on stage at the beginning of a Beyoncé concert, and the butterflies swooping through my gut like fighter jets react accordingly.
I ease closer, drawn to that smile. To her.
“They weren’t up to your standards, though,” she adds.
This information pleases me greatly.
“Few are. So what are you doing now?”
“Studying for my boards,” she says ruefully. “Trying to land a fellowship in plastics.”
“Here?”
She pauses, a shadow hovering over her expression just as a gust of wind whips up her hair. The silken strands tickle their way down my cheek and across my lips. Not exactly the sight of her dropping to her knees in front of me, but the effect is similar in terms of winding me up. I pull the thick curls away from my face and take my sweet time letting them slide free. And if a deft move or two wraps the strands around my fingers in the process (I’m a surgeon; I’ve got good hands), that’s not the end of the world, is it?
I certainly don’t think so.
Neither does she, judging by her rising color and sudden breathlessness as she gathers all that glorious hair and tosses it over her shoulder.
“Sorry,” she says, her voice a little husky now. “I can’t control what my hair does on any given day. Didn’t mean to assault you.”
Assault away, angel.
It’s okay, I want to tell her, but my fingers tingle and I need to figure out whether I’m imagining the way she’s looking at me with those glittering eyes. Whether the glitter comes from the city’s skyline or the kind of sexual attraction that I feel for her.
I could use a pep talk from my reluctant wingman right about now, but I know what he’d say. Ask her out, moron.
So I open my mouth, determined to go for it.
“Listen,” I begin, my voice gruff. “Do you want to—”
“Here’s your drink, babe,” comes an unwelcome new voice, breaking the spell between us and making me tense up.
A male voice.
I manage to look around without giving him the evil eye, a difficult feat with jealousy suddenly clamped around my throat. And there he is, wrapping a proprietary arm around her waist and kissing the cheek that I would dearly love to kiss. Her date. Or worse.
But…no.
A glance at her hand as she accepts a glass of champagne reveals no rings.
I breathe easier. Not much, but some. They’re not married or engaged. Hopefully, she just met this guy a few weeks ago and plans to dump him for his use of a lame–ass endearment like babe. I wait for the introductions with what seems like my entire existence hanging in the balance.
“Thanks,” she tells the guy, looking flustered as she gestures at me without meeting my eye again. “This is, ah, Dr. Michael Jamison. My chief resident when I was an intern.”
I can’t manage a credible good to meet you. “How’re you doing?” I say instead, extending my hand.
I take a good look at him as he switches his beer to the other hand and we shake. That’s when I get another shock.
He doesn’t quite hit my height of six-two, but he’s fit like me. I’m guessing he’s in his thirties, like me. He has tan skin, dark hair and a close-cropped beard. Like me. We could be brothers. If they ever make a movie about my life, central casting will send over this guy.
“Bruce Whitaker,” he says as I’m still trying to absorb what I’m seeing. He doesn’t have my deep voice, but it’s damn close. “Ally’s boyfriend.”
2
Ally
What were you about to ask me? I desperately want to ask Dr. Jamison, but the moment and the question have slipped away with Bruce’s arrival. Funny how his appearance when I’m talking with Dr. Jamison feels as though I’ve crossed the black and white wires while replacing a light fixture in my apartment and given myself a nasty shock. Some things aren’t meant to touch. It feels strange to see two important men from different periods in my life together in the same space. The man I wanted when I was a lovesick intern versus the man I’m with now.
But here we all are.
My manners kick in and I perform the social niceties. I watch it all unfold with the muted horror with which I once watched Ripley announce her plans to go back and rescue Newt in Aliens: the introduction of my boyfriend of six months to the married man with whom I was once so obsessed that I lapsed into a major depression