Cocktails & Dreams (20 page)

“Brutal.” Conor’s voice cooled. “Let me get this straight. You’ve chased at least the idea of this girl for almost seven years—don’t give me that look,” he warned as Nick started to protest. “You’re a damn liar if you deny she’s been at the back of your mind since you first met her. You never would have slept with her in Frisco if that weren’t the case. You’re not that guy.” Conor’s eyes challenged Nicholas to deny it. He couldn’t. “Okay. So you’ve wanted this girl for a long time, and now that you’ve got her, you’re wussing out?” Con shook his head when Nick didn’t say anything. “You’re an idiot. But you do love her, and she loves you, God knows why. She’d do this for you.”

“Yeah,” Nicholas admitted. “I’m having lunch with her on Thursday and we both have the weekend off, miracle of miracles. I’ll talk to her then.” He rolled his tense shoulders and grimaced. “You’re a nosy jerk, you know that? Thanks.”

Conor clapped Nicholas on the shoulder and picked up his backpack. “Yeah, but you needed it. I guess I have to be the guru for both of you.” He chuckled, heading out the door.

Nicholas was writing up a patient’s chart when he felt Jena enter the break room on Thursday afternoon. Without turning around, he smiled, shaking his head and checking his watch.

“You were almost late again, Baker.”

“Normal people call it ‘on time,’ Cooper.”

Nick turned to see Jena leaning against the doorjamb, dangling a bag from a local sub shop from her fingers. “Hungry?”

Nicholas drank her in. Who knew a pair of well-fitting jeans and a clinging tee could be so sexy? Crossing the room, he plucked the bag out of her hand, brushing the hair that she’d left down away from her neck and pressing his lips against the pulsing vein in her neck. “Can I have more than a sandwich?” he murmured.

“Who’s your friend, Cooper?”

Stepping back reluctantly, Nicholas tried not to give his resident a death glare as Dr. Dick stood behind Jena, arms crossed and smiling. Before Nick could say anything, Jena had turned around, and was having her hand taken. “My student isn’t quick on the uptake. I’m Ted Kapos.”

She shook his hand quickly before dropping it to slide her hand in Nick’s. “Jena Baker.” She turned back to Nicholas. “Ready?”

Nick almost laughed as Kapos frowned slightly. He seemed to catch Nick’s mood, because he glared. “Finish the Martin chart, Nicholas?”

“You know I haven’t, Ted. I just finished checking his vitals again. Can I eat my lunch, please?” Jena squeezed Nick’s hand.

“This time, I’ll let it go,” Kapos allowed, smiling brilliantly at Jena. “But only because you have this beautiful girl waiting.” He turned to Nick and immediately dropped the smile. “Be ready to present in twenty minutes.” He sauntered down the hall without another word, ignoring the gaggle of students that parted to give him a respectful space before pushing past Jena to get into the break room.

“Fuck,” Nicholas muttered, squeezing his eyes closed and hoping a bus would hit Kapos the next time he left the hospital.

“Well, I guess that precludes a quickie,” Jena said lightly and kissed the back of his hand. “Let’s eat.”

Nicholas started wolfing his sandwich down as soon as they found a quiet place to sit, hoping they would have a few minutes to talk before he had to get ready for the Inquisition.

Jena watched him eat with a tiny smile on her face. “Is Dr. Kapos always so charming, Nick?” she asked. She leaned forward to wipe a dollop of mustard from the corner of his mouth; Nick caught her hand and sucked it off her finger, smiling at her shiver before he responded.

“Eh. He’s okay.” Thinking about the thirty-six hour shift he’d just worked, largely because Kapos had dumped all of his charts on his students and disappeared, Nick had a difficult time keeping a light tone. “If you imagine him as a giant dick with ears, it helps.” He could almost believe his own bullshit when Jena laughed.

As he finished the last shreds of lettuce, Nick rolled the sandwich wrappings into a ball and tossed it in the garbage can and grabbed Jena’s hand. She looked at him with a questioning smile and his heart sped up. He’d be hating himself in two minutes if her face froze when he asked her to come stay at his apartment.

“Jena, I have something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Her smile faded a little, and she nodded. “Okay. What?”

Nicholas took breath to speak and let it out in a huff when he caught sight of Kapos pointedly staring at him and glancing at his watch. “Shit. Dr. Dickhead is ready.” He hesitated, but had to rise to his feet when Kapos scowled at him. “Listen, Jena, can we get together this weekend? You have it off, right?”

Her smile bloomed again as she stood, too. “Yep. And I was counting on having you to myself.” She pressed a kiss on Nick’s mouth before passing her hand down his back and to his thigh. “I want to do wicked things to you, Nicholas.” She was laughing as she waved at Kapos and disappeared down the hall, hair and hips swaying.

Nicholas walked toward Dr. Dick, and Kapos whistled under his breath, still watching Jena. “How do you deserve
that
, Cooper? She looks like such a smart girl, too.”

Nick grimaced, remembering what he had planned to talk to her about. “I don’t, and she is. And keep your eyes and hands to yourself, Kapos.” The resident chuckled and started the Inquisition.

Nicholas was muttering to himself in the kitchen on Saturday morning, trying to decide what to say to get Jena to stay with him at least a few days of each week, when Conor finally straggled out of his room.

“Nice boxers, cupcake.” Conor yawned and slapped Nick’s back as he reached for coffee mugs, handing a cup to Nicholas before he poured the coffee. “Mind explaining why you’re banging pans around out here at nine in the morning on a Saturday?”

“Hungry,” Nick grunted, cracking eggs into the pan that had been heating. He looked at Conor and added several more eggs.

Conor chuckled, blowing on his coffee to cool it off. “More like frustrated,” he said. Nicholas glared at him, fully aware that Conor was right. He missed Jena’s soft warmth and the way their limbs tangled together in the sleep he wasn’t getting without her. Not to mention the way she felt wrapped around him as he moved inside her.

“Hey, I calls ’em as I sees ’em,” Conor said, glancing at the toaster before shrugging and buttering two pieces of bread. He leaned against the counter again. “You guys are coming to Stevie’s tonight, right?” He looked at Nicholas expectantly.

“Nope. I plan on secluding myself with Jena until Monday morning, at the earliest.” Nicholas portioned the eggs and bread out on plates, and they settled down at the table and started eating.

“Nice sentiment, but no can do,” Conor declared through a mouthful of eggs. “Trav will be disappointed if Jena isn’t there.”

Nick frowned. “I guess I’m out of the loop. What’s going on?”

Conor swallowed and sat back in his chair. “The band Travis’s been working with is doing really well. They’ve started getting gigs around town, and this is supposed to be a ‘thanks’ to Stevie for giving them a place to start out. There are posters all over campus—hell, I’ve been putting them up all over town.” He waved a sheaf of flyers that had been sitting next to his elbow. “Where have you been, dude?”

“The hospital. Lectures. Sleeping.” Nicholas sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. We should be there, at least for a while.” They finished their breakfast in silence before Nick rose and stretched, nodding at the dirty plates. “You’ll get those, right?”

Conor chuckled and answered the ringing phone. He greeted the caller and handed it to Nick, mouthing
Dad
. Conor headed down the hall, and Nick heard the shower start. Great. No hot water again.

“Nicholas?”

Nick remembered he was holding the phone in his hand. “Sorry.”

His dad’s voice was amused, but a shade too nosy. “I didn’t wake anyone up, did I?” Nick knew he was wondering if Jena was there.

“Nope. Conor and I were just finishing breakfast.”

“Good.” Now his dad’s voice seemed a little too satisfied. “Listen, son. I’d like to ask a favor of you. You remember Mark Arroyo? We went to his wife’s funeral a couple of years ago, remember?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, his daughter, Sofia, is in Sacramento on business until tomorrow, and she’s at loose ends. Can I impose on you to keep her company this evening? She leaves tomorrow morning.”

Nicholas gritted his teeth. “Dad, I have plans this evening. A friend’s band is playing, and we’re going to see them.”

Dr. Cooper was smoothly insistent. “Perfect! Just take Sofia along.” They sat through a long moment of silence. “Nicholas, I’m not asking you to sleep with her, for heaven’s sake. Take her to the club, buy her a drink—whatever. Mark is just worried about her, and I said—”

“Fine, Dad. I’ll take her to the club. Does she even like blues?”

His father sounded satisfied. “I’ll give you the number of her hotel, and you can ask her yourself.” Dr. Cooper rattled off a number and thanked Nicholas again, hanging up as soon as he got his way.

Nicholas stared at the phone for several minutes, muttering curses at it, and then called the number his father had given him. Sofia Arroyo sounded like the rest of the girls Nick had grown up with: bored, whiny debs with over-articulated speech and plastic smiles. He winced as she let out a fake squeal, declaring how much she
looooved
the blues. No comparison to Jena’s genuine belly laugh when anything amused her. Nick polited his way through a few more minutes’ conversation before agreeing to pick Sofia up at eight.

Pressing the cut-off button briefly, he made his last call. Jena sounded relieved that Nicholas didn’t mind stopping at Stevie’s for a while, and pretty easygoing about Sofia, teasing him about being manipulated by his parents. He reminded her of the non-lie, and she laughed full out, agreeing ruefully that their parents had some sort of weird control over them. Promising to be ready when Nicholas and Sofia picked her up, Jena reminded him to pack a bag.

He was smiling as he flung his bag in the trunk that evening, anticipating the weekend that lay ahead of him, once he’d honored his dad’s request and could get rid of the Barbie. He barely noticed Sofia as she slid into the passenger seat of his car with a bright smile. Answering her questions with polite nothings, he worried at the issue of how, exactly, to approach Jena about moving in. Should he do it right away, or wait until Sunday night?

Nick still hadn’t decided when they arrived at Jena’s building, and he forgot all about his question when she rose from the stoop, a smile slowly spreading across her face. Ignoring his passenger, Nick exited the car to hold Jena tight.

“Hey, you,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around his waist and rubbing her hands gently over his back.

“Hey, you,” Nicholas murmured back and dropped a kiss on her upturned lips. And another. And another.

He was drawn back to reality by a clearing throat. He sighed and let Jena go, keeping an arm around her waist as he introduced her to Sofia.

Looking back, Nicholas could later see that this was the exact point where the night went to hell.

Sofia smiled at Jena brightly, showing all of her teeth like the beauty queen Nicholas had no doubt she’d been. “Aren’t you cute?” She wrinkled her nose as she scanned Jena’s outfit. Sofia’s perfect, silvery-blond bob brushed her shoulders as she shook her head, laughing lightly. “How I wish I could get away with student-chic. Unfortunately, I had to leave that behind when I left school.” She gestured to her own sleek black turtleneck and dark slacks in mock apology.

Jena glanced down at her soft pink tee, jeans, and her favorite pink sneakers, and laughed. “I guess I’ll never grow up. Wearing flat shoes?” Sofia held out a foot clad in soft leather boots. “Good. Things can get a little pushy at Stevie’s. We wouldn’t want you to get shoved over or anything.” The glitter in Jena’s eye was saying the total opposite. “You might want to be careful of those around the beer, though. They don’t look waterproof.”

Sofia laughed airily. “Whatever. I have more pairs than I can count.”

Jena raised her eyebrows as she walked to the car, finally climbing into the back seat when Sofia waited patiently by the passenger door, clearly intending to sit in the front.