by Ann, Natalie
Freaking hypocrite. They all had their vices outside the OR.
Just because he liked to date and play jokes on people in the office didn’t mean he didn’t take his job seriously. Or that he was the one to make the class laugh during lectures.
Hell, even his family knew what he was like and totally expected all the shit he did to them growing up. Since he didn’t live with anyone, he’d cut back on most of the practical jokes.
Except on Sam. He got the brunt of it now at work. Or in his office.
“If anyone can understand how quickly things go wrong, it’s me,” Sam said. The first patient Sam had assisted on with his mentor died on the table, from a reaction to anesthesia no less. That almost made Wyatt change his mind on his career right then and there when Sam told him. “And if you carry it around you’ll never find happiness. Not even if you think you are happy.”
“I can’t believe I’m getting a lecture from you when you were just as bad playing the field as me.”
“I’m not talking about playing the field like that. Everyone who knows you knows that you don’t date anything like Ryder does. You don’t pick up women in bars and you don’t get on dating apps. But you don’t have relationships longer than a month and you know it.”
“I haven’t found the right person,” he argued. “Unlike you. I still think if Dani saw me first, she’d be all mine.”
Sam laughed. “You couldn’t handle her. She wouldn’t put up with your shit.”
He snorted. “And what shit is that? Maybe you should explain.”
“The jokes. I’m not talking about women. I’m talking about the fact that everything is a laugh and a joke to you. You love to do it and we are used to it. She’s used to it now, but living with it isn’t always that much fun. Or at least your brothers and sister say that. I should know. I get enough of it at work. Not only that, you can’t sit still or shut up. That tends to get on people’s nerves.”
“They are all whiners,” he said. “And I haven’t done anything in your office lately.”
At least once a month he’d go into Sam’s office and move stuff around. Leave food hidden somewhere so it’d get spoiled in a drawer and stink. Sticky notes all over his chair. Glitter in multiple places so it took months before it wasn’t on Sam’s scrubs or clothes somewhere. Yeah, that one was great.
“It’s been a little over a month. I’m expecting something soon. Maybe you are just putting me on edge for no reason.”
“You’re not nervous over the wedding, are you?” he asked.
“No,” Sam said. “I can’t wait for it. I think that’s it more than anything. I can’t wait to be married and start the next chapter in my life. Speaking of chapters. The little hottie that left the table before me. What was that about? I still say you struck out.”
“Again, we didn’t get far enough for me to even ask about a date. I barely got to tell her my last name.”
“So you’d like to ask her out?” Sam said, laughing.
“You saw her. She’s smoking even in her scrubs. Wish I could see how long her hair was but it was up in the bun.”
Adriana had olive-colored skin, almond-shaped eyes that were brown with flecks of gold in them. Her lips were bare of any gloss or color, but they were nice and plump.
She didn’t have much makeup on, but she didn’t need it. Not one bit.
“She sat here at the table with you and you barely got her last name. That’s rich.”
“Ha ha. There were no empty tables. She’s new. I know that. I know who she is now. My mother told me about her.”
“Really?” he asked. “And how does Aunt Carolyn know about her? What’s her name, by the way?”
“Adriana Lopez. Her father married a teacher that works with my mom. I guess she moved here from San Diego a few months ago. That is what my mother told me and asked if I saw her to show her around. That she was kind of quiet and could use a friend.”
“She didn’t look all that shy or quiet to me,” Sam said. “She didn’t talk much, but most people who could use a friend tend to be loners or lacking self-confidence.”
His cousin was right. Adriana didn’t talk much to him, but she had no problem talking during the surgery when needed. There was an air of confidence with her doing her job too.
Even talking with him...she had no problem telling him what was on her mind. Being straightforward and in his face.
That is, until she found out their mothers knew each other.
Then she softened her approach a touch. Not much, but enough that he saw it. Until she stood up and pretty much raced away from the table.
“Well, there are more fish in the sea. So I’m ready for the wedding. The question is, are you?”
“I’m fine. I don’t have much to do but stand up there looking hotter than the groom.”
“Not happening,” Sam said. “No date, right? I’m not keeping track of things. I’m leaving that to my mother and Dani’s mom, but I thought I heard none of the single guys had dates.”
“Since Ryder and I are the only two single guys in the wedding, it wouldn’t make sense to bring dates and have them sitting with people they didn’t know,” he said.
Sam’s brother Bryce was the best man, his other brother, Ryder, another groomsman, and Wyatt was the only cousin in the wedding party. They didn’t want a big wedding party and Wyatt was closer to Sam than Noah and Drake since they did work together.
“True. But this is the first wedding you’ve been in. You might have gotten nervous and wanted to ditch everyone to go be with a date.”
“Please,” he said, looking at Sam’s grin. “In our family weddings are second nature at this point. Yep, it’s the first one I’ve been in, but now it’s like white doves and wedding gowns are showing up everywhere. I’ve got two more to be in soon enough with Drake and Noah.”
“No best man duties for you there. They’ll be each other’s,” Sam said.
“Thank God,” he said back. But the truth was he always felt like he didn’t belong as much as some of the others.
Drake and Noah were twins and had each other. He knew what it was like to be a twin as he had one too. His sister, Jade. But it wasn’t the same as having a twin brother. There were just some things he wasn’t sharing with his sister.
He’d always heard the middle child was the one that got the least attention but not in his family.
Or was that because he was a nuisance half the time like his siblings always said?
“We aren’t falling as fast as the five did, but it does seem to be a domino effect. Thank God our parents had nothing to do with any of it. Could you imagine the type of women they would have tried to set us up with?” Sam asked.
Wyatt laughed. Their aunt and uncle in Charlotte had set their five cousins up with their spouses without them knowing until Ella, the baby, figured it out. Little did she know she’d been the first to be set up, she just took the longest to fall.
“The Five don’t seem to be complaining.”
“That’s true,” Sam said. “Either way, I’m glad I picked Dani out on my own. She’s nothing like anyone else I’ve ever dated.”
“That’s true. Total opposites there. The same with Bryce and Payton and Drake and Kara. I’m not sure Noah and Paige are opposites, but they don’t have a ton in common either.”
Drake and Kara worked together at his family’s engineering firm. Kara in finance and Drake an engineer. The two butted heads nonstop over Drake’s spending. Not only that, nothing ever ruffled his laid back brother’s feathers...until he met Kara.
Then Noah, a high school principal who fell for Paige when he called her to his office over her nephew who’d been fighting. The nephew she had custody of.
Not only did Noah and Paige hit it off and the family loved her, but they loved Sebastian too. Paige’s teenage nephew that she was trying to adopt.
And why was his mind filling with all this family stuff right now when he normally pushed it aside?
“They are
happy and it’s all that matters,” Sam said, standing up. “I need to get back to my office. I’ve got appointments. Are you done in the OR today?”
Wyatt looked at his watch and stood up too. “No. I’ve got another surgery in about twenty minutes. Guess I was here longer than I thought I was going to be.”
“You just love my company,” Sam said. “You can’t stand to be alone. That is why you never go to your office when you have breaks but always end up where the people are.”
He was going to dispute that statement but realized his cousin was right.
4
Embrace Them
Adriana pulled into her father’s driveway. She’d had no intention of coming to dinner tonight, but her father called her and left a message that Maggie was making her favorite—shrimp scampi—and that there was plenty.
She knew a cry for company when she heard it, and the truth was, even though she lived in the same city as him now, she didn’t see him often.
She missed him.
Not like she had when she was states away. But enough that she gladly accepted the dinner invitation.
“Hello, sweetie,” her father said, coming forward and giving her a kiss on the cheek. He’d always been an affectionate father. She remembered that growing up. He’d even done it with her mother often. When her mother would avoid those kisses and touches she should have realized that something was going on.
She’d been too young back then to know it for what it was though. That her mother was pulling away because she had her sights on something else. Someone else.
Her father got the raw end of the deal. She knew that, but he’d tried to keep the peace as best as he could. Being in the middle was a shitty feeling and she’d been put there way too much in life.
“Hi, Dad. Your dinner invitation came at the right time today.”
“Really?” he asked. “Did you have a bad day?”
Figures her father would think that rather than she didn’t have much food in the house. “No. It was good. A normal day. But I was too lazy to go to the store to get food this week. I keep putting it off.”
“You’re going to waste away to nothing if you don’t eat,” he said.
“No chance of that happening,” she argued. She had the Latino curves down pat. She’d given up trying to be skinny a long time ago and went for toned instead.
No use training for marathons like most of her other twenty-something friends were doing.
She went straight for the weights and yoga. Hiking, biking. Everyday fun activities rather than structured cardio staring at a wall in a gym or boring running on a street.
If you can’t beat them, join them, or rather embrace them, had always been her thought when she looked at her curves.
“Men like their women with some substance to them. Those that don’t can’t appreciate a woman for what she is,” he said back.
“José, you are such a charmer,” Maggie said, walking into the room. Maggie had plenty of curves on her body. Not toned either, but not unhealthy. She liked her food and her father enjoyed the cooking and the company. Adriana suspected her father enjoyed the fact Maggie loved spoiling and pampering him too. Something his first wife never did.
“He is that,” Adriana said. “Thanks for the invite to dinner.”
“Anytime, honey. You know you’re welcome to come every night if you want. We wish you would have moved in with us. Your father was so excited you decided to leave California and all that mess behind you.”
There was no use arguing over the comment her stepmother made. She’d left as fast as she could to get away from the destruction that was left in her path.
She hadn’t meant for any of it to happen. She hadn’t even known she was a willing participant. And when she found out the truth, that she ended up being something close to her mother after all, she couldn’t wait to hightail it out of there like she was outrunning a crumbling street beneath her feet during an earthquake.
“I’d just be in the way,” she said.
Not only that, she was twenty-eight and needed to be living on her own, not with her father.
She had a damn good job and could afford it. Especially since housing was so much cheaper here than in California. Hell, everything was cheaper here.
“Nonsense,” Maggie said. “But we know how independent you are. Still, you can come to dinner a few times a week. We’d really love to have you.”
“I’ll think about it. Sometimes after a long day I just want to go home and workout and then relax. But it is nice to not have to cook for myself too.”
“I’ll send you home with leftovers. I’ve got plenty,” Maggie said. “We are almost ready to eat if you want to come into the kitchen and get a drink. Can I get you a glass of wine?”
“Do you have any beer?” she asked. Wine had never been her thing but give her a good beer and she was a happy girl.
“Help yourself if you want. Consider it your house,” her father said. “And grab me one too.”
But she had a hard time doing it because it was Maggie’s house. When her father relocated here he’d gotten a condo and when he and Maggie married they moved into the house she had with her ex-husband and kids. Adriana’s stepsisters didn’t live around here.
She’d met them a few times, but they didn’t even talk. She supposed Maggie was lonely when her daughters moved away after college too.
Loneliness was a good feeling for Adriana right now. Or so she was trying to convince herself.
After the past six months she had, she wanted to steer clear of any drama she could and in order to do that it meant not being around too many people.
“Let me help you set the table,” she said once she had her beer poured in a glass. A Fierce one she’d noticed and wondered if that was a relation to Wyatt and Sam.
“I’ve got it,” her father said. “You sit and enjoy your beer. Both of you. You work hard and need to get off your feet.”
Maggie sat down. “It is nice to get off my feet. I’m not sure how you do it all day, Adriana,” she said. “I’m just pacing back and forth in front of the classroom but get to sit now and again. You probably don’t sit much at all.” Maggie taught junior high history.
“I sit on my lunch break. That’s fine with me. Dad will tell you I’ve never been one for sitting still.”
“No, she hasn’t. Some kids like to color or read books when they are younger, playing with dolls. Not Adriana. She had to be running in the yard, chasing and kicking balls, playing sports, being with her friends. She never sat still much in her life.”
“Have you made many friends here?” Maggie asked.
“Not really,” she said. “But I’m not trying. I’m taking it slow and just doing my job and minding my own business. It’s better that way.” She wondered if she should bring up the fact that her stepmother asked Wyatt’s mom to ask him to show her around. Yeah, she was going to. “I met Wyatt Fierce today.”
“Oh, you did,” Maggie said. “What a sweet man. That whole family is wonderful. Diane Fierce is a teacher too, but in the elementary school. That’s Sam’s mom. Have you met him yet?”
“Actually I was in surgery with both of them today. I’d met Sam before a few weeks ago. Well, I didn’t meet him like you think. I just work in the OR with him. Speaking of Fierce,” she said, holding up her beer. “Any relation here?”
Sometimes Maggie thought everyone talked and got along like they did in school. It didn’t happen that way in the hospital. Doctors stayed to their corners, nurses to theirs. For the most part.
That’s how it was going to be going forward for her at least.
“Sam’s nice too, isn’t he?” Maggie said. “And yes. That is their cousins in Charlotte, that own the brewery.”
“Sam seems it. Today was the first Wyatt and Sam were together. They had somewhat of a funny banter going back and forth. I hadn’t realized they were related, as I didn’t know who Wyatt was. I mean Sam referred to him by his first name. It was obvious they knew
each other though.”
She’d wanted to laugh a time or two when they were talking. Like two brothers in her eyes. Or two bros. Then she remembered how many times she’d overheard some of the doctors at her last job talking like that. Making comments like, “bros before hoes.” Completely sexist and childish.
And though Sam and Wyatt’s conversation didn’t really get to that level, it was enough to send her back to a time she’d rather forget, wiping away the grin she’d almost let loose.
“That family has always been thick as thieves. Carolyn is an absolute sweetheart. She has four kids. Drake and Noah are the oldest and twins. Both just recently got engaged. Wyatt and Jade are twins. Both are single. I kind of feel bad for Jade from the stories I’ve heard.”
“It sounded like Sam has brothers too. So Jade is the only girl?” she asked. Her father brought the dinner over to the table and they all started to dig in.
“She is. She holds her own though or so Carolyn has always said. Wyatt is the wild one.”
“Really? He didn’t seem that wild to me when we were talking.”
“You talked to him during the surgery?” her father asked. “I figured you’d be busy while an operation was going on.”
Too late Adriana realized she’d put her foot in her mouth. “Not in the OR. I met him in the cafeteria. We didn’t know the connection between you and Carolyn, Maggie. I was looking for a table to sit at and they were all taken. He was by himself and asked me to join him.”
“I knew you’d catch a man’s eye fast,” her father said, smirking at her.
“I’m not out to catch any man’s eye,” she said firmly. “Least of all a doctor’s.”
“Your father is just joking. He knows how hurt you were with everything that happened. But you’re a lovely young lady and have so much to offer people. Please don’t hole yourself up for a mistake that you weren’t even aware of. We all have relationship mistakes in our pasts but that didn’t stop your father or me from finding love again.”