He leaned way too close to me for me not to take advantage and sniff into his chest. His neck smelled amazing. I was momentarily blind with rage when I thought of how Gabriella must’ve enjoyed all this male goodness in bed for months and months.
“Are you crazy?” I hiccupped. “I’m a national disaster.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. State hazard, maybe. And you’re still learning.”
“At your expense.”
“As I said, that’s my problem, not yours.”
“And what a beautiful problem to have on your hands, eh, Dr. Costello?” A man’s voice drifted from behind my shoulder.
I swiveled around to face a hunky man, muscular as Robocop, with trimmed graying hair, and a button-up shirt that threatened to burst. He reeked of enough cologne to drown a beaver, and next to him was a woman with bleached-blonde hair and a red dress that highlighted all of her enhanced assets.
Her nipples were so prominent through her clothes, I wondered if it was a fashion statement of some kind. I mean, the place was air-conditioned, but it wasn’t that cold.
Suddenly, I saw myself in that woman. The skimpy clothes. The in-your-face sexuality. It was all a front and made me feel uncomfortable.
“Dr. Wootton. It’s been a while.”
The two men shook hands. You could cut the tension in the air with a butter knife.
Two things I knew for sure—Dr. Wootton was the colleague Mrs. Warren had referred to, the person who’d recognized Cruz, and that these two men were not on good terms.
“This is my wife Jocelyn.”
“My pleasure.” Jocelyn extended her hand to Cruz for him to kiss.
He obediently did so, the obnoxious gentleman that he was.
“Honey, this is Dr. Costello, the guy I told you about yesterday after Ramona told us about the…incident.”
Here we go.
“This is Dalton,” Cruz ignored Dr. Wootton’s lukewarm introduction, placing a hand on my shoulder. “We went to med school together. Dalton, Jocelyn, this is my lovely date for the evening Tennessee.”
“Ah, date. Is that what you kids call it these days?” Dr. Wootton guffawed.
“What else would you call having a drink with a friend from town?” Cruz asked nonchalantly.
“Ramona says—”
“Ramona’s looking for a headline,” Cruz said. “Really, Dalton. I thought gossip was beneath you. We’re not in kindergarten anymore.”
Jocelyn suggested we grab a drink together, and both men were too polite to point out it was a terrible idea, so here we were, sipping drinks.
There were no empty seats at the bar, so we opted for a round table with four stools by the roulette tables. Personally, I thought Jocelyn’s nipples deserved a stool of their own. Were they enhanced, too?
I sat opposite her, and Cruz was in front of Dalton.
I guessed that it wasn’t a good time to confess to Cruz that I’d had three more drinks he wasn’t aware of while he was playing blackjack, and that I was tight-roping the line of drunk as a skunk.
Jocelyn couldn’t stop undressing Cruz with her gaze while Dalton seriously eye-plucked me into oblivion.
Were they swingers?
No judgment here, but there was no way I would participate in that kind of thing with this nipple-wielding power couple.
I decided to go for the same wine Jocelyn sipped, while the men stuck to whiskey. It occurred to me that I should probably stop drinking, but this was my first real experience with alcohol. Pathetic, considering I was near thirty, but also true. And this was the trip of new experiences, apparently.
“Where are you working these days?” Cruz asked Dalton, obviously trying to steer the conversation into safer territory.
“I’m a plastic surgeon in Greenville. At the Green View Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Clinic.”
That could explain why his wife had enough plastic to mold an industrial trash can.
“Nice. That’s what you’ve been gunning for.”
“How ’bout you? Heard you ended up taking your old man’s job after all?” Dalton scooped an ice cube from his whiskey tumbler into his mouth, crushing it with his teeth. “Thought you had second thoughts about that?”
Cruz stiffened next to me. The good-natured smile still played on his lips, but I could tell something had shifted inside him.
“I was on the fence for half a minute. Ultimately, though, I like it in Fairhope.”
Dalton took a swig of his whiskey. “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers was playing in the background.
“Thought you said it gave you too many dark memories.”
I couldn’t help but snort out an unladylike giggle.
“Dark memories?” I echoed. “Cruz was, and always will be, Fairhope’s guiding light. I think his only unpleasant memory is being born, and that’s only because that’s the moment people began to fawn over him twenty-four seven and he got tired of being admired.”
Dalton turned his gaze toward me, seeing this as a direct invitation to answer my breasts.
“That’s what I heard, too. But he said something about an ex and some stuff going wrong. Last I talked to our boy here, he said he was looking for apprenticeships in Charlottesville. That was before we graduated.”
“Ex?” I whipped my head toward Cruz, frowning. “What ex?”
Cruz had fooled around with a few popular girls in high school, but he was too bright, too untouchable to settle down with one of them. And besides, people in our school had this small-town mentality that ensured almost zero drama where breakups were involved—the dating pool was too small for you to feel weird about dating a friend’s ex…or an ex’s friend…
In fact, I was pretty sure mine and Rob’s was the only messy story from Fairhope High during his graduation year.
Also, on a side note—why was everyone blurry? And how come my legs felt like they were too heavy to move, but also kind of warm and nice? Was this how being hammered felt like? No wonder alcoholics were grumpy people.
And also did this a lot. I laughed once.
Cruz kicked my ankle under the table, signaling me to shut up.
“You don’t know my whole life story, Turner.”
“I know you didn’t have a messy girlfriend back home or dark memories,” I countered, peppering my statement with a hiccup.
Dalton and Jocelyn looked between us, grinning.
“Who wants some shots?” Jocelyn purred.
“Not me,” I was about to say, when Cruz bit out, “Great idea.”
Oh boy.
He was going to be so pissed when I ended up puking on his friend’s wife’s pointy nipples.
A round of tequila arrived, and we all emptied the content of our glasses. Dalton and Cruz switched to beer and started talking about football while Jocelyn ordered “us girls” some bubbly.
“So.” Jocelyn gave me a slow once-over. “What’d you get done?”
Telling her I got nothing done seemed impolite and haughty, even if it was the truth. I pointed to my chin, nose, and a few more areas in my body.
“Everywhere, pretty much. The only thing that’s real about me is my heart. And I’ve been told it’s not the best. How ’bout you?”
Cruz’s quaking shoulder, pressed against mine, told me he heard me and was wildly amused by my answer.