If Tate likes Speedy, then I’ll step aside. Easy. I mean, at the end of the day, all I want to do is spend a little more time arguing with her and winding her up before eventually fucking her and then sending her on her way.
I have never been good at sticking with just one girl.
Still, I find myself holding my breath as he walks over to her, watching his face for signs of interest.
“I’m Tate, Gabe’s brother.” He holds his hand out to her.
She gets to her feet and shakes it. “Ava Simms. I ran over your brother’s foot with my car and broke it—his foot, not my car. He wanted me to lie and say it was a tank. But, actually, it’s a Mercedes Smart car. If you’re not familiar with them, they’re, like, super small. Tiny. Light as air in fact.” She glances my way, a smirk spread across her face. “Honestly, I don’t know how it could have broken his foot. He must have really weak bones. Or tiny feet, and you know what they say about a man with small feet.”
She’s evil. Pure evil.
I’m going to kill her. No doubt about it.
Forget worrying about if Tate likes her. I’m going to strangle her to death and then drop her body off at the hospital morgue. And I’ll wear a smile on my face the whole time.
“Agnes said that someone ran over your foot. But it was seriously one of those miniature cars? And your foot’s broken?” Tate chuckles.
“It wasn’t a tiny car. It was a tank.”
“He’s lying. It was my super-small and ultra-lightweight car that broke his weak foot,” Speedy tells Tate. “How small are your feet anyway?” she asks me, laughing.
“As big as my dick, which is eye-wateringly huge.”
“He wears a size ten,” Tate tells her.
“Ten and a half!” I yell.
“Isn’t that small for a guy who’s as tall as you?” she taunts.
“I wear a twelve, for clarification purposes,” Tate says.
“Fuck off, Tate. And you, Speedy”—I angrily eye her—“you are the actual devil. I’ll never trust you with anything ever again.”
“Oh, my heart is breaking.” She slaps her hand to her chest. “It’s your own fault. I told you I’d get you back, Hoppy.”
The look of triumph on her face would be sexy if I didn’t currently want to maim her.
It takes me a second to get what she means, and my eyes nearly bug out of my head. “You ratted me out because I called you Speedy? That is in no way comparable!”
“Who cares? I told you I’d get you back. And, honestly, the whole perving on my breasts only upped the ante and made it totally comparable, jerkface.”
“You bitch,” I scowl.
“That all you’ve got?” She laughs. “I thought you could do better than that.”
“Should I come back when you two are done?” Tate asks.
I say, “Yes,” at the same time as she says, “No.”
Screw my foot. I’ll get that sorted after I’ve sorted out the devil here.
“You just wait, Speedy. I’m gonna come at you with some serious payback when you least expect it.”
“Ooh. I’m shaking in my heels,” she mocks.
“I can’t believe a Smart car broke your foot.” Tate’s smile is getting wider by the second.
“Shut up. And we don’t know it’s broken for sure yet,” I counter.
Tate comes over, crouches down, and lifts my foot, examining it. I hiss at the pain from the movement.
“I’m pretty sure it’s broken, brother.” He looks up, a big-ass smirk on his face. “And it was broken by a baby car.”
“Fuck off. Those cars are not as light as they look. And she was sitting in it as well.” I jerk my head in Speedy’s direction. “That car is, what? A couple thousand pounds at least. Add on another one fifty from hefty over there, and you’re looking at some serious weight. Enough to break even the hardest man’s foot.”
“Hey!” she squeals. “Hefty? That’s just mean! I’m not hefty! And what the hell happened to ‘You weigh, what? One twenty?’” She mimics my voice.
I glare at her. “She gained thirty pounds when she ratted me out.”
“Asshole.”
“Shrew.”
“Ooh, you got a new word. You’re getting better at this, Hoppy.”
“Bite me, Speedy.”
“Jesus, how long have you two known each other?” Tate asks, getting to his feet.
“Too long.”
“An hour,” she says, ignoring me. “Although we have met before, but your superstar brother doesn’t remember that.”
“Bitter much? Does it hurt your feelings that I don’t remember you?” I taunt. “Did you bitch at me that night, too? Maybe that’s why I can’t remember you. I blocked out all the nagging. And, actually”—my eyes go to the clock on the wall—“it’s been an hour and a half. The longest hour and a half of my life.”
“Aw, you’re counting our time together, Hoppy. So sweet.”
And, like the grown-up that I am, I flip her off.
“As much fun as this has been—and, trust me, it’s been entertaining—I need to get you down for an X-ray,” Tate says. “Cover up, so you don’t get recognized. But security is down there just in case you need it.”
I sigh.
That’s the part of my life I don’t like—having to hide in public—but it comes with the territory.
I forgo my sunglasses and just put my ball cap back on.
“How long will he be?” Speedy asks Tate.
“Thirty minutes, max.”
“I’ll go move his car. I left it in the drop-off bay.”
“There’s a parking garage just across the street,” I tell her. “You can just leave the keys at the main reception if you want. Save you from coming back up here.”
I don’t want her to go. Even if she is the devil. But I’m not going to ask her to stay.
“I’m not going yet.” She frowns, a cute little pucker forming between her brows.
And I hold back a smile.
“I already told you, I’m here till the bitter end.”
“You’re so sweet,” I tease.
“You know it.” She throws me one last smile. Then, she turns on her heel and heads out the door.
“Well, that was interesting,” Tate says as he moves behind the wheelchair and starts to wheel me out of his office.
“Interesting is a word for it.”
“She seems nice. Angry but nice.”
“Mmhmm. You like her?” I ask, testing the waters.
“Do I like her?”
“Do you think she’s fuckable?” I clarify.
“She’s hot for sure.” He muses. “But she’s not my type.”
“No? She looks like your usual type.”
“Unlike yours, which is anything goes.”
“Variety is the spice of life, baby bro.”
We reach the elevator. Tate presses the button and comes to stand in front of me.
“So, you don’t want to ask Ava out?” I check.
He laughs. “No. She’s all yours.”
“I never said I wanted her.”
“Sure you don’t.”
“I don’t. I just want to fuck her.” Even if she is the most infuriating woman I’ve ever met. I’ll just gag her when we finally do it.
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“Definitely not, brother. Have I taught you nothing?”
He laughs again. “Sorry to tell you, Gabe, but sex is going to be the last thing you’ll want to do when you’re in a cast. It’s uncomfortable as hell. Add that in with the pain you’ll be in. And I know you don’t like to take painkillers.”
Yeah, because I know how easy it is to get addicted to that shit.
I frown down at my foot. Christ, I didn’t think of not being able to have sex. I’ve clearly been too obsessed with thinking about screwing Speedy. I didn’t even consider the fact that I might not be able to. And it’s not like I’d be able to show my amazing bedroom skills off to her with my foo
t like this.
That means I can’t have sex with her until I’m fully healed.
“Exactly how long is my foot going to take to heal?” I ask Tate just as the elevator doors open.
“Depends on what the X-ray shows,” he says as he maneuvers me. “But six weeks at least.”
“Fucking hell,” I groan.
Six weeks.
Six fucking weeks to wait before I can get inside Speedy.
Well, that sucks.
The doors on the elevator close.
“So, a Smart car did this to your foot?”
“Tate…” I growl.
“Ah, come on.” He laughs. “You know, if this were me, you’d be giving me shit for months about it.”
“Fine,” I sigh. “Get it off your chest.”
“Fuck, this is so exciting. I don’t know who to tell first.”
“Anyone but that fucker Vaughn West because, the minute he hears, I’ll never live it down.”
Tate goes silent behind me.
I crane my neck to look at him. He’s on his phone.
“What are you doing?”
He lifts his eyes from his phone and grins at me. “Texting Vaughn, of course.”
Ava
I walk out of the hospital, car keys in hand.
Gabe might be a monumental pain in the ass and wind me up like nobody’s business, but I put him in this position with my carelessness, and I should do everything I can to help him.
Probably not bickering with him would be a good idea, too, but, honestly, in an odd way, it’s actually fun, sparring with him.
If not a little surreal.
If you’d told me a few months ago that I’d be single, homeless as of tomorrow, and jobless and that I would hit Gabriel Evans with my car, break his foot, and spend a few hours verbally sparring with him, I would have laughed in your face.
Funny how life can change in the blink of an eye.
Or, as in my case, go to shit in quick succession.
“Ah, crap!” I complain, grabbing the parking ticket off the windshield of Gabe’s car.
Add parking fine to the damage I’ve done to him.
“Just fucking great,” I mutter to myself as I stuff the parking ticket into my bag and get in the car.
I move it into the parking garage and pay for the parking.
Heading back into the hospital, I get two black coffees from the cafeteria and some creamer and sugar in case he takes them. I’m a black-coffee girl myself. The stronger, the better.
Just how I like my men—dark and strong.
Not that Jeremy, my ex, possessed those traits. Well, he had dark hair. But strong? No way. Weak asshole? Definitely.
I had known he was difficult and selfish, but I didn’t realize how bad he was until after he was gone.
Don’t get me wrong; I was gutted when he told me he’d gotten an acting job in Australia, that he was leaving in a few days, and that he didn’t want me to go with him.
He said our breakup had been coming for a while.
He was right. It had been coming. And I know I’m better off without him. He was stifling me.
I’ve always been a strong person, but with him, I allowed myself to be weak. I let him boss me around and tell me what to do and be an asshole to me because I was afraid of losing him when losing him was exactly what I needed to do.
My only regret is that I wasn’t the one to end it.
I might have lost my job and my home, but I’m freer than I ever was when I was with Jeremy.
Things will work themselves out. I know they will.
They have to.
I take the elevator back up to Pediatrics. Unsure of whether to go back to Tate’s office or not, I decide to sit in the reception area and wait there.
I haven’t been waiting for long when Gabe arrives back in a wheelchair, Tate pushing him.
“What’s the verdict? Is it broken?” I ask Gabe.
But Tate answers, “First and second metatarsal. Clean breaks. And some tendon damage. It’s hard to break the first metatarsal, so you got him good.”
I wince. “Jesus. I’m so sorry, Gabe.”
He shrugs. “It is what it is. And, hold on, did you just apologize to me? Wait, I need to get it on camera that you did actually apologize to me once.”
“Hey! I’ve said sorry to you plenty of times since I ran over your foot.”
He grins at me, and I just shake my head, annoyed.
“Gabe, I’m gonna go sort out getting a boot fitted for you,” Tate tells him.
“Boot?” I ask.
“It’s instead of a cast,” Gabe tells me as Tate walks away.
“Oh, right.”
“One of those mine?” Gabe nods in the direction of the coffees on the seat next to me.
“Yeah, sorry. Here.” I hand his coffee over. My fingers touch his in the exchange, and my whole hand heats. “I got it from the cafeteria downstairs,” I tell him, like he really needs to know. “Do you want creamer and sugar?”
“Creamer and three sugars.”
“Three?” I frown.
“It keeps me sweet.”
I raise a brow. “Sweet is hardly a word I’d use to describe you. But I only brought two sugars, as normal people have one or two.”
“I’m not normal.”
“Clearly.”
“Two will have to suffice.”
He puts his hand out for them, and I drop the sugar packets and creamer in his palm.
I sip my coffee, watching him pour all that crap into his coffee, ruining a perfectly good drink.
“How can you drink it with all that crap in it?” I ask as he takes a sip.
“How can you drink it without it?”
“Have you ever tried it black?”
“Yeah. It was one of the worst moments of my life. What about you? Ever tried it with creamer and sugar?”
“Nope.”
“Wanna try mine?”
I consider saying no, but then the prospect of getting to put my lips where his have just been is too good of an opportunity to turn down.
He might be annoying, but he’s still hot as hell.
My future sex daydreams about him will just now have to involve putting a gag over his mouth.
“Sure. Why not?” Putting my own coffee down, I take his from him. I put the cup to my lips and take a sip. “Ugh! That’s disgusting.” I hand it back to him. “It doesn’t even taste like coffee. Just hot milk and sugar.”
I quickly take a drink of my own coffee to get rid of the taste, and Gabe chuckles.
“Did you move the car? Thinking you probably shouldn’t have bothered, as I’ll be done here soon.”
“Oh, yeah. About that…”
“You didn’t smash up my car, did you?”
I give him a look. “No, of course I didn’t.”
“Run over some other innocent person?”
“No! Shut up, will you? You got a parking ticket.”
“You mean, you got me a parking ticket.”
“Well, no. I only parked there, so you would be closer to the hospital and wouldn’t have to walk too far.”
“And I’m only in the hospital because of you.”
“Fine.” I throw my hand up in the air. “I’ll pay the damn parking fine.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Yes, I will.”
“No.”
“Yes! And why are we arguing about this exactly?”
He stares at me for a long moment. “If you haven’t figured that out yet, Speedy, then you never will.”
Huh?
I open my mouth to ask what the hell he’s talking about, but Tate reappears, interrupting us.
“I’m going to take you down to the fracture clinic and have the boot fitted there,” he tells Gabe.
“Should I wait here? Or come with you?” I ask.
“Come along,” Tate tells me. “Gabe’s going to need a ride home when he’s done. Would you be okay driving him? I’m on shift until ten tonig
ht; otherwise, I’d take him.”
“I am here,” Gabe pipes up.
“Of course I’ll drive him,” I answer Tate, ignoring Gabe.
“I can get a cab,” Gabe says to me. “You don’t have to drive me.”
“You don’t want me to drive you?”
“Well, I do quite like living, Speedy, but that’s not what I meant. I’ve taken up most of your day. I’m just saying, you don’t have to give up any more of your day for me.”
Hang on. Was he just being nice?
“Was that you…being nice…to me?”
His brows draw together. “Maybe.”
“Okay”—I shake my head—“I’m not sure what to do with that. But I want to drive you. It’s the least I can do after breaking two bones in your small foot with my tiny car.”
He gives me the middle finger, and I’m back on steady ground, which was shaking a moment ago from shock at his niceness.
Tate wheels him over to the elevator, and I follow, my coffee in hand.
We all get in, and Tate presses the button for the first floor.
I feel like I’ve spent too much of my day in this elevator. I’ll be ready to never see it again.
“You’re going to need some help around the house,” Tate says to Gabe. “Is Donna away?”
“Yeah, she’s on vacation, but playing nursemaid for me isn’t part of her job description as my PA. And, anyway, I’ll be fine. I can manage.”
“No, you’re going to need help. I don’t want you on your foot at all for the first few weeks, so I’m putting you on crutches. Getting around is going to be tricky. I can try to take some time off to help you, but—”
“I can help,” I hear myself saying.
What?
Two sets of dark eyes swivel to me.
Me and my damn guilty conscience.
Well, I’ve said it now, so I can’t take it back.
I clear my throat. “I mean, if you need help while you’re stuck, Gabe, I can help you. After all, you are in this position because of me, so the least I can do is take care of you.”
“No way,” Gabe says at the same time as Tate says, “That’d be great.”
“What?” Gabe jerks his gaze up at Tate.
“It would be a big help, Gabe. I can’t be there all the time to help you out. You know what my shifts are like. I’ll only be worried about you being there on your own. Having Ava take care of you would ease my mind.”