AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Can we stop talking about your bras?”
I give him a cheeky grin. “Besides, it’s easy enough to control my sugars now that I have the continuous glucose monitor, and by this point, I’m used to giving myself a few injections a day.”
I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when I was ten. Having two emergency medicine doctors as your guardians sometimes pays off because they recognized the signs and symptoms and caught it early before I got really sick with it, or even ended up hospitalized, which often happens to newly diagnosed diabetics.
That’s not to say it’s been all sunshine and roses for me, because it hasn’t been. I’ve had my struggles, and those struggles have been real. But I’ve been in a good rhythm with it for the last four years after a terrifying near-death experience, and that’s not a boat I want to rock. So for now, it’s pens for the win.
“Fine. You know better than I do about that. I just hate having to see you stick yourself is all.” He sets his glass down and cradles it in both hands as he scans the restaurant before turning back to me. “Where are you on picking a donor?”
“Nowhere yet. I have an appointment coming up with my endocrinologist, and once he tells me I’m good to go, then I’ll start seriously digging into it. I don’t want to find someone, get excited, and then be told I shouldn’t get pregnant.” Life isn’t always the picnic we’re promised. Sometimes it’s gritty and messy, but I’d rather trudge through the sludge than never get the chance to play in the mud.
Owen leans over and kisses my forehead. “You’ll get what you want, Katy. You will. When the time is right, you’ll have everything you deserve, but no matter what, I’ll be there with you every step of the way.”
I start to get choked up and sniffle back the tears burning my eyes. “Thank you. I love you. You’re the bestest best friend on the planet.”
He sighs, worried about me because Owen is a natural worrier. “I love you too. Now, are you going to tell me what happened today? Or even better, have us order food and then tell me? I told my parents I’d pick up Rory in two hours, and I’m starving.”
Rory is his five-year-old daughter, and despite the massive family we have who love to spend time with her, Owen doesn’t relish being away from her when he can help it. He already works long hours as a pediatric surgeon, and since Rory’s mom bailed on them when Rory was little, he always wants her to feel like she’s his priority—which she is.
I shake my head, taking a sip of my lemon drop. “Not yet. I promised Keegan I’d wait for her and Kenna to get here so she could join in describing her trauma from the power outage.”
“Of course she did,” he deadpans. “Because no one is more dramatic than Keegan.”
Truth.
“Still, you just took your shot,” he maintains. “We should order food before your blood sugar gets too low.”
I roll my eyes. “Okay, dad. Whatever you say.”
He reaches over and pinches my side, making me yelp, but he signals our waitress and waves a hand for me to order. “We’ll have one of every appetizer, please.”
“Sure thing. Do you want me to bring Keegan and Kenna their drinks?”
I hold in my snicker. “Yeah. I have a feeling they’ll be here?—”
“Oh, my hell! My attending was such a jerk today.” Keegan comes barreling in, dropping dramatically into the chair across from me.
“—any second,” I finish, smirking at Jeanie, our regular waitress, because we obviously come here a bit too often. But in fairness, it’s across the street from the hospital and has amazing food and drinks.
Jeanie gives me a wink and then goes off to get our order going.
“You know your attending is my father, right?” Owen points out, though I don’t know why he bothers. Keegan always complains about her attending despite the fact that he’s her uncle. I consider everyone here my cousins—my family—but I have no biological relation to them the way they do with each other.
When my parents died when I was six, my uncle Callan took me in. He met and fell in love with Layla who had a nearly identical situation to mine growing up, though it was her sister Amelia who took care of her and not her uncle. Amelia married Oliver Fritz, the youngest son in a family of famous billionaires, and together they had Keegan and Kenna. So my stepmother of sorts is the biological aunt of Keegan and Kenna, and Owen is Oliver’s brother Carter’s son, so, also biological cousins with Keegan and Kenna.
“Yes, and Uncle Carter was a total jerk,” Keegan grumbles adamantly. “He made me run labs with the interns after the power outage. For no reason!” She slams her palm down on the table, rattling Owen’s and my drinks. “He put someone else on two of my laboring women. All because I might have gotten a bit too hysterical about the power outage.”
“You, hysterical? Never,” Owen mutters dryly, making Keegan flip him off.
“The generators weren’t working as they should have been, Owen. That’s scary stuff.”
“I agree. Think of the patients in the OR, or, I don’t know the people trapped in elevators.”
Keegan points a finger at Owen. “We all suffered the price. And scut sucks. You can’t deny that.”
“Are you doing laps in Greyson’s pool tomorrow?” Kenna asks me, ignoring her twin completely as Keegan continues to go back and forth with Owen.
The Greyson she’s referring to is Greyson Monroe, the famous rock star. My uncle Callan has four best friends—Zax, Greyson, Asher, and Lenox—who were all once part of Central Square, a wildly famous rock band. They broke up after four years of being on top, and now they all do different things but are still impossibly close, more like brothers than friends. And since Layla is a Fritz and some of the Central Square people are good friends with the Fritzes, we’re now pretty much one big, giant family.
