Page 5 of Dr. Fellow

While Cass and I have been friends for several years because we work in the same department, I’ve only known Claire for a few months. But sometimes it feels like I’ve known her longer because we’re so in sync. Honestly, if we weren’t almost a foot apart in height, I would think we were twins who were separated at birth.

I was sad she couldn’t hang tonight, but apparently she has her first nursing school exam next week and needs to study. I told her that studying is for losers, and the only things worth knowing are the ones that she’ll learn in clinical, but she didn’t believe me. One day she’ll realize that I’m right about everything, just like everyone eventually does.

“What are your thoughts on Margarita Mamas?” I ask, moving my legs out of the strike zone to prop them on the white-washed coffee table which also looks brand new despite the slew of junk covering the surface.

An entire box of Mellow Mushroom pizza has already been stuffed into our mouths. A bottle of red wine is well on its way to being emptied. And we’re about an hour away from passing out on the couch. Nights like these with my best friend are truly priceless.

“That group name would make sense if any of us were moms.” Cassidy shoots me a concerned glare like she’s trying to determine if I am, indeed, a mom.

I roll my eyes because she should know better. I wouldn’t be half a bottle of wine deep if I was pregnant . . . I am a nurse after all. And despite my daily nutritional intake of zero fruits and vegetables, I do have some sense of health promotion.

“Don’t give me that look,” I state with a pout. “I haven’t had sex this entire year. There’s absolutely zero chance that I’m pregnant, unless it’s with a fictional man’s baby.”

To be fair, my dry spell is entirely self-imposed—it’s not like there haven’t been loads of guys blowing up my DMs, but at some point, I got tired of lackluster sex with men who didn’t make me feel anything other than bored.

Yeah, I like the attention and it strokes my massive ego, but you can only pretend to come so many times before you start wondering if there’s more to life than faking it. At this point, I’m totally fine living alone with my vibrator and one-handed reads because at least I know I’ll always be satisfied.

“It’s only January fifteenth.”

“Exactly. I’m practically celibate,” I groan, spitting a strand of hair from my mouth. “Find us something to watch while I fix my damn braid. Not sure how I let you convince me that I’d look good with shoulder-length hair. This is worse than when I had bangs.”

I sit up and toss the remote at Cass. She conned me into chopping off my gorgeous chestnut locks last Halloween for a Spice Girls costume, and I’ve been trying to grow it back ever since. My hair only slightly passed my collarbone, and I’m about at my wits’ end of patience. At this point, I either need to overdose on Biotin or pay for extensions because I’m tired of the effort that having short hair requires.

“Anyways,” I say as I secure a clear tie at the base of my braid and flop back into my original position, “I know for a fact that I’m not a mother because my New Year’s Resolution was to stop hooking up with guys who don’t make my kitty purr.”

My best friend clamps her lips together to hide her smile. “Interesting.”

“What’s interesting?”

“Oh you know,” she starts, clearly amused by whatever is about to come out of her mouth. “It just looked like Walker was well on his way to doing that the night of my engagement party.”

My cheeks flame as I fumble for a lie.

“Not sure what you’re talking about,” I scoff, though I know exactly what she’s talking about.

The way that Walker Chastain looked at me that night was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. It was like he wanted to devour me. Like he wanted to ruin me. Like he hated everything about me, but at the same time, he couldn’t stay away.

And even though it goes against everything I believe in, I couldn’t either.

I really can’t explain my visceral reaction to him that night because he isn’t my usual type. He’s a physician, and if there’s anything worse than a man who only cares about his own pleasure, it’s a man who went to medical school. I have a strict rule to never, ever, look twice at anyone in scrubs, which is probably why I never really noticed him until that night when he was disguised in a tuxedo.

Cass leans forward and takes a sip of her Merlot. “I never thought you’d be into a guy with tats.”

Me either.

I’ve never felt uncertain and nervous around a man in my life, but Walker made me feel that way with a single look.He’s broody and quiet—the kind of guy who you have no idea what’s going through his head when you look at him because he’s so good at controlling his reactions.

And honestly, it isn’t even his impenetrable vibe that makes me uneasy when I think back on that night—it’s his eyes. Eyes that are a deep, rich brown but completely empty, like they were once sucked free of all of the joy in the world. It made me wonder what had to happen in his life to have eyes like that. Eyes that don’t really see.

The weird thing, though, is that despite how much he seemed to be fighting it, it felt like all he saw that night was me.

“First of all,” I state, pretending to be disinterested in this conversation despite the way my pulse is racing. “I’m not into anyone. Walker is just another name on the long list of men who are obsessed with me. Second of all, he’s married, so it wouldn’t even matter if I was.”

“Is he?” Cass asks, a smug expression on her face.

I roll my eyes. “Yes, dumb dumb. According to Dr. Google.”

I may or may not have put my FBI agent cap on the next day because I wanted to understand why in God’s name he would walk away from me. It felt like we were playing a game of cat and mouse that we were both enjoying until he suddenly forfeited at the last second, right before he planted a kiss on my lips. He caged me in and then set me free like I wasn’t worthy of keeping, which pissed me off until I found his wedding photographer’s website from five years ago and everything made sense—the fucker isn’t on the market.

---