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“Well, no, but he’s not like that. He’d never degrade us like Dr. Keeton.” I pause, wondering now if I get some special treatment, and if he’s a secret asshole to my friends. “Why? Is he mean to you, to Meg?” Better find out the truth now before I fall any harder.
“Not to me, no. Just the grunts and grumbles.” She pauses, reaching to grab my paperwork from the printer with one of her long arms. “Although, I did hear him asking around about Meg … trying to find out if she’s single.”
My stomach sinks to the floor, my entire body wanting to curl in on itself.Of course,he’d want Meg. She’s hot, brimming with confidence, independent, and a damn good person. “He was?” My voice is small and weak, waiting for Jenna’s response. I shouldn’t be surprised he’s interested in Meg, but damn if it doesn’t sting.
“No, of course, he didn’t. I’m fucking with you. He only communicates with grunts to her as well.” She staples my paperwork together and hands it over, holding onto the edge as I go to take it from her hand. “There is only one person he gives his attention to.”
A breath whooshes out of me, adrenaline ebbing and flowing. I raise an arm to pinch Jenna. “You bitch. You scared me.”
She grins as wide as the Cheshire Cat. “At least now we know how you feel about him. Let’s talk about why you didn’t tell methis sooner.” She finally lets go of my paperwork, leaning back on the desk to admire her handiwork.
“No.” If I were to admit to my best friends that these feelings about Dr. Ryan were turning into something real, they’d want me to act on it. I haven’t acted on feelings in years, and it’s kept me safe.
“Are you going to bang him?”
“Jenna!” I hiss-whisper, whipping around to make sure no one hears us.
“I’ll bet he’s a total dom in bed. Seriously, I’ll bet he has ahugedi—” She stops mid-sentence as Kelly barrels around the corner.
“Lainey, there you are!”
I give Jenna a sneer before turning my full attention to Kelly. “Hey. Yeah, what’s going on?”
“I’m here to cash in my favor.”
“Huh?”
“A few months ago, the Fourth of July. You said if I worked the Fourth of July weekend for you, you’d give me any favor I want.”
That’s right. I had been super homesick thinking of my family all together at the lake, spending my favorite holiday without me. After two days of begging and offering anything and everything I could think of, Kelly agreed to work the holiday weekend on the condition she could ask me any favor, at any time, and I had to agree.
“Oh yeah, I remember. What do you need?”
“You are going on a blind date with Trevor’s friend.”
Trevor is her newest Tinder Boyfriend. She’s known him for approximately a week, so I highly doubt she’s met this friend of his.
Sirens blare off in my head. “No.” If I’m not going to act on feelings for Dr. Ryan, I’m certainly not going to go on a blinddate. I take a step back from her. “Hell no, I’m not going on a blind date with someone none of us knows.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Dr. Ryan and Meg approach the nurses’ station. He pulls out a chair and rolls it to her. I have a silent moment of jealousy; Jenna’s lie still fresh in my mind.
Okay, maybe I like him. I like him a lot.
“Why not?” Kelly continues,“You said I could cash in my favor for whatever I wanted.”
I turn my attention back to her. “Yeah, I meant for days off or do your laundry for a month or bailing you out of jail. Why waste it on this?”
“Because he’s Trevor’s friend, and if you started dating him, then we could go on double dates.”
I can’t even fake enthusiasm. Kelly knows the basics of my past, but not the gritty details. She tends to listen in on any conversation, and while I’ve become more open over the last year, and she’s learned a little bit about what led me to Chicago, she doesn’t know half the shit I went through. She’s tried to set me up on dates before and I always weasel out of them.
“I think you should do it,” Jenna adds.
“Excuse me?”
“What’s the big deal? You just told me you don’t have a crush onanyone,” she prods. “If you don’t go on a date at some point, your poor vagina is going to shrivel up and you’ll have nothing left down there but a sad little raisin, begging for attention. I say do it.”
I give Jenna my dirtiest look and she challenges me with her own. That little bratknowsthat I have a crush on Dr. Ryan, and this is her way of getting me to admit it out loud. “Unless,” she starts, “there is someone else you have feelings for? Someone who should man up and ask you out?” She looks around the station, making blatant eye contact with Dr. Ryan as she does.
