***
"Here!" Jackie sat down and handed me a beer.
I glanced around the overcrowded bar and wondered where the hell all these people's spouses were. Surely there weren't that many single people in the medical center in Dallas on a Monday night. It was concerning.
"Thanks." I took the beer and took a long drink as my eyes scanned the crowd.
"Okay, so the guy’s name is Parks. He's got spiky black hair and deep green eyes, huge muscles, and his dick is-"
"Whoa. Hold up." I lifted my hand and shook my head. "I'm not interested in talking about the size of anyone's dick. If I meet the guy, all I'll be thinking about is what you said about his man parts. No thank you."
She laughed. "Fine, but he's so damn hot, Dana. I honestly think I'm going to try to get a job at St. Mark's when we graduate in May."
"For him? You'd move to New York for some random doctor you've been sleeping with for what, three days?"
"Two, and yes." She shrugged and took a long drink of her beer. "You haven't seen him."
"Looks fade, and sex gets old after a while." I leaned back in my seat and stared at the menu, trying to decide if eating buffalo wings or potato skins would piss Cameron off more. To say he was controlling would have been a mild understatement.
"Whatever. I'm going to live while I'm young." She tapped the table in front of me, pulling my attention from my menu. "Unlike you. You need to drop that idiot you're dating."
"We've been together for a few years now. It's not that easy." I shrugged and let the menu slide from my grasp. "Besides... he's a good guy. He's got a great job, a good family and he's trying to help me become a better person."
"He's a controlling dick-wad who thinks you need to get braces, change your hair color and lose weight. What kind of boyfriend is that?"
"One that cares? I don't know." I pushed the menu around and tried to find the will to fight against her accusations. Most of them were true, leaving my efforts wasted even if I did resurrect the desire to defend him.
"Bull shit. Are you guys having great sex or something? He's an okay looking guy, but you could do so much better. There has to be more to it. Is he black mailing you?" She lifted her eyebrow as she pressed her beer to her lips.
I snorted. "That's rich. No, he isn't black mailing me. He's just a good guy I met a few years ago in a business class. We hit it off, had okay sex and things just comfortably moved into the relationship we have now. He's controlling, big damn deal. I bet this Parks character is controlling too."
"In the bedroom, yes." She sighed in a girlie fashion and giggled. "I'm so in love with him."
"You're delusional. He's probably got a wife and kids back in New York."
"He does not!"
"And he's probably in his sixties." I smiled, enjoying myself far more than I should have. Bursting her bubble was a bitch-move, but someone needed to. She was professing love for some pompous-ass surgeon she'd been sleeping with for two days. The need to dump a bucket of ice water over her pretty head and scream 'wake-up' was almost overwhelming.
"He's thirty-one, which is no older than the sexy guy you were wrapped around in the hall earlier today."
Her words stunned me. "Sexy guy that I was wrapped around? Oh... Kendal."
"Right... Kendal." She wagged her eyebrows and giggled again. "Are you guys sleeping together?"
"Is everything about sex with you?" I'd known her for four years since starting the nursing program together at UT Dallas. Everything was most certainly about sex for her, and from what I could tell, no one was going to be changing that anytime soon.
"I take that as a no." She sat back as the server appeared beside us and smiled warmly.
"Ladies. Can I get you anything to eat tonight? It's happy hour in the bar, and I'm happy to give you those discounts if you want something." His eyes lingered on me a little longer than was comfortable, which was odd. Jackie was stunning, and I looked like a tired, overweight nurse with no hope for a good time anytime soon.
"Buffalo wings or potato skins?" I asked her and tried not to let the guy's stare unnerve me.
"Both." She handed the server the menu and waited until he was gone to let out a sharp laugh. "Did you see the way he was watching you? Did you know him?"
"No." I turned and let my eyes follow him as he disappeared behind the bar. "He's cute, but not someone I know from anywhere."
"You should hit on him. See where it goes."
"I'm dating someone, remember? We just talked about this." I finished my beer in a few long pulls from the bottle and sat back. "Besides, I don't want a new relationship, Jackie. My old one sucks just to the point of me handling it."
"That's stupid. You know that's no way to live. You need to get out there and find the right guy, not the safe one." She leaned forward. "We know better than anyone else that life can snatch your ass up in the blink of an eye. We see it every day in the hospitals, in our studies, fuck, you've had it happen in your own life."
"Don't." I shook my head, warning her. My father had been killed by a drunk driver at the start of my freshman year in college, causing me to fail most of my classes and struggle like crazy to get back into the program. He'd been my hero, my rock, my everything. After losing him, the world darkened a little. Jackie was right though... life was too short to cling to people and situations that continued to let me down. It was just easier to think about it than actually have to do anything.
"I'm sorry. No more talking about sad shit. Forgive me." She reached across the table and squeezed my forearm. "How is your mom anyway? Last question about family and I'll leave you alone."
"She's good. She's still living life as if she expects dad to come walking into the house any minute, but I get it, you know? She's not delusional that he will, but she's protecting herself from the truth."
"That's not healthy, but I get it too." She pulled out her phone, glanced down and squealed. "Yes! He's free tonight. I want you to meet him, Dana. He's so damn hot."
I laughed, unable to help myself. "I'm good, but thank you."
"You're missing out."
"He's your man, and newsflash, for the tenth time, I have a man."
"You have an asshole with a stick up his ass and a collar dangling from his hand."
"We said only happy things from here on out." I reached for her beer and took a drink before she snatched it back.
"All right, let's talk about Amanda's brother." Her smile grew wider. "I hear he's a professor at the college."
"What? No way. He's in his late twenties. How in the world could he be a professor?"
"I'd say he's early thirties. He's got this mature look that says he's past his twenties."
"Is he married?" I shouldn't have asked. Fuck, I shouldn't have cared.
"No clue, but I can find out." She dropped her phone back into her purse and pushed her beer toward me. "Want me to?"
"No. Yes." I sighed. "How would you go about doing this?"
"I'm not giving away trade secrets. You want me to or not?"
"Yeah, I guess, but only because you want to know." I finished the beer and tried not to let myself get excited. I was with Cameron and right, wrong or indifferent, I wasn't changing that anytime soon.