CHAPTER NINETEEN
“You can’t be fucking serious,” I shouted, gesturing wildly at the TV as the judges voted off my favorite special-effects artist on Face Off. Two days into officially living at Gage’s and I was starting to feel at home. The place had always been welcoming—well, except that first night—but now it was kind of starting to feel like my place too.
I’d moved my stuff into the spare bedroom, though I had yet to spend sleep in there. The first night, things had felt a little strained. Over dinner, not a lot had been said, but at the top of the stairs, as we were heading to bed, Gage grabbed me and kissed me, and it was as though we had suddenly remembered how well we worked together, in one arena anyway.
Since then, things had felt a lot more natural. He’d left for work that morning, and I was enjoying the last of my time off before I, supposedly, started work.
I was about to flick to another station when a knock at the door had me whipping my head around toward the sound.
Who the hell could that be? Gage was at the hospital, there wasn’t a neighbor for miles, and as far as I knew, and Gage’s social circle was practically nonexistent. Another knock came, more insistent this time, so I walked to the door and pulled it open.
Logan stood on the doorstep, his teeth chattering.
“Where the hell is your coat?” I asked, staring at him like he was an idiot.
“Forgot-t-t it. Mind-d-d if I c-c-come in?”
“Shit. Yeah. Sorry.” I stepped out of the way to let him enter, then closed the door behind him. “Gage isn’t here. He’s on call today.”
Logan laughed. “I know. I have the day off… and for now, he’s the only other surgeon around.”
“Oh. Right. Sure.”
Logan dumped his boots in the front hall and strode into the house like it was his own. I followed him into the kitchen, where he tossed an envelope onto the counter; then I watched as he put a pot of coffee on.
“How are you settling in?” he asked, grabbing two mugs from the cupboard. “Ready to run for the hills yet? I know what a pain in the ass Gage is to live with.”
“Hasn’t been too bad so far. We’ve been getting along.”
“I’ll bet.” From his suggestive tone, I was beyond sure Gage had given him more than the surface details of the nature of our relationship. Whatever that was.
I sat there, waiting for Logan to fill me in on why he’d dropped by. I figured it probably wasn’t a social call. He was a nice enough guy, but we weren’t the type of buddies that hung out for no reason. Maybe one day, but for now, he was the friend of the guy I was sleeping with, and standing around in the kitchen with him was beginning to take on a decidedly awkward hue.
“I brought all the hospital paperwork for you to fill out—banking information, emergency contact, that kind of thing. I also brought a copy of the letter I sent to the board on your behalf. I figured you might want to read it.” He poured two cups of coffee and set them on the table, then opened up the envelope he’d brought and pulled the paperwork from inside.
“Wow. That’s… that’s seriously nice of you. You didn’t have to drive all the way out here, though. I’m sure Gage could have brought copies home with him.”
“Nah, it’s okay. I didn’t have anything going on today anyway.”
“Well, thanks.” I had to admit, I was a little intrigued by the letter.
Logan shrugged. “Call it a professional courtesy.” He slid the letter across the table to me and sat there staring at me while I read it. I felt like an amoeba under a microscope… if an amoeba was capable of feeling self-conscious.
The recommendation was absolutely glowing, and I didn’t know if anyone had ever said anything as positive about me in my life. I looked up at him once I’d finished, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t know what to say. I settled on “Thank you.”
He smiled. “Don’t sweat it. It’s the truth.”
I laughed. “Not sure about that. You’ve only seen me do one surgery. Maybe that’s the only thing I know how to do.”
“Unlikely. I watched the video more than once. Your technique is flawless.” He took a slow sip of his coffee like he was deliberating on whether or not to expand on that. He set his cup down and smiled. “You might be better than Gage, but I’ll kill you if you tell him I said that.”
“I sincerely doubt that, but thanks anyway.”
“Dunno. You have a few years to catch up to where he is chronologically, but I’d say you’ve got a head start over him, at least where he was skill-wise when he was your age.”
“You’ve known him forever, right?” I asked, cocking my head to the side. I didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me until now that I could dig for information. I didn’t want it to be too obvious, but the prospect of getting some dirt on Gage was more than a little appealing.
Logan grinned like he knew exactly what was going through my head. “Not forever. Since undergrad. We ended up in the same dorm. My roommate was convinced he was the next LL Cool J… and he wasn’t quiet about it. Gage’s room was next door, so I ended up there most of the time.”
“He make it big? Your roommate?” I asked, leaning forward, waiting to hear about how he’d actually been living with Eminem.
“He was the worst rapper I’ve heard in my life.”
“So that’s a no.”
Logan laughed. “Nope. I imagine he’s living a perfectly mediocre life somewhere in Montana or Idaho or something.”
“And you ended up here.”
“Is the ‘also living a mediocre life’ implied?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.
“No.” I chuckled. “Should it be?”
“Maybe. I keep busy with work, and that’s mostly it. Gage and I hung out every once in a while before, but now that Diana is outta commission, when I see him in the parking lot at the hospital is pretty much the only time we spend together.” He leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out. “It’ll be nice when you start and can pick up some of the slack. We’re gonna burn out pretty quick without another set of hands.”
“Two weeks, right? Theoretically? To process the application, I mean.”
“Yep, and then I get to hand off all my shitty cases to you.”
I chuckled. “Great. Low man on the totem pole again.”
“Were you ever the high man?”
“Touché.”
I grabbed a pen and filled out the paperwork. It felt a little premature, considering we had yet to hear back from the board, but Logan seemed confident they would rule in my favor. It eased my mind, a little. Gage had said the same thing, but in the back of my mind, I’d held on to the assumption that his opinion was a little biased.
Hard to be objective when you’re getting nightly blowjobs.
But Logan didn’t have any reason to bullshit me about this. He had nothing invested other than the possibility of a lighter workload, and so when he told me he thought this was a sure thing, I was apt to believe him.
A spark of excitement lit at the thought of it. Sawyer’s Ferry Regional Hospital wasn’t the cutting-edge research facility I was used to, but this would be the first time I’d ever gotten anywhere without my father’s intervention. It was exciting and terrifying all at once.
If I fell on my face at this… there was a part of me that would always wonder if I would have made it through school, internship, residency, anything without my father greasing palms and paving the way for me.
But here, this was all me. I’d been offered the job based on my skills in the OR, something I’d kind of taken for granted.
“You think Dr. Alston will be back on her feet and ready to get back to work soon?” My contract was for three months, but if Alston was back before then, who knew if they’d want to keep me on. I didn’t imagine the hospital had a very big budget.
“I don’t know, to be honest. Two months ago, I would’ve told you she’d be operating forever, but now I’m not entirely sure.”
“Oh?”
“There’s a chance the position will open up for something more permanent. I’m not sure if that’s something you’d be interested in.” There was a tentativeness to the way he said it, like I might turn him down on the spot, but I was still having a hard time processing the implications of what a permanent position would mean.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I mean, I hadn’t considered staying. I always intended to return to New York at some point.”
Logan shot me a crooked grin. “Alaska isn’t for everyone. Sawyer’s Ferry definitely isn’t for everyone.”
“It’s been… an adjustment.”
“That’s putting it lightly,” he chuckled. “If I’m going to be perfectly honest with you, I was shocked you actually accepted the offer.”
“I wasn’t sure I was going to either. There were a lot of reasons for me to go, and not a lot for me to stay.”
“Gage figure into any of that?”
And there it was. I’d been waiting for this turn in the conversation since we’d first sat down. The best friend, swooping in to figure out what was going on in the outsider’s head. For some reason, it didn’t feel meddlesome coming from Logan.
“Yes? No? Kind of?”
“Thanks for clearing that up,” he said with a trace of sarcasm in his voice.
I sighed. “Maybe it’s you who should be clearing things up for me.”
“Not sure if I can, but shoot.”
“I’ve only known the guy a little over a week. I still haven’t figured him out.”
“Oh, you poor misguided fool. I’ve known him almost twenty years and I still don’t have that man pinned down.”
“That doesn’t help me much.”
“I dunno what to tell you. Gage is a good man. The best I know, actually. He has a good heart and is more generous and unselfish than anyone you’ll ever meet. But he doesn’t do all that well with deviating from his intended path. He likes predictability. Routine. Not the most spontaneous guy I know.”
“I kinda figured. I’m still trying to figure out what it is we’re doing here. He went from hating me to beating down my hotel room door to dragging me back to his place, and now here I am living with him and I have no idea if he even likes me all that much.” I was saying too much, spilling my guts right across the table, but I couldn’t seem to force my own mouth shut. “I don’t know where that leaves us. Or if we’re anywhere at all. I’m leaving in three months, so maybe I should keep it light, and when my time here is up, leave it at that.”
“I think he probably likes you more than he lets on,” Logan assured me. “He has a short temper, and even less patience sometimes, but you wouldn’t be in his home if he didn’t like you. You’re a challenge for him, and you came at him out of the blue and kind of smacked him right in the head. You’re a Prescott, and with that comes immediate distrust. Your dad did a number on him.”
“My dad’s an asshole.”
“That we can agree on.”
“I’m not him, though.”
Logan nodded. “Something else we can agree on.”