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Chapter 2
Colt
Normally a night out with my friends was what I needed, but tonight nothing seemed right. Shot Therapy, which was traditionally packed on the weekends and fairly well-attended during the week, was jammed this Tuesday night. The room sounded too loud, the food tasted too salty, and the beer was kind of warm.
I sighed. I knew it didn’t really have anything to do with the record number of people who, like me, were out trying to relieve stress in the middle of the week. In the back of my mind, I knew that I should have just gone home after work. My mind was wrapped up in an earlier medical procedure that had not gone as planned. The patient was going to live, but he would have a constant reminder of what he had gone through.
“Colt, you need to stop thinking about it,” Whitney said as she leaned over and stole one of my sweet potato fries.
I would have slapped her hand away, but right then, I really didn’t feel like eating. I pushed my plate closer to her, “Have as many as you want.” I wiped my hands and mouth off before I threw my napkin on the table and leaned back, slinging my hand around to the back of her chair and resting my forearm on it.
“Stop thinking about what?” Walker asked before he took an enormous bite of his burger.
Whitney waved her hand, “Some medical procedure that didn’t go the way Colt wanted it to.”
Walker raised a brow and finished chewing before he spoke. “You’re kidding. Doctor Barnes wasn’t able to pull off a miracle?”
“Funny, Walker,” I growled at him and glanced around the bar. My eyes passed over a table and then bounced back to a woman I had noticed several other nights in this same bar. She was leaning over the table talking to another woman. Her long blonde hair hung straight around her face, curling on top of the table, but it was her eyes that always captured my attention. They were a bright clear blue and every time I saw them, they gave me pause.
“All kidding aside, Colt, what went wrong?” Walker asked and pulled my attention back to our table.
I shrugged, “I don’t know, I thought it would be easier. It wasn’t until I opened him up that I saw the mess that had never been fixed correctly. It made my job a hell of a lot harder.”
“Were you still able to fix the problem?” Walker asked.
I sighed, “The best I could. Unfortunately, the jawbone wasn’t put back into place correctly, so the skin isn’t going to lie flat like it should.”
“Hey, man, you did your best. You can’t take the blame for someone else’s mistakes.”
Walker and I had been friends since medical school when we had shared an apartment off campus. He knew how important my job was to me. It wasn’t just about fixing the problems, but also about giving the person a better quality of life.
“I am well aware that I shouldn’t take the blame for other people’s shoddy work, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t bother me.”
“We get that, Colt,” Whitney consoled as she put her hand on my thigh and squeezed it.
Whitney was a nurse in my practice and a very close friend. Once a week, Walker, Whitney, Josey, and I normally met here for dinner. Josey wasn’t able to make it tonight as she had taken an extra shift at the hospital. I had the feeling she had the hots for Walker, and I wasn’t sure why he never went for it, maybe he didn’t see it.
Whitney had more than once shown me she was interested in something with me, but while I thought she was great, she just didn’t hit my sweet spot. I glanced across the bar and looked at the girl in the booth again. Now, the looks of that girl, that hit my sweet spot.
The woman slid out of the booth and began heading our way. I followed her line of vision and saw it land on a guy who already appeared two sheets to the wind. He was leering at her in a way that made me want to cold cock him. What a fucking pig. I glanced back at her as she grew closer. Was that the kind of guy she was interested in?
When she got close enough, I heard her ask him if she could buy him a drink. What the hell? Damn, the guy didn’t even have enough class to turn that around, and I found myself laughing out loud as his eyes stayed glued to her breasts.
She turned my way and hit me with the first direct look I had ever had from her. “I thought guys were supposed to offer to buy the ladies a drink.” For a few seconds after I spoke, nothing else existed. In fact, I didn’t even think my heart beat for two seconds. Our eyes were locked on one another, and her full pink lips parted.
I observed her as she ran her eyes as far down as she could, desire shining brightly within them for a few moments, but she schooled her features immediately and gave me a smile that felt like a complete brush off before she returned her attention to the other guy. I had been dismissed—Ouch.
The guy grabbed her hand and pulled her into the crowd. As she shifted to avoid someone, she raised her right arm over her head and I saw some type of fancy ink tattooed to the inside of her wrist. I only saw a brief flash of it, so I had no idea what it was, but I loved that she had ink.
I had several pieces that had all been designed specifically for me by one of my artist friends. I had thought long and hard about each design before it had been permanently inked onto my body. I went into it knowing it was going to be there for life, unlike some people who put stupid things on their bodies and regretted those years later.
During the rest of the meal, I found my eyes being pulled back to her table. The female on the opposite side looked less than thrilled, and the guy she’d picked up couldn’t keep his damned hands off her. Every once in a while, she would lift her eyes to mine and then look quickly away.
I’d probably noticed her six or seven times over the last few months. Every time I’d seen her, she’d left with a different guy that she seemed to have just picked up. What kind of a girl did that these days?
“Why do you keep staring at her?” Whitney asked me as she turned to check out the woman I was watching.
“I don’t know. I guess I’m trying to figure her out.”
