Page 32 of Blue Collar Billionaire

Heat warms my face and I squirm. A stick. Other inanimate objects…

‘We’re not about to play at Madison Square Garden,’ he continues with a shrug as he loads up another forkful, ‘but we have a good local following. Enough gigs to get by, which is not nothing.’

I suppose it’s not and I have no idea how talented Danny really is or how tough it is out there to be a musician, but… the fact he doesn’t seemed bothered by such a loosey-goosey life plan is a revelation.

‘And you’re okay with that?’

He laughs at my question and I realise that I may have come across as questioning his ambition, which I guess I am. But… who lives like that? I have goals for the next decade. Short term. Medium term. Long term. They’re listed in a bullet journal I started on my first day of med school, and I continuously update.

Another shrug. ‘It’ll do for now.’

God… imagine. Imagine living life with so little clear direction. My chest tightens at the thought. But something else loosens at the allure of it.

‘You don’t approve?’ he says.

The side of his mouth kicks up like he doesn’t give a rat’s ass whether I approve or not. As he shouldn’t. If Danny wants to half-ass his life, he’s perfectly entitled. ‘Not my business.’

‘But you know what you want and where you’re heading, right? You have direction.’

‘Sure.’ I nod. ‘I’m specialising in emergency medicine.’

‘You plan on staying here or do you want to take those skills somewhere big, like New York or Chicago?’

I shake my head. ‘No. I want to go rural.’

He blinks like I’ve finally surprised him. ‘Rural?’

‘Yes,’ I say stiffly.

As ever, I’m defensive over my choice just like I’d always been with my ex, who’d never taken my career aspirations seriously. Why is it so hard to believe that I would want to take my skills to a place screaming out for them?

New York and Chicago have a plethora of emergency medicine specialists.

‘Do you know how inadequately staffed and resourced our rural hospitals are? How hard it is to attract skilled doctors? Which means rural people get an inferior service. That’s grossly inequitable. And—’ I fix him with a steely stare. ‘That means rural people are sicker and sometimes they die completely unnecessarily because they turn up to an ER in a criticalcondition and there’s only an inadequately trained doctor who’s scared witless.’

The room is silent for long beats as he regards me seriously. ‘What happened?’ he asks quietly.

I open my mouth to deny that anything happened. But there’s compassion in his blue, blue gaze and it’s like he sees me. Something my ex never did. It makes me want to tell him.

‘My grandmother. She died. After a car accident on a rural road. I still remember my mother getting that phone call.’ I shudder as her wailing comes back to me now.

‘How old were you?’

‘Almost fourteen.’

‘You were close?’

‘Very.’

I smile as I think about my grandmother and how she was myGilmore Girlsbuddy, watching along with me, always with some freshly popped corn, drooling over Luke in an exaggerated way because she knew how much it scandalised me.

‘She ended up in an ER with only one junior doctor who was out of his depth and didn’t act quickly enough. I’ve seen the autopsy. She could have lived if he’d known what to do or if he’d evac’d her earlier to somewhere that did.’

‘I’m sorry.’

I shake my head. It’s not his fault. But his apology is surprisingly heartfelt. ‘Thank you.’

‘So, that’s what motivates you to push yourself?’