Page 8 of Resist Me Not (Bloody Desires #4)

Chapter five

TREY

O n time for me is fifteen minutes early, so I am pleasantly surprised when Walker strolls in only five minutes after I claimed our table.

I stand as the waitress brings him over.

I am wearing a gray suit tonight with a pale teal shirt and floral-patterned tie.

Nothing too fancy. I wondered whether Walker would follow my lead, and I am also pleasantly surprised to see that he has, although not identically.

There is a push and pull to his outfit of choice, both following and rebelling in one fell swoop.

He is wearing a white button-down and burgundy tie, but in lieu of a suit, he chose khaki-colored slacks and a navy cardigan sweater.

Very hello, Doctor , with his sleeves rolled up and his smile sunny with excitement and visible nerves.

I want to wrap that tie around his eyes and tell him to open up and take what I give him.

“Well now, doesn’t the jeans and T-shirt wearing doctor clean up nice.

” I grasp Walker’s arm and pull him close for a swift kiss above his healing cut, right where I kissed it when he called me Daddy.

“I’ll take that Jasmine ’75 now,” I tell the waitress as we sit.

I can tell Walker is surprised I went for an immediate display of affection.

Catching him off guard is proving far too much fun.

“Might I suggest their custom Old Fashioned? Highly recommended.”

The waitress points to it on the drink menu in front of Walker. “Suntory whiskey, and with our own syrup and bitters recipes.”

“Sounds great,” Walker agrees.

“Those will be out shortly,” she says. “I’ll give you two a few minutes to look over the rest of the menu.”

“Thank you,” I say.

As soon as she is gone, Walker leans over the table. “How did you know my go-to drink anywhere new is an Old Fashioned?”

“You have an air of classic taste about you, Walker.” I keep one eye on him even while beginning to peruse the dinner menu.

I already know what I want to order, but it aids in seeming nonchalant.

“Someone who recognizes quality when it’s in front of them.

Plus, it’s a difficult drink to screw up, even with specialty ingredients, so it’s a surefire gauge of a restaurant’s quality.

I bet you always start with an Old Fashioned and rank your favorite bars and restaurants on how well they make one. ”

“I do.” Walker’s nerves ease away, and he rests his elbows on the table, fingers laced. “There you go being observant again. Although whether I can recognize quality is up for debate. Bad judge of character, remember?”

“That’s right. So how bad do you think you’ve been with me?”

He chuckles a little. “Time will tell. You really get paid to go to interesting places like this and write about them, huh?” He starts to peruse the menu too.

“I do. And don’t forget, dinner’s on me.”

“I thought dinner was on Manifest Ventures.”

“Too true. But you are still welcome to splurge.”

“I might have to just to find out what your, um… price might be in exchange.”

Oh, I am liking our rapport even more than the first time.

“I have to admit,” Walker continues, “I looked up some of your articles online. You’re quite the writer. You even mention if you’re at a place with company, like on a date. Does that mean you’ll be mentioning me in your write-up of this place?”

“I promise I’ll only include the good things, like how the dim lighting makes your gray eyes take on the colors around them. With the fairy lights draping from the ceiling, your eyes look like they’re swirled with silver and gold.”

Walker chuckles again, pulse quickening and body temperature rising if his imperceptible little shudder is any indication. “What would be the bad things?”

I make sure those molten metal eyes are on mine before I answer. “Time will tell.”

The waitress brings our drinks, and we order appetizers and our main courses. I don’t think Walker is purposely choosing items that complement without mimicking mine, but even if not by design, he is helping make my review of this location easier and more robust, like my natural counterpart.

He tells me about his day stopping by the hospital to visit a child patient he is concerned about and then asks me about mine.

I leave out that my day started with ensuring all my pieces were in place for Curtis’s disappearance and skip to my exploring of the city.

I made three stops aside from this planned dinner, and it pleases me that Walker has only heard about one of them.

“If I knew them all, would you consider the day a wash?” Walker asks.

“Absolutely. I need to be on the cutting edge. If an influencer beats me to a point of interest, it’s already… what do the kids call it now? Basic .”

Walker laughs. “Come on. You aren’t in your thirties yet. We’re still kids.”

“As my mother would say, even at six I was going on sixty. I have an old way about me. But if that’s your clever way of asking, I’m twenty-nine.”

“I turn twenty-six in a few weeks.”

“And still act sixteen?” I tease.

“Sometimes. When I let the expletives fly.”

“A few weeks, hm? Your birthday overlaps with the start of your fellowship.”

The extra gulp Walker takes from his cocktail says plenty. “It’s the day before I start actually, so I can’t even get drunk in celebration.”

“You don’t seem like the type who usually has more than a cocktail or two.” Since he likes how well I read him, I don’t plan to stop.

“It aggravates my asthma if I overindulge,” he admits.

“You mentioned having a severe case. You keep an inhaler on you?”

“Always.” I hear the faint plastic thunk of Walker patting it in his pants’ pocket.

A doctor with health issues is well-acquainted with death. I appreciate that.

“Sometimes the silliest things trigger me, but I promise I’m not a basket case.”

As if to challenge what might send him gasping and fumbling for his inhaler, a rattle of glasses clinking too hard against each other draws our attentions to a nearby table with a start.

“Robert, maybe you’ve had enou—” The woman at the table tries to keep her voice hushed, but her partner interrupts without trying to match her volume.

“I said I’ll have another.” He pushes his empty glass toward the waiter attending to them and nearly slides it off the table like an attention-seeking cat. It seems he previously pushed the lowball into his water glass, which remains full as if untouched by any sobering sips.

The inebriated man is retirement age, the woman a decade or two younger, but definitely a partner, possibly his wife, not a daughter.

He is irritable and drunk and acting brutish.

A few too many drinks at dinner are clearly the least of what this woman weathers.

The way she holds herself indicates she is used to this behavior.

They always are. Embarrassed and frazzled but with no way to control him.

He holds the control, and she is effectively trapped until she finds an escape—or someone offers her one.

“There always has to be some asshole,” Walker comments quietly.

He looks as annoyed as I feel, though I am not showing it as perceptibly.

“I tried telling myself that if Curtis had acted like that, I never would have fallen for him. But the truth is, he did act like that, it was just subtle until, well, until it wasn’t.

” When our gazes meet, his eyes widen like he’s surprised he said all that.

“I’m familiar with the progression,” I say.

I can tell Walker wants to press for elaboration or maybe divulge more about his ex, but he shakes his head. “We don’t have to talk about him. It’s like a huge faux pas on a first date, right?”

“The only faux pas would be if I declined to listen when you need someone to hear you.” I reach across the table, inviting him to take my hand. “Go ahead. If you want to talk about it, that is. If so, how did you two meet?”

Seeing Walker relaxing again almost keeps my attention solely on him, but although I do listen as he speaks, in my periphery I watch the couple.

“We met at this bar where a lot of residents go to blow off steam. I was being DD. Predictably. Curtis was DDing for coworkers too. We bonded over sodas. He’s a sales guy for this marketing firm, blah blah boring, but he is really good at it.

Driven. He had all this energy and charisma when we met.

” Walker may be talking about Curtis, but it’s my hand he's holding, thumb circling across the back of it.

The woman at the nearby table is trying to covertly get their waiter to bring the check with that cocktail refill.

“I guess I fell for what his clients fall for,” Walker goes on.

“Smoke and mirrors. We weren’t together long.

Less than three months? If you go by Curtis’s estimates, more like two weeks.

We rarely saw each other more than once a week during that time, which was unacceptable to him and apparently meant I don’t give a shit.

He missed the memo on doctor being part of my name. ”

“His loss.” I turn Walker’s hand, so my thumb strokes over his pulse point.

The man at the table has no shortage of insults to throw at the woman, while she is focused on navigating them through this without making a bigger scene.

“I can understand wanting to spend more time with you, but I also have an intimate knowledge of careers that don’t allow for much more than once a week visitations.

It’s not always ideal, but good relationships are about meeting in the middle, don’t you agree? ”

“Yeah.” Walker smiles and sips his drink as he relaxes again. “Definitely.”

“Anyone like that in your life? In the past?”