Page 40 of You Loved Me Once
He’s a man.
I know he’s great in so many ways, but he’s also a showman. The good impression he makes is carefully orchestrated. Westin wants to be the Chief of Surgery. He’s playing a game and we’re all the pawns. Anyone that doesn’t see that is blind.
“I never said he was,” she clarifies.
Didn’t she? “Why do you keep bringing this up? It’s the second time in a few days.”
Julie shifts to face me. “Don’t tell me you don’t hear the rumors about the women wanting to take your place, Ren. He may not be perfect, but he’s pretty damn close.”
“You don’t know everything. He’s got ambitions and if you think he won’t step on all of us to get there, you’re crazy.”
She sways in her seat a little and puts her head back down. “Like either of us wouldn’t if we had the chance?”
“I’d like to think I wouldn’t step on my friends to get to the top,” I say, because I want to earn the title of chief, not politic my way to that seat. Which will probably be why I never get it.
Julie laughs once. “You would and neither would Wes. He may have aspirations and goals, but he’s not an asshole. He wants to get it the same way that we do.”
Wes isn’t that way. He’s kind and she’s right. He wouldn’t purposely destroy anyone to reach his goals. “True. So that leaves you. And we all know that you couldn’t hurt anyone,” I reply. “You’re too damn nice.”
“This is true,” she sighs. “I’m happy in my lab, and you’re happy with people.”
She’s right again. I want to be the person on the front lines of medicine. Being chief is a lot of paperwork, politics, and pissing people off. I’ll stick to the patients, where I can make a real difference.
“I have to pee,” Julie giggles as she hops off her barstool. “Don’t do anything stupid!”
“Okay,” I say as my head lolls to the side. “I’ll be right here.”
I never drink like this, but it feels good to relax for once. I feel like the last fifteen years of my life, I’ve had a great big stick up my ass. It was college, mom being sick, med school, internship, residency, and now it’s just constant death. Not to mention my father isn’t going to be around forever and my wayward brother can’t do shit.
I’m tired. I’m tired of always doing the right thing.
I’m tired of always being a damn adult.
When do I get to have fun? Never, that’s when. My friends enjoyed the first four years of college, but I wasn’t at bars or frat parties, I was studying or with Bryce. It was my choice, I know this, but I thought I had more time.
When Mom got sick, everything changed. My entire life became about cancer. I need a little fun once in a while.
“This seat taken?” A deep voice I’d know even in a crowd of screaming people asks from beside me.
Our eyes meet and there’s an ache in my heart as I take him in. He looks tired and desperate, and yet on the outside, you only see perfection. Bryce Peyton was trained to never show emotion, but I can see it. There were always fissures in his stone-cold façade that I was able to pick up on. There’s pain and fear in those gorgeous eyes, things he thinks he’s hiding, but I see his wife’s sickness is weighing him down.
Wife.
Remember that, Serenity. It’s not because of me or being around me. It’s because his wife is sick.
“I’m waiting for my friend,” I explain and turn back to my drink.
“Not what I asked,” Bryce says as he sits without my answer.
“Well, the seat is taken, but I’m sure you’ll sit anyway. Not like you care about what makes me happy.” I mumble the last part and then drain the rest of my martini.
It’s clear that he’s not going to respect my request for him to stay away from me.
“I’ll move when your boyfriend gets back,” he tosses out and then orders his drink.
A whiskey neat.
Some things never change.
