“Nope.”
“That,” she says, pointing at me, “is the guy you pulled me off of last weekend in Lonnie’s.”
“Nooooo,” Apollo groans. “The great kisser?”
Huh.
“He is. And you should be ashamed of yourself. I’m not your girlfriend.”
“Well, I was having an emotional emergency!”
My girl rolls her eyes, but Apollo ignores her. Now that I know, I can see they act more like siblings.
“Fix it now. Ask him out, June.”
June. What is so rare as a day in June?
She holds out her hand, her face red. “June Rose Parker. Named after my grandmother.”
“I was named after my grandfathers,” I say. “Both of them.”
“Did their mothers hate them too?” Apollo asks.
“Shut up, Wade,” June says. “God, you are so drunk.”
“It’s really hitting me now,” he says in a pitiful tone of voice. “Wouldn’t be so bad if my stomach didn’t fucking hurt so much.”
“About that,” I say. “If it gets a lot worse, very suddenly, yell. We’d want to get you into surgery regardless of your BAC if rupture is imminent.”
“Shit,” he says.
I’d better go. “Let me know if I can do anything for you, okay?”
“Okay.” June Rose Parker and I stare into each other’s eyes for three full seconds, long enough for my dick to start making escape plans again. I shake myself out of it, and make tracks for the door.
Not her boyfriend. Thank god.
FIVE
June
OMG.
This is my real-life Dr. McDreamy, and I’m more than a little bit smitten.
The first doctor who came in to help Wade seemed to know what she was doing, even though she’s only a little older than us. But then my kissing buddy from Lonnie’s last weekend came in, and I swear my ovaries are begging for mercy now.
Tall, dark, and handsome. No big bodybuilder muscles, but like I said, he’s tall and he looks really strong. I like his face. And those wicked, amused, sinful, hot eyes. They’re very dark brown, almost black, and they always look like he’s either laughing or thinking deliciously naughty thoughts.
Of course I’m probably not his type. I’m not tall, I’m not elegant, and I don’t have eight million college degrees or whatever it takes to be a doctor.
But he keeps staring at me.
Like he’s starving and I’m a whole plate of tiramisu. It’s very unnerving.
OMG OMG OMG. My body is responding to that look in a way that normally takes lots of kissing and hands in the right spots. But Hot Doctor’s bold eyes are making my nipples hard and my ladyparts sweat. Seriously, my panties are damp already. I’m so overheated that I pull my scarf off, waving my hands to get some air to my face.
The second he’s out the door, I turn on my bestie.
“I’m going to kill you,” I hiss at him. “I’ll wait until you’re feeling better, but could you be any more embarrassing?”
“Sure.”
“That was not a challenge!”
“Ha. You like him. June and Fin-lay, sittin’ in a tree,” he sing-songs, and I smack his shoulder. “Ow! Don’t hit me.”
“Don’t make me look stupid,” I snap.
“He’s interested,” Wade says. “Probably because you were swabbing each other’s tonsils like champs last weekend.”
“Oh, he is not interested!” If he was, he wouldn’t have let me get away. “Please can we just stop talking about it?”
Because he’s Wade, he manages about six minutes of quiet before he says, “Did you check out his ass?” My face gets hot, because of course I tried.
“Unfortunately, his doctor coat was too long,” I admit.
“But you looked.”
“I thought we weren’t talking about this.”
“I’m talking. You don’t have to talk,” Wade says.
I roll my eyes. Good thing Wade has no idea what’s been going on inside my panties.
Then Hot Doctor comes back in with the girl doctor from before. “Got your labs back. We’re admitting you,” she says. “We’ll send you upstairs to the surgical ward, and they’ll monitor your blood alcohol and get that appendix out as soon as they can.” Then she starts explaining to Wade exactly what they’re going to do to him, something about laparoscopic this and anesthesia that, and I tune it out to stare into Hot Doctor’s eyes again.
They’re so dark. And hot. I’m too young for hot flashes, but damn, I’m having one now.
Somebody says my name. “What?” I mumble, tearing my gaze away from those naughty eyes.
“I said you would take care of me when they let me go home after the surgery,” Wade says.
I blink, trying to refocus. “Oh. Yes. We’re roommates so I’ll be there anyway.”
“You sure?” Girl Doctor asks.
I reach over to hold Wade’s hand. Hot Doctor or not, Wade’s my best friend to infinity and beyond. “’Course I’m sure. I wouldn’t just leave him.”
“She’s my ride-or-die,” Wade says.
“That’s right. Thick and thin, besties forever, no matter what.” We squeeze each other’s hands.
Girl doctor says they’ll tell me about aftercare upstairs in surgical. I nod. I look back over to Hot Doctor, just to get another hit of his eyes on me, and my knees get weak again.
I’ve got to quit doing that.
And then a bunch of nurses or whatever come into the room and they’re making plans to move Wade up to the surgical floor right now. I grab Wade’s clothes and my purse, and follow them down the hall.
Hot Doctor follows me. Somebody says, “Fin, what are you doing?” and I realize that this is not standard procedure. My whole face feels hot and red, but I don’t dare let Wade’s gurney get so far ahead of me that I lose it. I keep walking fast.
Hot Doctor stops, and lets me go. Again. Dammit.
SIX
Finlay
Surgical takes my beautiful girl’s friend Apollo upstairs, and she follows. So do I.
That stuff she said, about “ride or die” and “no matter what” and “best friends forever” sounded real. Given what Apollo said about his personal interests, they’re not together-together, thank god, but that kind of loyalty has just sliced me open, straight to the heart. If they’re that tight, no wonder she just went with him last weekend. I want that kind of loyalty, so much. I want her.
She drops that rose-print scarf and doesn’t notice. I stop to pick it up, but Alison grabs my arm in time to keep me following them onto the elevator. “What the hell?” she mutters under her breath to me, and I suddenly get another view on what this looks like, me having the hots for somebody I just met while I was being a doctor. It’s ethically gray, I guess. Well, shit. I have to pull it back a little.
“I don’t know,” I say to her. “I have lost my damn mind.”
She stops grabbing me and pats my shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s not like she’s your patient.”