Page 15 of Boyfriend of the Hour
“Nothing,” he said a little too quickly. “I just can’t do it.”
Obvious bullshit.
“No way,” I said. “I paid my two hundred dollars for this appointment, and I can’t afford another. Are you or are you not a plastic surgeon?”
“Of course I am.” Now Dr. Hunt was the one who sounded impatient. “I just can’t be yours. I realize this is inconvenient, but?—”
“It’s beyondinconvenient, Dr. Hunt,” I snapped, though I’d already yanked the sides of the medical gown closed. No more freak show for him.
Even more infuriatingly, he seemed relieved.
Asshole.
“I want to see your manager,” I said, then bit my lower lip to keep it from trembling as tears pricked at my eyes. Fuck, why did I care so much what this stuck-up doctor thought of me?
Because I was already at rock bottom, that’s why.
Because everyone else in my life thought I was a fuckup, and my sitting here was basically the next step to scraping thebottom of the barrel, desperate for any validation, even if it had to come surgically.
Because even if Iwasas pathetic as everyone said, for some reason I couldn’t even try to understand, I didn’t wanthimto think so.
“I don’t have a manager,” the doctor was saying. “It’s a group practice, so we manage ourselves. You can see one of the other doctors if you like. They might have appointments in another few months. Otherwise, I’ll make sure you receive a full refund.”
“Fuck that.” The words cut my tongue even as my voice shook. Totally inappropriate for this bright office, and certainly too uncouth for this posh neighborhood. “I don’thavea few months—I only got this because of a last-minute cancellation. And if I don’t?—”
I cut myself off then. No, he didn’t deserve my story. Not that he even cared. I was nothing to him, just another service worker rich men like him could treat like garbage, someone whose meager savings he could afford to turn down just because he didn’t like the look of me.
A hand landed on my knee, warm and solid. I looked down to see that Dr. Hunt had scooted across the room so that he was right next to me, tall enough that even seated several inches lower than the exam table, he was almost able to look at me eye to eye.
If I could stop staring at his hand, that is.
It was a completely inappropriate way to touch a patient. But I supposed I wasn’t that to him. Not anymore. Now I was just an object of something worse than derision. His pity.
He removed it almost immediately, like my skin was hot to the touch. Apparently, the rest of me disgusted him as much as my breasts.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked quietly. “Honestly.”
“I, um, don’t think that’s any of your business.”
I hugged my arms around my body and twisted my ankles together. I was naked except for this paper gown and my Wonder Woman underwear. I wanted nothing more than to put on my familiar jeans and hot pink sweater and get as far away from this room and this hot, mean doctor as possible.
“You just said we’re friends,” Dr. Hunt said. “So I’m not going to give you my professional opinion unless you tell me what brought you here. You’re very young to be considering breast augmentation.”
And there it was. The judgment I knew was waiting for me.
“I’m twenty-four, not fourteen,Doctor,” I said with every bit of sass I could muster. Which was a lot, if you asked my sisters. “You’ve never had a girl my age in here looking to have her tits done?”
“I have,” he admitted. “But they’re generally women married to much wealthier men, women recovering from the effects of childbirth and breastfeeding, or strippers—exotic dancers, I mean. You’re not married, you haven’t had children, and you’re not…”
I looked up. Did I really have to say my plans out loud?
Especially when I hadn’t exactly voiced them to myself?
I mean, when my cousin suggested I visit her plastic surgeon, it wasn’t because she was making a killing serving drinks. And while I’dtoldhim it was because I wanted to earn more as a bartender, in the back of my mind, I probably knew I was lying too. That, in the end, I always knew I’d be right where Rochelle and too many other has-been dancers in the tri-state area ended up.
But clearly, I didn’t need to say a thing.
“Oh.” So much realization in one little word. So much shock in those big brown eyes.
