Page 2 of Doc Showmance
“I’m flattered, but I’m seeing someone.”Liar.
“I promise not to bring Doudrop along until she’s gas-free.” He held the little dog away from him when she ripped another toot. “Good Lord, Doudrop. My car is going to smell like a porta potty.” He met my gaze again. “You sure you don’t want to get together?” He glanced at my ring finger with obvious purpose as if to suggest whomever I was “dating” didn’t value me. Or maybe my imagination read into the look.
Why did I even care?
So what if I was almost thirty and still single?
I had to shut this down before he pulled more colorful drama to ensure this made it onto the show.“I’m going to have my receptionist get you checked out in here. Call me if the diarrhea isn’t better in forty-eight hours.”
As I exited, he called out, “So that’s a no on us getting coffee?”
I didn’t reply. My heart pounded and my mind filled with worst-case-scenario images of how the TV editors would twist all this to put it on TV. Edit here, cut there, and then everything both of us said got distorted so far from reality that it became fiction.
Susan put a hand on my shoulder outside the exam room. The woman was professional to a tee, but a wide grin broke on her face. “Lordy, Doc. I’ve never…in twenty-five years…” A chortle broke free. “Never seen a grown man rip his shirt off like he was Magic Mike during an appointment. Then to have the balls to ask you out?”
“Shit does that to people.”
She shook her head, still smiling. “Good one.”
“Did you see the tattoo?” I asked. “Guess you couldn’t miss it. I tried not to look. Tried so hard, but using the nipple as Pikachu’s eyeball? I do love good ink work, but…” I sensed the camera nearby and clamped my mouth shut against finishing since something not nice was about to come out. Something guaranteed to make prime time TV. I parked myself in front of a computer to type up my plan for the Shih Tzu’s diarrhea.
Right now, I worked day shifts at the clinic. Most people think of veterinary emergency work as overnights only. Night shifts had done bad things to my endocrine system as I discovered my first year out, during my internship. I went into an adrenal crisis that landed me in the hospital from the mixture of lack of sun, stress, and stricly nocturnal schedule. The San Diego Animal Emergency Hospital in Pacific Beach stays open 24-7 with at least two to three vets on duty at all times. The hospital manager agreed to put me on day shifts until I finished my residency.
Technically, most considered me a baby vet still, being only three years out of school, but working exclusively emergency medicine accelerated my learning curve. I’d become a rock star. I knew it. The staff knew it. They gave me the hard cases, especially those that needed emergency surgery—the fractures, bloats, bleeding spleens, and foreign body ingestions.
From the corner of my eye, I detected movement. I couldn’t help but sweep my gaze in the direction of long, toned legs in jeans and cowboy boots.
Dr. Ian Todd?
What was Mr. Internet Sensation Veterinarian-Model who had his own TV show where he traveled the world to spotlight endangered species’ veterinary care doing here? My heart rate accelerated to the point its pounding hurt my ribcage. A mishmash of emotion pinged inside my head until I couldn’t think straight. Trickles of sweat slithered down my back.
Ian was like a bottle of Macallan with biceps. He took early five o’clock shadows and low voices to a whole new level of sexy—not that I viewed him that way. That’s what other women said. Not me.
Okay, maybe me too. But I’d never say it out loud.
“Amber.” His intonation of my name hadn’t been ahi-how-are-younor agreat-to-see-you. More of a fatalisticoh-crap-it’s-Ambertone.
“What are you doing here?” I snapped. We’d parted ways for what I’d hoped had been forever when we graduated from vet school. Never seeing this man again remained one of my top lifetime goals.
His face split with the ever-ready wide smile that was his go-to in almost all situations. Couldn’t read jack shit when he grinned like a sports commentator about to interview the top team player post-game.
Seven years ago, when we were both students at UC Davis vet school, he’d had side careers in TV ad acting and lady slaying. As in, he went through one-nighters with women the way most men did T-shirts.
Not me. We’d never had a one-night stand. I might’ve crushed on him a lot our first two years of vet school, especially during our long hours as lab partners, and then studying together in the library or the coffeehouse. We had something special beyond the fact we pushed each other to be better. Until he instigated the most embarrassing moment of my life. Valentine’s Day of my second year in school, Ian went down on one knee outside class. He declared he thought he was falling for me and offered me a bouquet of roses. My jaw might’ve hit the floor. Having seen the video recording, I stuttered a bunch of nonsense. Then I heard giggling in the bushes nearby.
Someone jumped out and yelled, “Gotcha!”
Surprise. I was on candid camera.
I’d been the victim of a cheesy prank for some online vlog show. Everyone in class saw me behaving like a smitten idiot. Ian hit number one on my shit list.
Did he apologize? He tried, but not right after it happened. Not the next day. Not even the next week. Months later, when we had to work on a presentation he tried, but my ears were deaf to his words.
Neither the lazy way he rested his six-foot frame against the counter, staring at me with that half smirk, nor the heavily muscled arms and chest he must spend hours a day working on caught my attention.
It was his blazing gray eyes entirely zoomed in on me that made me pause. I’d never forgotten how intense the color was, but today it caught me off guard.
Then there was everything else.
