Wow… I didn’t realize he was so muscular. His arms are round and hard under that suit. His chest is massive. I swallow hard when I see a sexy tattoo on the back of his hand. This man is full of surprises.
I’m excited to get a closer look at him without a jacket and gloves on, but Crystal is talking a mile a minute as she pulls me down the hall and into her room.
Her closet does not disappoint.
I gasp when she opens the double doors, revealing the rows and rows of stunning dresses and expensive shoes. It’s bigger than my apartment in here.
She squeals in delight as she rushes over to a row of ballgowns and pulls out a shimmering dark blue one.
The light shines off the little crystals embedded into it, giving it a magical almost heavenly look. It’s stunning. Something a movie star would strut down the red carpet in. I can’t take my eyes off it.
“What do you think?” she asks as she holds it up.
I can’t talk, so I just nod my head.
“I love it,” I eventually manage to croak out. “I really, really love it.”
She grins as she hands it to me. “And so will Nate!”
Chapter Four
Nate
* * *
“She’s perfect,” Tom says as he hands me a beer. “A little young, though, no?”
I glare at him as he opens his can of beer and it fizzes onto the carpet.
“Shit!” he says as he rubs it in with his shoe. “Crystal is going to kill me. If she asks tell her it was Jeff. She hates him anyway.”
He takes a sip of his beer and looks around. “What were we talking about again?” he asks.
Gotta love my brother. He’s a total idiot, but somehow makes it work for himself. While I was busting my ass in med school for a decade, he was smoking weed and playing video games. He must have cycled through two dozen jobs, all of them involving flipping something on a grill, and he sucked at all of them.
The lucky fuck bought two hundred dollars worth of Bitcoin when it was only thirty-five cents a coin and now it’s all getting close to being worth fifty million dollars. Talk about luck. He thinks he’s a genius investor, but I know he’s just got a lucky horseshoe wedged far up his ass.
All power to him. He’s an idiot, but he’s got a good heart and I still love him. I’m happy for his success.
“Oh, yeah,” he says as he waves at someone I don’t know. “A little young, no?”
I nearly growl at him. “She’s my light,” I tell him in a deep primal voice that shocks even me. “It doesn’t matter what age she is. We’re meant to be together.”
“I didn’t realize it was that serious,” he says as his eyes dart around the room. The guy can’t stand still and focus on a conversation with all this action around him. “I’m excited for you. Me and Crystal worry about you sometimes.”
“You do?” I ask in a flat voice before taking a sip.
“Yeah,” he says with a nod. “All you do is work and work and work. It’s about time you get yourself a girl. Working sucks, man. Don’t do it so much. Look at me. I’ve barely worked a day in my life and look at this place!”
“If I don’t work as hard as I can, people die.”
How many times do I have to explain this to him? He can’t seem to get it into his thick skull that people and their families depend on my expertise. If I can’t give it to them, or if I’m impaired in any way, their loved ones die. How can I not give my all with that on the line?
“People are always going to die, Nate,” he says with a shrug.
“Not on my operating table. Not if I can help it. Do you have any idea how it feels to lose a patient on your watch. Because of something you did?”
Tom shakes his head. “No. I don’t.”
“And neither do I,” I answer proudly. “Over seven hundred operations without one casualty. Well, technically there was one but it was because he fell down the stairs on the way out. Not my fault. It wasn’t because of his heart. So, essentially zero.”
“But you’re the best heart surgeon in the country now, so you can relax a little and start to live or the first casualty will be your own life. You’ll die a miserable old man who everyone hates.”
“Oh really?” I say with a laugh.
He laughs too. “Oh yeah. Just like uncle Herb. Nyheim! That’s my buddy from my Fortnite group. I gotta go say hi.”
He takes off, but his words are still swirling around in my head. I have worked too hard for too long. I’m at the top of my game. It’s time to take my hands of the accelerator and time to put them on my new angel.