I hold up my half-eaten protein bar. “What would you call this?”
“Pathetic. Come with me, Doctor. I need to speak with you. Good night, ladies. Rina, you have whipped cream in your hair.” He walks over to her, removing it with his fingers and kissing her forehead. “I’m sorry about your patient. Call me later if you want to talk.”
“I’m good. That’s what the ice cream is for.” She throws me a wave and grabs Margot’s hand. “Night.”
Carter turns back to me and the second he’s no longer able to see their faces, Margot mouths, Oh my god, I’m so sorry to me.
Yeah. No kidding.
“Later,” I say, but it’s cut off as Carter grasps my arm and drags me along after him, all the way down the mostly empty hall and then into the empty on-call room where he shuts the door behind us. “What are you—”
Only I’m cut off as Carter pins me to the wall, getting right up in my face, his expression feral. “Tell me you’re not seriously contemplating having a random fling with a random guy,” he seethes.
“What were you doing listening in on my private conversation with my friends?”
His eyes narrow. “You were in the middle of the hall. Not exactly a private place. Answer me.”
“What business is it of yours what I do in my own personal, private time?”
His hand slams into the wall beside my head and I start. He inches in closer until we’re practically nose to nose. “Because you live with me now.”
“What does that even mean?”
He growls, his dark eyes turbulent, blazing as they penetrate mine. “Dammit, Grace.” He slams his hand again. “You can’t just jump into bed with some random guy simply because you’re now single.”
I shake my head, at a total loss. I’ve never seen Carter like this. Undone. Frantic almost. I doubt many have.
“I can do whatever the hell I want to, Carter. Last I checked, I’m a grown woman and temporary roommate or not, you’re not my keeper.”
“Grace. I fucking mean it. Tell me you’re not going to do that.”
Is he joking with me? “I’m not going to tell you anything of the sort. If I decide to sleep with someone that’s my decision. It has no bearing or impact on you.”
He lets out a mirthless, pained laugh.
“Why do you even care?”
His other hand comes up, bracketing me in and my heart starts to thrash in my chest. So violently I know he can see the pulse at the base of my neck.
“I care, okay? I care. I don’t want to see you get hurt again. I can’t watch as some loser who doesn’t deserve you get his hands on you. Not when…” Frustrated, he runs his hand roughly over his face and back through his hair, panting out a heavy breath as he does. “Dammit!”
“Not when what?” I press.
His eyes bounce back and forth between mine; he opens his mouth to say something when his pager goes off, beeping loudly against his hip in the small room. He holds my gaze a second longer, takes a deep breath, and pushes off the wall, away from me. Without checking his pager, he storms out, slamming the door behind him and leaving me here reeling.
What the hell was all that?
14
You would never know that Carter and I had a mini blow out by the time we reach the end of our shift. It’s like it never happened. Like he never lost the perfect control he’s known for.
It’s messing with my head.
I assisted him in a complicated crash C-section and after we’re scrubbed out and the sun is rising and we hand off our patients to the next shift, we’re walking out of the building together. It’s silent and uncomfortable and tense. At least for me, it is. You’d have no clue by looking at him what the hell he’s feeling.
Carter is an iceberg, I’m discovering. So much of his soul is submerged, held down deep beneath his cool exterior.
But after twenty-four hours awake and on my feet, I need rest. I need a real meal and then rest. Definitely a shower in there somewhere.
These shifts wreak havoc on my body, pushing it to its very limits, which in my case is a roll of the dice. I only have to do one of these a month with the way our rotations work and I’m grateful for that. But every time is like the first time. You never get used it. There is no adjusting.
It’s Sunday morning now and Monday I’m in our outpatient setting, much easier to manage than being in the hospital or the OR.
“Want to grab some breakfast before we head home, or are you needing sleep?”
I’m going to take this as his weird form of an olive branch. I don’t like it when things are strained between us. It makes for a fucked-up work and home dynamic. Challenging, sparing, fiery even, all that I can handle. But strained? Not so much.
“Sure. That sounds great.”
“You like waffles, right? I know a good place.”
My head whips in his direction. “How did you know I like waffles?”
“Staff breakfast. You ate like three of them.”
“Staff breakfast?” I question, racking my brain. “But that was… last November?”
He shrugs indifferently, pointing for me to turn up Boylston, but I’m stuck on this waffle revelation. I wasn’t even sitting with him. I was sitting in the back of the room with two other residents, and he was… I don’t even remember where he was, but it wasn’t near me.
His hand meets my lower back as he guides me into a posh restaurant that I am not at all dressed for overlooking The Public Gardens. I glance over to him and then down at myself. I changed sure—I hate wearing the scrubs I wore in the hospital out; it just feels nasty—but I’m also in ratty jeans and an old college T-shirt. Not to mention my hair is a mess, I have no makeup on, and you know, I’ve been awake for twenty-four hours straight.
“Carter?”
“It’s Sunday,” he says by way of an explanation. “They have an amazing brunch here. You’ll love it.”
I have no doubt I will, but I was expecting some greasy spoon place, not a five-star dining experience. Carter is a Fritz so maybe I should have known? My parents had plenty of money, but they weren’t anywhere near Abbot-Fritz level. Then again, very few people are.
They’re mega billionaires, for Christ’s sake.
But ninety percent of the time, you don’t get the billionaire vibe from them. They’re a close-knit, family-oriented, down-to-earth crew. I mean, Rina is an ICU nurse. Oliver works in community health. Carter is an OB-GYN, Landon a cardiologist. Only Kaplan and Luca ride the masters of the universe gig with Luca being a neurosurgeon and Kaplan a pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon.
I don’t even know what I’m thinking right now.
I’m sleep deprived and a bit batty after the week I’ve had and now I’m being led to a table overlooking the beautiful gardens and getting sneers from women wearing Chanel.
“What are we doing here?” I hiss under my breath after we’re left alone with our menus. The food does look amazing, I’ll give him that.
“Having breakfast together,” he says simply, his eyes all over his menu. I want to bring up what happened between us in the on-call room but I’m not that brave. Truth, I don’t even know what I would say. He had no right telling me I can’t sleep with someone whether I plan to or not. But why was he even doing it in the first place?