Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 103141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 413(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 413(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
We’re interrupted more than once, someone approaching to pay their respects or to say they heard I’d been shot and they’re glad I’m okay. There are businessmen who try to make business connections as well, but I usher them away. Tonight is about Abbott and me.
“Do you know when you’re going back to work?” I ask halfway through our meal. I’m hoping this discussion doesn’t start another argument for the night because I don’t want him to go back until I’ve killed whoever tried to murder him and the person who set it up.
“No. I’ve spent so much of my life needing to be Doctor Abbott to be worth something, and now I’m just trying to figure out how it fits into my life without making it my whole identity.”
“You are so much more than that,” I tell him. “But what you’ve accomplished is pretty fucking incredible too. You save lives, pretty thing. Both our hands have seen death, only you’re trying to prevent it, while I deliver it.”
“Yes.” He shrugs. “Maybe that’s true, but death weighs on us both the same. It’s not easy watching someone die, regardless. It takes something from you. I’ll be there to fill you back up if you’ll be there for me too.”
And he would—he would be there for me in that, and it’s a fucking gift. “I want to fuck you on this table right now.” It’s not the first time tonight I’ve thought about it.
Abbott winks playfully. “Maybe when we get home.”
“Oh, I think that’s a guarantee.”
“I hope so.” Abbott shoots me a smile. “Anyway…when it comes to my job, I’m not saying I don’t want to do it anymore. I just want more.”
“You have more,” I tell him. “You can have whatever the fuck you want.”
He reaches over, covering my hand with his. “I have it…even if you do have a temper.”
“I had a feeling you were still mad at me about Torin. I can’t change that about myself—not with you.” I’m a jealous and possessive motherfucker. Always have been and always will be.
“I get that, but it’s important to me that you don’t look at me like someone who needs saving. It’s hot that you want to save me…to protect me. But we need to be on equal footing.”
“We are,” I say. “But I’ll try and be better.” I have to, if I want this to work. I know what Abbott is sacrificing, what he’s risking to be with me. He’s a surgeon. What if being connected to me ruins that for him? What if his dream is taken away because of me?
“You’re deep in thought again,” he says. “We both know what it means to be together. I’m in, remember?”
How can I forget? “I’m in too.”
My phone rings, interrupting us. I look and see it’s Conan. He wouldn’t call unless he needed to. “It’s Conan,” I say, halfway standing, before sitting back down again. Keeping my voice low, I answer the call. “Yeah?”
He fills me in on a situation at Paradise—someone trying to sell drugs in our club. “Flynn has him now,” he says.
I watch Abbott, who’s watching me, not flinching away from what he has to know isn’t a good conversation. “You know how to take care of the problem. You have my permission.”
“Gotcha. We’ll deal with it. I wasn’t sure if you’d want to come…”
Before Abbott, I would have. I would have interrupted my meal because I always had something to prove; I couldn’t be the guy who stayed back. I won’t let that be me anymore, determined to find a balance. “I’m good. Thanks for checking in, C.”
“Everything okay?” Abbott asks when I end the call.
“Everything is great. How about dessert?”
“Sounds good to me.”
When we’re done, and the meal has been paid for, I stand and take his hand, walking out of the restaurant with him—making a statement, yes, but also just proud of the man on my arm.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Abbott
Rian left early this morning for business.
I don’t know exactly what that means. Legitimate business or not?
I work out and then shower before just walking around the house without anything to do. I’m bored. There’s no denying that. I miss being at work, taking care of patients, but I’m also in this weird place where I don’t know how to do that anymore. I wasn’t lying the other night at dinner when I told Rian I don’t want to lose myself in it again, that it’s hard for me to feel important outside of being able to fix people, and that’s not enough for me now.
I want more. I just don’t know what, and at thirty-eight, I should probably have that answer.
Conan is downstairs in the kitchen. If Rian is gone, he always leaves someone here with me as though a gang of masked murderers is going to break into his house to kill me. It’s ridiculous…but also sweet in a very Rian way. We’re going to eventually have to find a way around this though, because I’m not going to live my life locked in his house like Rapunzel, or with bodyguards everywhere I go.