Page 15 of Careless Whisper (Modern Vintage Romances #11)

Reggie

I t was stupid!

Dumb!

Foolish!

It was irresponsible…and glorious .

Sex with Elias Graham was terrific.

It wasn’t like I’d been celibate after we ended, but with my schedule, all I could enjoy was a few pumps and dumps. Since Elias, I refused to get involved with anyone in the hospital, so my choices were limited to guys I met at a bar that wasn’t full of attendings, nurses, and EMTs. Slim pickings!

I should never have had sex with Elias again , especially in an on-call room. Not because it wasn’t good, because it was! The asshole knew how to touch me, how to move inside me like we shared a language no one else spoke. That hadn’t changed .

What had changed was me, and I had, except when it came to his dick because then I was back in Boston, wet and wanting. Talk about being spineless.

What had he said to me?

“You were just a fuck—we weren’t in a relationship. You think I go around fucking women I care about in supply closets?”

And now, he’d fucked me in a crappy on-call room. Talk about respecting the fuck out of me.

“It’s just the adrenaline,” I announced as I put my scrubs back on.

Elias lay naked on the bed, his fingers laced behind his head. He looked remarkably smug and satisfied.

“You think so, Gigi?”

“Stop calling me that,” I snapped.

“Gigi?”

I glared at him. I didn’t trust the version of myself that let my guard down around him—and I didn’t trust him at all.

Why couldn’t he have continued to be the dickhead attending who’d first started at Harper Memorial? Oh, no, he had to become nice, say thank you and please, and call me Gigi in that sexy fucking way of his that made me melt.

Why was he doing this? I couldn’t understand what it meant, and no way was I going to fall for his charm, not when he thought I was capable of killing a patient to fuck with his girlfriend? No, not girlfriend, fiancée. Oh my God! Had I just slept with an engaged man?

“You didn’t use a condom.”

“You still have an IUD?”

“A little late to be asking.” My eyes flashed anger. “But, yes, I still have it.” I’d gotten it because my periods had been painful. “We have a few more things to worry about than a pregnancy.”

“I’m clean.”

I let out a long breath, feeling panic surge through me. “Look…this was just…damn it, Elias, I’m not the one who’s engaged.”

He gave me a quizzical look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you are engaged,” I thundered.

He grinned. “You think I’d fuck you if I was engaged?”

“Are you?”

“Engaged?”

“ Yes .” The man exasperated me.

“No.”

“No?”

This time, his smile was sweet. “No, Gigi, I’m not engaged. I’ve never been engaged. Currently, I’m in no relationship, not even a fuck buddy or a one-night stand. Haven’t been with anyone since I moved to Seattle.”

I gave him a dry look, not bothering to hide my irritation. “Well, at least I won’t have to get on antibiotics for a raging STI on top of all my other problems.”

“What other problems do you have, Gigi?”

I groaned. “Stop calling me that, Elias. If someone hears, then… please .”

“What other problems do you have… Reggie?”

I threw my hands up in exasperation. “ Goodbye .”

If I thought that was the end of it, I was sadly (and grudgingly happily) mistaken.

For the next few weeks, Elias smiled a lot when he saw me.

He brought me coffee if we were meeting in his office to discuss a case.

He snuck Vosges chocolates onto my desk.

He asked me out on a date.

I drank the coffee, ate the chocolates, and said, “No, thank you” to the date.

He looked disappointed, but he didn’t push. Instead, he cheekily said, “We’ll get to it when you’re ready. But in the meantime, if you want to come by the on-call room, I’d be?—”

“Not happening ever again,” I cut him off.

This Elias was charming and sexy, and I was shit scared of him. I’d fall for him, and then I’d get hurt again . Last time, he broke me in every way a woman could be broken, and a few smiles, a cup of coffee, and some Vosges weren’t going to put me together again.

But since God had a fucked-up sense of humor where I was concerned, I eventually did end up on a date with him without even knowing we were on one.

It was one of those rare Seattle days when the sun was actually shining, the sky wide and blue like it belonged in California, and I was not on call.

Tourists swarmed the cobblestones, cameras out, and the smell of salt, strawberries, and street food tangled in the breeze.

I was standing in front of a flower stall in Pike Place Market, debating between dahlias and sunflowers, when he spoke from behind me, so close I could feel the heat of his body. “Sunflowers. You used to love those.”

I stepped away and then turned.

He looked adorably at home in a gray t-shirt, jeans, sunglasses, coffee in one hand, and a paper bag in the other.

“You stalking me now?” I demanded.

He smirked. “Nope. Just have a thing for fresh jam and public markets.”

I rolled my eyes. “Right.”

He held up the paper bag. “Strawberry lavender. Want some?”

I narrowed my eyes. “No, thank you.”

“Think of it as a peace offering.”

“Is it?”

“Maybe.”

He looked adorable saying that. My heart melted.

Fool!

I didn’t plan it (who knows if he did)—we just drifted through the market together, past artisan stalls and bakeries, past buskers playing acoustic covers of ’90s hits.

Being with him was easy…as easy as breathing.

We ended up at a small patio café overlooking Elliott Bay, where we split mussels, crusty bread, a lemony salad, and iced drinks that sweated on the table between us.

We talked about patients and ridiculous consults, the worst cafeteria meals, and the surgical intern who fainted during a CABG last week and blamed it on “vibes”.

He made me laugh—really laugh—the way I used to.

“Where do you live?” Elias asked as the afternoon winded down, and I said it was time for me to go home.

“Capitol Hill.”

“You drove?”

I shook my head. “Walked.”

Pike Place Market was just a half-hour walk from home, and when I could, I took the opportunity not to drive.

“May I walk you home?”

I let out a long exhale.

“I’m right next door in South Lake Union,” he explained.

“That is not next door,” I retorted.

He shrugged. “Let me walk you home, Gigi. ”

So, we walked, and we talked, and we enjoyed the silence.

“You know I never took you out on a date in Boston,” Elias said suddenly.

“You mean eating a power bar in the on-call room wasn’t a date?” I mocked.

He chuckled. “No, that wasn’t a date. I never even knew where you lived.”

He hadn’t bothered to know. He hadn’t bothered to ask me out. I’d tried. God knows I had.

“Come home, and I’ll cook for us.”

“I wish I could, Gigi, but I have a family thing.”

I was never invited to his family thing, so I never invited him to mine.

It was apparent he wanted to keep the relationship casual, and I was a fool in love, so I let him treat me like a dirty secret for far too long.

In the beginning, it made sense, but after a year together? That was a clear message.

“You didn’t know where I lived because you never wanted to come over, Elias,” I reminded him.

He tucked his hands in his pockets as he walked alongside me. “I know.”

“Is there a point to this reminiscing?” I didn’t like talking about the past. I didn’t like that Elias, the one who’d thrown me aside—and remembering all that made it harder to like this Elias, the one who was being friendly.

“I was just making an observation. ”

We fell silent after that, and I thought he’d just walk away, but he didn’t. He stayed.

“This is me.” I waved at the beautifully restored historic apartment building I live in.

Tucked away on a leafy residential street, it had original hardwood floors and crown molding. Depending on the time of day, it was a fifteen- to forty-five-minute drive from the hospital, but I didn’t mind. I adored its cozy vibe and had fallen in love with it the minute I’d stepped in.

He looked the building up and down. “You live here?”

“Yep.”

Should I invite him in? Or maybe not. It was weird to have him walk me all the way here and…

He glanced at the stone facade, the doorman out front, the well-groomed hedges. It was discreet, but it screamed money if you knew what to look for.

“This is very nice, Reggie.”

Now, I was uncomfortable. “Very.”

“I didn’t expect this.”

I nodded, knowing what he was thinking. How could I afford to live here on a nurse’s salary?

“I got a great deal,” I fibbed.

He raised an eyebrow.

“I know the owner,” I added breezily. That wasn’t a lie. I knew the owner… me . It was a family property, and my grandparents had given it to me when I moved to Seattle .

His eyes flicked to mine. “You know the owner?”

“Hmm,” I replied vaguely. “Do you want to come up for a drink?” I wanted to take it back immediately. If the building was giving him heart palpitations, seeing the original art in the apartment would blow his mind. But my mother used to own a gallery—so I had art.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Rejection smacked me in my face. I was such an idiot. Just because he was being nice to me, I thought?—

“Not because I don’t want to,” he added quickly.

I waited, eyes downcast.

He lifted my chin with a finger. “I want you, Gigi. You know that.”

I didn’t know that. I didn’t know anything, I thought as I looked into his familiar eyes and wanted to just dive into the blue and stay there.

“I don’t want the next time we have sex to leave you second-guessing yourself.

” His voice was low, sincere. He was talking about how I reacted to our little fuck session in the on-call room after the whole gun going off in the OR mess.

“I don’t want it to feel like a mistake. I want it to feel like a beginning.”

My throat tightened. Say what? A beginning? How was that possible? Especially since he thought I was some bunny boiler type!

I didn’t say anything, just stood there like a moron.

He leaned over and kissed my cheek—soft, warm, careful.

“Thank you for a wonderful day, Gigi. ”

I watched him walk away, my heart knocking against my ribs.

What the fuck?

He wanted this to feel like a beginning?

To what? A horror movie? Because no way was our life a movie on freaking Passionflix with a happily ever after.