Page 11 of Resisting You

“I mean, objectively,” Frey said, shutting his journal. Renato had been surprisingly quiet that day, and Frey wasn’t sure if it was because of the confrontation in the hallway or if the rumors were true and Renato almost lost a trauma patient. He kind of had a feeling it was the second one, so he was trying not to go too hard on the guy.

But he was still pissed that the guy acted like he didn’t owe Frey an apology. Frey had come into work nearly shitting his pants thinking he was about to get fired. As it turned out, one of the other surgeons—a doctor who was actually good friends with Renato—had come to his defense. He’d taken it upon himself to speak to Rob, who was able to corroborate Frey’s side of the story.

He still hadn’t had the chance to thank Dr. Banks for coming to his defense, but he was thinking about making the guy a batch of his oatmeal chocolate chip brookies because the guy probably saved his ass.

Frey was still on edge when Renato had found him in Rob’s room, though, and he was half expecting to have a knockdown, drag-out brawl right there in front of the poor bastard still healing from his amputation. Instead, Renato had been professional.

Then, true to his nature, he’d been a total dickhead in the hallway.

There was something comforting about the way nothing had changed, though. Frey wasn’t sure what he’d do if Renato had actually apologized. That would definitely have been some sign of the apocalypse.

And then, when Frey found his carrot sticks and hummus missing from his lunch, he figured everything was completely back to normal.

All he had to do now was retaliate.

“You with us?”

Frey blinked up and realized that Dallas and Adele were staring at him. He offered a sheepish smile and rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry. Lost in thought.”

“Thinking about your date this weekend?” Adele said, waggling his eyebrows.

Frey swallowed past a lump in his throat. He’d caved and lied to Oz about getting a date, but then he had to go through the whole song and dance of pretending like he was actually going out, which meant lying to his friends. Lane and Bowen were babysitting Rex, and Frey was going to leave the neighborhood for a bit.

And…he was going to do what he always did when he was faking it: he was going to head to the movies, buy himself the biggest popcorn they sold with a side of nacho cheese, then hunker down and stay through the credits. When he was done, he’d head to a bookstore, load up on caffeine and a couple of the latest queer sci-fi novels he’d been eyeing, and when enough time passed to look like he’d managed a hookup, he’d go home.

It felt pathetic, but it was what it was. Though he was starting to think that maybe telling the truth would be easier.

“So, question,” Dallas said.

Frey looked up when he realized the guy was talking to him. “Mm.”

“Do any of your boyfriends have single, available sisters or cousins, or even like—I don’t know, dog walkers that are cool with a guy who has a baby? Because I’m starting to feel a little desperate.” Dallas smiled, but his cheeks were all pink, which told Frey the pride it cost him to ask.

Dallas was new to the group and still trying to figure out his life. He didn’t talk much about his divorce or his ex, but he had told them all the marriage fell apart when he found his pregnant wife being railed by someone else. It was a flurry of separating, of court, of waiting on the birth and getting a paternity test so he knew whether or not he was becoming a dad.

He’d just come off a string of custody mediation, and he’d been granted weekends with his daughter and the occasional Thursday night when his ex wanted to go out. He was dealing quietly, and Frey knew exactly what that all felt like.

“I’ll ask around,” Frey finally answered, “but I don’t really have that kind of relationship with my hookups.” Because none of them are actually real, he thought to himself. “I do know a couple nurses who?—”

“No,” Adele and Dallas both said. “We’ve heard your stories,” Adele went on. “He’s looking for dates. Someone who wants to be around a baby.”

All of the kid-friendly, long-term-love kind of nurses Frey knew were already happily taken. The rest were seven shades of disaster, and while he adored them with his whole heart, he didn’t want to get his newly single friend mixed up in that kind of drama.

“Sorry,” he said.

Dallas waved him off. “It might be better if I gave up for a while. I think the universe is telling me to focus on something else.”

“Start knitting,” Adele said. “It’ll give you something to do with your hands that won’t lead you to chafing.”

Frey burst into laughter while Dallas glared. “I hate you,” his friend said. “We all hate you.”

Adele grinned wider. “Yeah. But y’all love me too.”

Frey set his hands on his son’s shoulders and captured his gaze. ‘Promise,’ he signed.

Rex rolled his eyes, and the sarcasm was heavy in his response. ‘Promise.’

His son was six, which meant entering what his friends all called the sociopath phase—the pre-tween era with the first hints of hormone fluctuations and the occasional disconnect from empathy and guilt. Some kids had it worse. Adele said that Gage had once told him he didn’t care if Adele lived or died and sometimes thought how nice it would be to live with a new family.

---