Page 74 of The Doctor's Truth

He snorts on a laugh. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“We don’t have to do this,” Donovan mutters beside me and shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

But I can’t let it go. I lift a palm. “Hold up. Donovan is literally the best doctor in this entire hospital.”

“Who, dick boy?” Nick says, with a jagged grin, and the words hit my ears strange.

I’d forgotten we used to call Donovan that.

Worse—I’d forgotten I was the one that coined the term.

It’d seemed funny and harmless when we were teenagers. It feels like chewing on pebbles now.

Donovan goes red at the old nickname, and I feel anger start to boil in my gut.

I try to keep my voice controlled. “If you don’t want the best of the best, that’s fine, but you can check yourself in somewhere else.”

Nick’s gaze flickers between the two of us. “Oh, yeah. It makes sense now. Why you stopped hanging out. Why you left that fox of a wife of yours. You two are too busy sucking each other off now, huh?”

My lips thin. “You’re overstepping, Nick.”

“I’m overstepping?” He sneers. “You think no one saw you two pawing at each other on New Year’s? Makes me fucking sick. Does your dad know about it?”

I set my jaw. Donovan lifts his hands. “Alright, I’m out. You two have fun.”

Donovan starts to leave, but that must get under Nick’s skin, because he hisses, “Sure, just run away, you fucking—”

And then he says that word. My father’s favorite F word. And my blood goes cold.

My pulse quiets. The hospital vanishes around me. I stop thinking about Donovan, about Nick, about anything. All I can think of is that word. I turn to him. “What’d you say?” I ask him.

“I just called your boyfriend a—”

Before he can say it again, my fist meets his mouth.

* * *

Donovan and I cool our heels in the courtyard outside Lighthouse Medical.

Being the kid of the CEO of the hospital has perks. For example, when security escorts you out, you know that you’re not going to lose your job in the morning.

Probably.

The cold is bitter. The grass has iced over, and it crackles under my boots. We sit side by side on the landing, just taking a moment to breathe after everything that went down.

“You didn’t have to stand up for me,” Donovan finally says. “I’m capable of taking care of myself.”

“I know. But it felt good.”

Donovan lets out a half laugh. “So much for meditation.”

I shrug. In the summer, the courtyard is filled with people—people in wheelchairs sitting under the trees, patients recovering from physical therapy doing loops around the center, and doctors and nurses sipping on coffee between shifts. But in January, no one’s outside.

It’s just the two of us. And I’m feeling close to Donovan now, so maybe that’s why the next words slip out. “Hey. I’m going to dinner at my parents’ house on Friday. You want to come?”

Donovan turns to me, eyebrows lifted. “You’re inviting me to family dinner?”

“Yeah.”

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