Chapter 7 – Jensen
“I’m going to ride this high for the rest of my life,” Joel jokes from across the table later that night, looking smug as hell.
“It’s only because Jensen got injured,” Micah fires back at his twin brother. “Don’t get too comfortable. He’ll be back.”
Raf sits beside me—my human brick wall—those big hands shoveling food into his mouth like he hasn’t eaten in a week. He's not saying anything which is normal for him during team events, but I know he's listening. He’s always listening.
It’s not a Series-sanctioned dinner, so most of the crew aren’t here with us, but I couldn't give a shit about most of the crew. I care that Catalina joined us. And that's the only person that I’m aware of right now in a room full of many.
She’s across the table, right next to Joel, which means she’s directly in my line of sight whether I want her to be or not. And she’s not wearing her usual black. She’s wearing red.
Not the clinical white coat. Not all black scrubs. Deep. Rich. Bold. Red.
It’s like she woke up this morning and said, ‘Let me torture Jensen’s sanity today by looking extra pretty, completely off-limits, and confusing as hell.’
The color makes her skin glow. Rich toffee under the dim hotel restaurant lights. A warm cup of coffee. Shiny, soft, and so smooth. She hasn’t looked my way once. I can’t stop looking at her.
Worse? Our server hasn’t been able to stop himself from looking at her.
He comes back to the table, combed-back hair gelled to hell, smiling way too hard in her direction for the fifth time in an hour.
“Can I get you something else to drink, Doctor Alba?”
My jaw locks.
How the fuck does he already know that she’s a doctor?
Why does he think he can speak to her like that?
He’s been hovering, lingering, finding excuses to come back just to talk to her.
And she hasn’t shot him down yet. I’m not sure she's even noticed how much attention she’s pulling from the men in here.
Maybe that’s why she wore red tonight. Because she doesn’t get the influence she has on the male species.
“I’m good,” she says, barely flicking the guy a glance before dismissing him by turning away and back to her plate like it’s more interesting.
He nods and walks off. I lean across the table, lowering my voice so the rest of the guys don't hear.
“He’s flirting with you, Doctor Alba.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I know.”
She rolls her eyes. “Please focus on your food and not what’s happening over here.”
“No.”
She shoots me a glare that I'm sure is meant to cut. It does nothing to me. I like when she’s mean. I give her a wink back.
“So, Doctor Alba, what did Jensen’s MRI results say?” Joel asks her.
I got the results about thirty-minutes ago and was hoping not to have to digest them over dinner with my teammates and a woman who I can’t stop staring at.
She lifts her glass of red—only one tonight, and yeah, I’m counting—and takes a slow, focused sip.
I wonder what she’d be like with whiskey or tequila warming her up.
I wonder if she notices that I never drink.
That I haven’t touched alcohol once since the heart surgery.
That she’s the only person in this room whose opinion on that matters.
I wish she’d tell me that I’m a good boy for listening to her.
Maybe she doesn't care since I didn't listen to her other advice.
“He needs a full week off,” she says in that clinical tone she uses with us riders. “We’ll tape it, manage the swelling, keep him on meds for pain, and monitor it so it doesn’t tear.”
“So, you're out for the ride in Los Angeles, huh?” Dawson asks.
His arm is draped across the back of his wife Lo's chair. She normally spends most of her time traveling for her family's business, but she flew in for tonight's event and to steal Dawson away for the upcoming Series break. I think they're headed somewhere warm. Hawaii, maybe.
Dawson doesn't make much from training a bunch of hardheaded bull riders, but he's got a successful ranch back in Maple Grove, Tennessee that mostly runs itself now and pays the bills. That's where most of us live during the off-season and how a lot of us first met.
Dawson raised Micah, Joel, and Noa like they were his own after their parents passed away, and he gave me a place to practice riding when I was first starting.
The bull riding gig is something he does just because he loves the sport.
And because, for reasons I'll never understand, he enjoys babysitting idiots who think getting launched off two thousand pounds of muscle is a good way to make a living.
Probably because he gets it. They say you never really leave the rush of riding behind even after you quit.
I nod. “Afraid so. But that should be the only one that I'll miss.”
“Damn.”
I shrug like it doesn’t gut me. Because I trust Catalina.
I should’ve trusted her from the start instead of turning it into a pissing match.
This is my penance. But if anyone can get me back in time for the quarter finals, it’s her and our training staff.
And I’d crawl before I let myself miss that.
“I already have a press release prepared for the Los Angeles ride,” Rory, our head of Public Relations pipes in. “We’ll manage the reaction from the fans and be sure they understand this is just temporary.”
The guys fall back into their usual banter, but the noise fades around me. All I hear is Catalina’s voice. All I see is her.
Catalina’s talking with Rory, June, and Noa now.
Well, June’s talking, Noa’s reviewing our itinerary, Rory’s typing on her laptop, and Catalina is tolerating it, which is basically a miracle.
Video games, social media and photography are June’s subjects of choice, and it sounds like she might be talking about all three at once.
I'm pretty sure she's trying to make it as a content creator with the way she's always on her phone.
She tags along with us after hours but has never really let anyone get to know her beyond the surface.
I'm also certain she slips out of the hotel after we've all gone to sleep to party in whatever city we're in.
I always assumed it was because of professional boundaries that she keeps the details of her life to herself, but she seems to like Catalina enough to share.
Our server appears again, but he only hands the dessert menu to Catalina, like the rest of us don’t exist.
"Dessert or coffee, Doctor Alba?"
“Damn, can this guy fuck off already?” I mutter.
Raf snorts but doesn’t look my direction. Micah’s grin goes straight feral before he leans in, voice low. “You said Doctor Alba’s the one who repaired your heart?”
“Yeah.”
“I wish she'd had her hands inside my chest instead.”
“That didn’t come across the way you think it did.” I make sure there's no emotion in my response, but he knows he's getting a reaction out of me anyway. He's a fucking idiot.
Raf glares at him on my behalf.
“You know what I mean,” Micah chuckles before sitting back in his seat. "She's seen you naked."
"I was wearing a surgery gown. It's not like she peeked underneath it to see my dick. And be respectful. She’s a fucking surgeon. Smarter than all of you guys combined.”
“Still doesn’t mean we can’t look at her. She works for us too, you know,” Joel adds.
I sigh. Already annoyed. Usually, I'd join in on their stupid banter but not at Catalina's expense. Never at Catalina's expense.
I watch as she turns down the coffee and dessert. “No thanks. I don’t drink coffee.”
I turn back to my teammates. “Don’t you idiots have some buckle bunny you’re chasing tonight?”
“Actually, yeah,” Micah says, standing. “We’re hitting a new bar on sixteenth with the cheap wings and beer. You coming with?”
I don't hesitate. “No.”
Joel pushes to his feet to join him, Rory stands to go work on the press release for the upcoming ride, and Dawson and Lo make the rounds saying goodnight before heading out.
Dawson never comes out with us after events. Not that any of us would expect him to, the man’s happily married. He's been with Lo for five years now, and he's the most loyal guy I know. I swear the man hasn't looked twice at another woman the entire time I've known him.
While the rest of us spend half the year on the road making questionable decisions, Dawson acts like Lo hung the moon. Honestly, it's a little sickening. But in a way that makes everyone else jealous.
Raf stands to join the twins; despite looking like he’d rather ride a bull without gear. I have a strong feeling he'll stay for one drink wherever they go then head back to his hotel room to sulk in the dark like he usually does. Probably thinking about June.
“She’s never going to go for you, man,” he mutters to me, reading me like a book before squeezing my good shoulder firmly. “She’s a doctor. Her type is above us. And she doesn’t respect you still riding. You know that.”
“She doesn’t,” I admit under my breath, watching Catalina’s shoulders tighten as the server hovers too close again. “But how's that good advice coming from the guy pining after June and too scared to make a move?"
"Fuck off. I already know she'll never want me. I’ve accepted it." He glares at me and stomps off to follow the others. I feel a little bad for my buddy but honestly, he needs to deal with his own shit instead of worrying about mine.
Most people wouldn’t catch the micro-shift in Catalina's posture—barely a twitch, barely a breath. But I do. Because I’ve seen her comfortable.
I’ve seen her in her element, unguarded in an OR, right up until I said something—or did something—that pissed her off so badly she walked out on me before she finished my post-op instructions.
I’m still wrestling with what happened there.
The memory’s been coming back in pieces, irritatingly slowly, like my brain’s playing the world’s worst slideshow of all the ways I screwed up with her without realizing it. And none of it explains why she still hates me. Unless it’s really because I won’t stop riding.