Carter clasps my hand, holding it firmly in his grasp before he shoots me out, twisting me around in some sort of crazy, convoluted spin of looping arms until he hauls me back, catching me, cradling me in his arm. My breath shakes, my laugh high in my throat. He starts to grind, to twist and dance like a man who absolutely knows how to move his body.
“Where did you learn to dance like this?” I ask, giggling uncontrollably.
“Fritz training program. It’s like rich kid bootcamp. Dance, tennis—”
“Oh, fencing,” I interrupt. “We should fence. I remember doing that with Oliver and Rina a couple of times when we were kids.”
“Some other time, I think. I’d much prefer to dance than fight with you right now.”
“Well, I’m certainly not complaining. Even if it is a first.”
I give him a cheeky grin, cocking an eyebrow, the lights of the bar swirling red and green and blue all around us. Actually, the only place we do anything that could be considered fighting is at work. This past week in the condo has been easy and light.
“It’s my job to be strict with you.” His gaze holds mine. “And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love our fights. But there’s more—”
“Hey,” Oliver cuts in, his hand on my shoulder, squeezing me. “Your dinner is at the table. I know you guys have to get out early for your shifts tomorrow.”
I meet his green eyes and smile appreciatively. And by the time I look back to Carter, whose arms have dropped, and his body has created distance between us, I know that whatever this moment, this day, between us was is over. Tomorrow at work, we’ll be back to us.
And for the first time, I can’t help but be a little disappointed by that.
12
Dropping onto the couch, I turn on the game and take a sip of my scotch. I have to be at work tomorrow at seven, but I’m still too restless to attempt sleep. Especially after the day—after the night—I’ve had. I could go down the hall to the media room, but it seems a bit much just for catching the end of the Sox game, and for now, I’m relieved by the quiet.
I started to read a medical journal, but my mind wandered too far too fast, whereas baseball is the universal antidote to sex.
I couldn’t stand it. Watching her with that guy. The way he stalked over to her, intent clear on his face. The way he touched her, talked to her. I was never like that with Alanna, never felt a tenth of that rage. I knew Alanna dated, I even saw her with some of the guys, and it never hit me like that. Not once.
But tonight, I was ready to rip that insignificant, nothing of a man apart. In that moment I knew. No one could have Grace but me.
But I can’t even have her. What the fuck do I do with that?
I honestly don’t know.
Sit and have a drink while watching the Sox. That’s what I do.
She’s so fresh out of a bad relationship I can’t even attempt to try anything. It’s far too soon for any of that. Her mind is a mess, her heart all over the place, and I will not be her rebound or revenge. She’s here in my home because she trusts me, yet I can’t stop the way I crave her.
So yeah…
Alcohol. Sox.
I need to decompress before I spend the next twenty-four hours with her on a shift. If I’m having this much trouble already, I shudder to think what the next, however long she’s staying here, will bring. Maybe I should alter our schedules. Move things around so we spend less time together at work. Move her to another attending—the right thing to do considering she’s now staying at my place.
Except I love seeing her at work.
I love watching her with patients. I love teaching her in the OR. That’s become my drug. My fix. It’s what I’ve thrived on for a year and now that I’m addicted, I have no idea how to quit without going through severe withdrawal. I sigh, leaning back and shifting my position, tossing one ankle onto the opposite knee.
I’m eternally screwed.
As if conjuring the woman directly from my thoughts, a flicker of movement catches my eye. Grace is ambling toward the dark kitchen, wearing my way beyond big T-shirt and sweatpants that I gave her last weekend when she mistakenly showed up on my doorstep.
That has me smiling stupidly big. She looks good in my clothes.
“Can’t sleep?” I call out and she startles a little, clearly having been lost in her own introspection and didn’t notice me sitting only twenty feet from her.
“Christmas carols you scared me,” she mutters, as she brings a hand up to her chest, confirming my thoughts. She lets out a small, bemused laugh and then shakes her head. “No. I was just coming to get some water. What about you?”
I hitch up a shoulder, unwilling to tell her my reasoning for still being awake when I should be asleep.
She abandons her search for water, instead crossing the room and sliding onto the sofa directly beside me, her knees bend as she tucks herself into my side. I know this isn’t anything. I know this is her just being comfortable with me. Like she is with Oliver. Like a brother. But having her pressed against me like this, feeling her close, smelling her skin, brotherly is the last thing I feel about her.
“Can I have a taste of that?” she asks, and I hand her my drink, watching as she brings the crystal to her lips and sips the liquid into her mouth. “Wooh,” she exclaims, smacking her lips and handing it back to me. “That’s good stuff for a quiet Friday night in front of the Red Sox.”
“After a day and evening spent entirely with you, I needed it.”
“Lord Jesus, yes. If I could drink, living with you would certainly drive me to it.”
I chuckle, forcing my eyes to stay on the large television though I’m not watching any of it now.
She wiggles around beside me, stirring as if she’s searching for a comfortable position, but I can tell that’s not what this is. “What’s on your mind, Grace?”
She stills and I can practically hear the smile in her voice when she says, “What makes you think there’s something on my mind?”
Because I know you. “Wild guess. What is it?”
“What would you be doing tonight if you hadn’t been forced to spend the day with me? If I weren’t living here?”
I’m not sure what I thought she was going to say, but it’s not that. My neck twists and I catch her eye. Hers are now laser focused on the screen like whatever the Sox are doing has life and death consequences for her.
I cup her jaw, forcing her eyes to mine. “What are you asking me?”
She works her bottom lip with her teeth. “I watched you tonight. I saw the way women stared. They took pictures of you. Of all of you, but I already found a picture of us dancing online. It was on Twitter and Instagram and there were already a ton of comments about it. They were all about you being seen dancing with a woman and the speculation around that. Thankfully my face wasn’t in it, it was the back of my head, but I don’t know. It just got me thinking.”
It feels like there is something else she’s not saying. Something she’s holding back with that. I see it in her eyes, in their shift. In their reluctance to hold mine.
“You want to know if I would have brought the woman I was dancing with home if it had been a different woman and a different situation?”