Your girl?
MAY: If you want…
I think I need like… at least three dates before I agree.
MAY: Only three?
Maybemore.
MAY: Doing anything Saturday?
Not that I know of.
MAY: Want to go to London?
London? Like… London, London?
MAY: Yeah. Our European tour starts. You could come with?
To London?
MAY: To London… and everywhere else we go in Europe.
Okay.
MAY: Perfect. It’s a five-week date.
Deal.
CHAPTER 01: ELI
Love had always been my downfall.
I fell too easily, and loved way too hard. The icing on the cake? The objects of my affection were usually emotionally unattainable or no damn good for me.
It all started back in college. My roommate’s best friend caught my eye, and I pursued him even after I realized the two of them were hopelessly in love with each other. I spent the next decade of my life convincing myself that he’d chosenmeover the man he loved.In truth, I’d never stood a chance. Days before our wedding, I called everything off and left. Seizing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I packed my bags and fled thousands of miles from my past—to Woodland Park.
I’d started over once before, I could do it again.
And a year later, I was doing pretty well for myself. I excelled in my surgical fellowship, swiftly landing an attending position in the emergency room at Woodland Park General Hospital. That was where I met Nate.
At first, I was hesitant about dating. Evergreen Grove was the perfect neighborhood to clear my head, and a relationship was the last thing I needed. The Grove was a peaceful, suburban area—nothing like Las Vegas. I’d spent the majority of my early adulthood pouring every ounce of myself into a relationship that was doomed from the start. Woodland Park was the kind of place where I could focus on figuring out who I was. All things aside, the breakup sucked. Moving on from the love of my life seemed impossible.
Then Nate limped into my emergency room.
A “work accident” had sent him in with a sprained ankle and a cut on his forehead. I gave him some painkillers and stitched up the cut, all while he tried like hell to get my number—despite me repeatedly telling him I wasn’t interested.
But I couldn’t lie to myself: Nate was my type. Long blond hair, covered in tattoos and leather…
He had the charm down to a science.That’swhat roped me in, not the bad boy look.
I patched him up and sent him on his way—barely. Ialmostcaved, but our time together came to an end, and I went home to dream about what could’ve been.
Nate returned to the ER three days later, this time with a bouquet of wildflowers and the insistence that he buy me dinner to thank me for “saving his life.”
Curse the hopeless romantic in me—Ibecame the fall risk, not my patients. A few months later, he was spending most nights at my place than his own.
When he waswith me, he was the perfect boyfriend. He was kind, attentive, andincrediblein bed.
