses.”
“Since the baby is real, and, the dates check out, any of you could be the father,” Tank used the voice Roan recognized as his ‘are you sticking to this story before I break down your door’ voice.
“They do for me,” Alex said. The ‘Ella’ up for discussion was ENT Dr. Stella Magi.
“Thus assuming they do for the other two?” Tank guessed and took another long swallow. “You hate the Ortho Satan the most because he had sex with Ella again after you were ‘on a break’?”
Alex turned a shade of red. “It was cheating.”
Across the table, Crozier rolled his eyes. He too had heard this entire ‘cheating’ debacle recounted, gossiped, speculated, and repeated regularly over and over for the past three months from their positions behind the anesthesia curtain.
Whether or not Ross and Rachel from Friends were on a break had nothing on the MetroGen surgical staff.
“But Ella thought you were broken up?” Tank said, adding another note to the timeline. “Pre-Thanksgiving?”
“We weren't broken up. If we were, it was only fifteen minutes later,” Alex took a swig of his own Bloodwine. He and Crozier had arrived in separate Ubers and weren’t on call, thus not restrained from imbibing.
“Sure. Except she and Ortho Satan were longstanding fuckbuddies. Ella had abandoned him to be with you and went back to him after what may or may not have been your breakup. Redhead Man-Whore is more of a fling?” Tank continued his quest to gain comprehension of why Ortho was more hated.
Roan opted to cut in or else there was a good chance they’d never get past how angry Alex was with Glazier. “Yes, he does not like Ortho. ER guy less of an issue.”
“Big hate him.” Casserty grimaced, finishing the last of his Bloodwine. “To the depths of my soul.”
“Also, Ortho was his doctor for his leg,” Roan added, dropping his one remaining Alternative Time-Line Pancakes and Meteor Sausage onto Alex’s plate. A hungover neurosurgeon tomorrow would not be a net positive for MetroGen.
“Ahh, more betrayal. Awesome. Not for you,” Tank amended and consulted his notes. “None of you know who the father is, and she's not talking to any of you?”
“We get text messages from her ex-second-cousin-in-law,” Alex said.
“Ex-second-cousin-in-law?” Tank started to laugh. “He or she? Any Game of Thrones sisterly bed-hopping?”
“Don't worry about that detail. Eat.” Crozier helpfully followed Roan’s lead by pouring syrup on the pancakes.
Good thing, too. Happy as Roan was to keep Tank distracted, explaining who was married/related to who could keep this going for days. Clarissa was still at his house, in his study, not getting the sisterly bed-hopping.
“It gets worse,” Casserty said mournfully, eating another bite of the sausage and pancakes. “We’re having an ‘all-possibly-daddy’ meeting soon.”
“Ménage à trois?” Tank chuckled, resulting in Casserty’s sour expression.
“Hell, no.” Alex lifted his glass and determined it was, in fact, empty.
“Besides, I think it's a reverse harem. Not a ménage à trois,” Crozier corrected them, and the other three guys gave him a 'look.' “Do you know what books our nurses are reading? They are very horny.”
“Can't disagree with that. I mean, after this discussion and Roan with his…” Tank shut up because Roan stomped on Tank’s foot.
Roan deflected by drinking a full Bloodwine of his own. He waved at their waitress. “Who feels man enough for a shooting star mimosa? Crozier, you in?”
“Sure, I’ll take one, but, Captain, can you please just call me Drew?” Crozier laughed, shaking his head. “Watch this. Alex, do you want a Shooting Star Mimosa?”
“Better not. Too tempting to drunk text St... er… Ella or Kandal. These pancakes are great, though. Can I have another order?” Alex said to the waitress as she came right back with two Shooting Stars.
“My pleasure.” The woman, currently dressed in a Star Trek short skirt uniform, highlighting her tanned legs, was clearly checking Alex out. “Need anything else, doctors?”
“We’re good.” Tank shook his head and waited till she left. “I’m not a doctor, and Casserty here doesn’t count as single.”
“I’m single,” Drew said, admiring her departing figure. “She noticed we’re doctors.”
“Yet only wanted Doctor Romance Disaster,” Tank disagreed. “Trust me, a woman who’s interested in Mr. Dark and Tortured is not a bird worth chasing.”
“Really? My nurses say—” Drew started.
Tank gestured with his fork, stabbing his own pancakes. “Nope. I’ve played that card, more than once. Tends to attract a pretty strange brand of crazy.”
“How crazy? Key your car crazy? Stalk you crazy?” Crozier asked, interest piqued.
“No. Those birds I can handle. Nesting birds are the worst. There you are, just wanting some sweet, nice girl pussy, and after you bang a few times, they want to ‘fix’ you. Do you have any idea how fucking obnoxious it is? When you tell them to get lost, they get more determined that they, and only they, can heal you. Fuck that. I like me the way I am.”
Tank’s diatribe stopped their waitress in her tracks, returning with Alex’s pancakes... and an extra shooting star mimosa.
“Sorry about that, ma’am. He was raised by wolves.” Roan stood and traded the goods for an extra forty dollars on her tray before getting back in his seat.
“I was not. I’m everything the US Navy made me to be.” Tank beat his chest as Roan sat back down. “Don’t give up the ship!”
Roan kicked him again under the table. “Since when do you go for nice girls?”
“They’re more trouble than they’re worth,” Tank said, correcting himself when Roan shook his head. “Maybe because I have a three date limit.”
“Three date limit?” Casserty roused from his unordered mimosa, perhaps wondering if he should have done the same with Stella Magi.
“Yeah. It’s not a rule or a limit, per se, so much as a guideline. Never met a woman I could tolerate more than three dates.”
Drew had doubts. “You’re a Navy SEAL and you can seal the deal in just three dates?”
“Fu-banging isn’t ‘dating.’ I’m talking about things you do outside of bed. Dinner. Movies. Hiking. Three dates. Hence why I’ve developed an allergy to those do-gooder-nice-girl fix me types.” Tank listed pretty much the opposite of how Roan felt.
Clarissa was a nice girl. Sweet, sunshiny, and absolutely dynamite between the sheets.
God must have created her exactly for him.
They matched that well. He ate her sweetness like cotton candy and embraced his very masculine desires to ‘keep’ her.
It was an endless ego and power trip to have been the one who took her virginity and ‘taught’ her to enjoy sex.
Some shrink could suggest it was wrong to revel in the privilege of molding her sexuality—if she hadn’t been ALL about it.
If anything, she’d indicated he had free reign to do a lot more than he had thus far.
When he picked the scenarios of their ‘play,’ Roan tended toward pressuring/subversive games—single dad-babysitter, principal-student.
He wasn’t opposed to being more physically aggressive and dominant, only when she requested it.
Like right before Tank had burst into Roan’s house.
Roan had carried her in from the snow and was planning on stripping her naked in his living room.
He’d wanted to make love, and she had indicated she was open to his off-hand comment about the Abdominal Snowman taking his virginal maiden in the snow.
Fuck, when he got home, he’d let her pick the game and finish getting her naked. If she wanted him to ravish her as a wild beast, he’d do it and let her beg for...
“What do you think?” Alex’s comment broke into Roan’s highly inappropriate train of thought. The others were looking at him expectantly as if he hadn’t been engaging in naughty sexual fantasies about his best friend’s sister.
Crap. His cerebral prefusion headed to his groin at the idea of getting back to Clarissa didn’t improve his ability to form sentences.
Were they still talking about the pros and cons of nice girl sex? Or had they decided to discuss whether brain surgery or rocket science was a harder discipline?
“I think we should call it quits after the next round.” Roan stood up from the table, snatching Tank’s wallet off the table. “Before Tank gets us thrown out of here.”
Three more mimosas and twentyish minutes later, they were waiting in the front area for Crozier and Alex’s Uber.
“You’re gonna make sure he gets home, not hungover, Crozier?” Roan asked, trying to gauge the relative level of intoxication from the two other doctors. Alex seemed giddy, and Drew’s next sentence convinced Roan he was feeling it too.
“Drew, please. Crozier is my dad, and, if I got the residents to call me Drew, so can you.” He gestured wildly into the air to Roan standing next to him.