Page 23 of Auctioned to Dr. Daddy

Selma laughs. “I mean, you can’t tell me that I’m wrong. I totally would have heard from you last night, if you hadn’t.”

“Fine,” I huff, “Yes, we did. Maybe.”

“Doesn’t sound like a maybe to me.”

“I’m not going to give you a play-by-play,” I tell her, using my flip-flop-clad foot to bump against her shin. “So you might as well stop looking for that.”

“I could give you a play-by-play on my night?” Selma offers.

“Pass,” I tell her, laughing. “I’ll just take a basic summary.”

“That’s no fun.” Selma’s already ordered her drink, a mint julep. She curls her fingers around the tall glass and slides it closer to her. There’s condensation dripping down the outside of it, spilling onto the pale yellow tablecloth. “Alright, basic summary. Do you know that steakhouse on Island Grove?”

I nod.

“We went there,” says Selma. “Then we both decided that the food kind of sucked, and we went to his house. He totally cooked dinner for me. Way better than the steakhouse.”

My eyebrows raise. “Yeah? Are you going to see him again?”

There’s a flash of disappointment on Selma’s face as she shakes her head. “No, probably not. It was a lot of fun, but you know how Tyler is. It’s not like we hit it off and things are going anywhere.”

Tyler Stone is a known player, the kind that sweeps into a hospital, has fun, and sweeps back out. Still, I get the feeling that Selma might have more of a crush on him than she wants to admit. I can’t help feeling bad for her.

“What did he cook you?” I ask.

“I thought you just wanted a brief summary?”

“I don’t need to know how the sex was.”

An almost devilish look crosses Selma’s face. She reaches across the table to shove at my arm. “Yeah, well, I do. Come on, how was he?”

I’m very briefly saved by the bell when the waitress comes over to get our drinks. A chai latte for me, and their specialty for the both of us; fairy sandwiches. It’s an array of petite, finger-length sandwich slices. The tray comes with about six different types, including salmon and herb butter, and a vegetarian-style mushroom on rye.

It’s perfect for sharing over brunch… But Selma’s not distracted by our meal arriving in the slightest. She picks up a slice of the roast beef with mushroom compote and spicy mustard, using it to jab in my direction. “You’re into him. I can tell.”

There’s no sense arguing with her, especially not when she’s right. “I might be. A tiny bit. He’s just really funny, and stupidly hot and, you know, he’s a lot sweeter than I was expecting. But it doesn’t matter. I’m transferring under him.”

“I think that’s exactly where you would want to be,” snickers Selma, biting off a piece of the sandwich length.

I help myself to a thick-cut smoked Gouda and honey roast sandwich sliver. The sweet and smoky mixture is perfect and stupidly makes me think of Nathan. Sweet with a little mystery in it. Of course, that could just be that I haven’t stopped thinking about him.

“The point,” I say, ignoring the innuendo. “Is that we both agreed it’s going to be better if we don’t mess around once I start working at Mercy General. It’s going to be a lot better for my career. And I wouldn’t have the time for it anyway. I’m already strapped—”

“Between your residency and the farm work,” says Selma, parroting my usual line for dismissing getting with someone. “Sure, but you don’t normally work with someone. I mean, that could be to your advantage, Demi. You guys could spend time together on breaks, and have little secret meet-ups in the closet—”

“And have everyone think that I’m trying to sleep my way through my residency,” I point out. The thought is pretty sour. I’ve seen how nurses end up acting if you get on their bad side, and it’s not something I want to have to deal with.

Hard pass, thank you very much.

Selma counters, “Oh no, what a scandal. You’re thinking about going home with the same guy, multiple times. That totally reeks of ‘sleeping your way through residency’.” She rolls her eyes.

“People are only going to think that if you start spreading your legs for, like, all the doctors there. I bet that they won’t even look twice at you dating Nathan.”

“We already talked about it,” I say, unhappily. My cheeks go bright pink at the wording that she chooses. Fine, sure, there’s a difference between the two. The nurses probably aren’t going to care that I’m dating someone that I work with, especially since I don’t plan on absolutely pissing any of them off.

It doesn’t make me any happier to hear.

In fact, it actually makes my mood that much worse.

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