Page 12 of Rookie Recovery

DR. JAMES SULLIVAN, PT, DPT.

James Sullivan. Like the big blue guy from Monsters, Inc. Sully. I smiled to myself. I loved that movie. Obviously, when I was a kid, but, like, it was still great. Mike Wasowski, and … Randall. Oh my gosh, Randall.

Okay, maybe I should watch it again when I get back to the apartment. I had an entire fridge full of Chinese takeaway leftovers to get through. Pretty sure I’d never learn my lesson on American portion sizes.

I knocked on the door.

The little girl in the movie was called Boo. Cute.

“It’s open,” said a husky, deep male voice.

What was it Boo used to call Sully? Something silly like …

I pushed the door wide. Tripped over my own feet. Stumbled forward three or four steps and practically landed in the PT’s lap.

“Kitty!” I blurted weakly as the answer to my question popped into my head. “Uh …”

Kitty. That was what Boo called Sully. The little girl from Monsters … actually, never mind.

It didn’t matter.

Nothing else mattered in that moment, because the PT—my new PT—was none other than the so-hot-I-probably-imagined-him dream hunk from the bar last night.

There he was. A flashing beacon of supermassive American sex appeal. Real.

So very fucking real.

I blinked a couple of times just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming him up again. Was I still drunk? Would it be too obvious if I pinched my arm?

“I’m Jamie,” Dream Hunk said. Not Kitty. Of course, his name wasn’t Kitty. Idiot Bowie.

I shook my head, ridding the thought, and let my eyes travel over … everything. From his rich olive skin, to his neatly pressed white button-down, open at the collar. The thick forearms and biceps overfilling his shirt sleeves, the even thicker chest he’d crossed those arms over.

His five o’clock shadow had definitely not been a figment of my fantasy, or those ultra defined, pert lips, or those dreamy chocolate brown eyes. Or the perfect little cleft between his brows that was crying out for me to wedge my thumb in.

“We met last night?” he said. His voice alone had the ability to redirect all the blood in my body. “At The Lounge. Or are you having trouble remembering?”

“Of course I remember,” I said, composing myself and casually lifting a shoulder. “I wasn’t that pissed.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Did we snog?”

“Snog?”

“I guess snog isn’t a particularly sexy word, is it? What about tonsil hockey? Swap spit? Pash? Make out? First base? Did we get to first base?” I said. Dr Sexpot flinched, his hand going up to scratch the back of his head. “Oh, my God, did we get higher than first base? Did we”—I motioned a finger between us—“go to the bathroom to—”

“No!” He cleared his throat. “We did not. And we did not snog.” He shuffled his feet, and I realised that even if I did have the mother of all hangovers, I was going to enjoy my morning in Jamie’s office.

He picked up some papers from his desk and stared down at them, but the way his eyes were unfocused, and his posture so ramrod straight, like he was a deer in the forest listening out for predators, I knew he wasn’t reading them. Only buying himself some time. Figuring out how to handle me.

Yeah, good luck with that, mate. I still hadn’t figured out how to handle me.

After a few moments, he placed his papers down and crossed his tiny office to the hand washing sink. “Okay, when you’re ready, hop up onto the table for me. This’ll be easier if you lose the shirt. There’s a screen—” But Jamie cut himself off, as I whipped away my basic black workout tee.

He stared at my stomach for a full three seconds before pointedly tearing his eyes away. He coughed. Made a big show of not looking again and focused on the unnecessarily elaborate and noisy job of washing his hands, drying them with a paper towel, and disposing of it.

But I’d seen that look before. A thousand times. It said, this, what you’re offering, I’m into it.

And so he should be. I spent a lot of time on this body.

“Ready, Doc,” I said, once I’d climbed on top of the bed, couch, whatever.

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