The first day of the conference is finally over, which means the hotel bar is full of physicians wearing conference badges they forgot to take off and pretending the drink in their hand isn't medicinal.
Ethan drops into the chair across from me with a beer and the exhausted expression of a man who's spent nine hours listening to other doctors discover PowerPoint.
"Tomorrow, I'm skipping anything with the words multidisciplinary approach in the title."
[Twenty-three.]
I take a drink of whiskey.
"What?"
[Ethan can't hear me, genius. Twenty-three times. The cardiologist said multidisciplinary approach twenty-three times.]
I stare into my glass.
[Also, there were people playing tennis outside.]
Absolutely not.
[There was a ball.]
There were several.
[And you made us walk away.]
Because we're thirty-four years old and I'm not chasing strangers' tennis balls across a hotel courtyard.
[I would have brought it back.]
That's somehow worse.
Ethan studies me over the neck of his bottle. "You doing the thing where you argue with Able while I'm sitting right here?"
"He's upset about tennis."
"Of course he is."
[He understands me.]
"He absolutely does not."
Ethan laughs and turns toward the bartender, and I'm reaching for my glass again when a scent cuts clean through whiskey, perfume, beer, and the hundred other smells packed into the room.
My hand stops.
[...Miles.]
Every trace of humor disappears from Able's voice.
I know.
The scent hits again.
Warm. Distinct. Impossible.
My pulse kicks hard enough that twenty years of medical training couldn't make me pretend I didn't feel it.
[Mate.]
No.
[I know what a mate smells like.]
So do I. That's the problem.
I already had one.
[Had.]
I rejected the bond eleven years ago. There isn't supposed to be another.
[Apparently the Moon Goddess disagrees.]
That's not how this works.
[And yet.]
I follow the scent across the bar and find its source.
Fuck.
[Oh, good.]
What?
[You're attracted to them.]
Of course I'm attracted to them.
[Last time this happened, your first thought was medical school.]
I was twenty-three.
[This time you're thinking about getting them naked. That's growth.]
Jesus Christ.
[I'm proud of us.]
There are approximately forty-seven reasons I should stay exactly where I am until I've made sense of this. Biology alone gives me at least twelve.
None of them stop me from looking.
Or wanting.
Ethan follows my line of sight. "What happened?"
"Nothing."
[Excellent lie, Doctor.]
Ethan's eyes narrow. "That wasn't nothing."
I set my glass down.
"Apparently I'm going to need another drink."
[After.]
After what?
[After you go introduce yourself.]
For once, Able and I are in complete agreement.
I cross the bar before the physician in me can start constructing a differential diagnosis for divine intervention. Up close, the scent is stronger. So is the attraction, which is profoundly inconvenient and considerably more enjoyable.
[Say hello.]
I know how introductions work.
[Your heart rate suggests otherwise.]
Fuck off.
[Very professional.]
I'm off duty.
[Even better.]
I stop close enough to speak comfortably without crowding them. Whatever this bond means—and apparently the universe has decided it means something twice for me—they don't know me yet.
So I give them the same easy smile I'd give anyone I wanted to meet.
"Hi. I'm Miles."
[A stunning performance.]
I'm going to kill you.
[After you get their name.]
My mouth twitches despite myself as I hold their gaze.
"What's your name?"
Comments 0
See All