Why couldn’t he have another last name and she could continue to despise his cocky arrogant full-of-himself ways?
Nope. She couldn’t do it. Her father raised her better, even if her mother could care less about not liking someone on principle alone.
And wasn’t that what she was doing herself because of her past experience?
She would not turn into her mother.
Not in any way, shape, or form.
Wyatt reached his hand out to hers to shake again. Kind of redundant, but she took it anyway. “Nice to formally meet you.”
“Same,” she said, but she picked up her tray. “I need to get back now.”
He smiled. “If you need someone to show you all the prime spots to sit when there are no seats, let me know.”
“You could have told me that when I was standing here looking for a seat,” she said.
“I could have, but then I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of your company for the past twenty minutes.”
She wanted to grind her teeth knowing he was playing with her now.
“Thank you for the seat,” she said as nicely as she could and turned to walk toward the trash where she threw the rest of her salad away.
When she was leaving the cafeteria she felt eyes on her and knew darn well they were Wyatt’s, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of turning around and looking at him again.
She didn’t have time for these confusing thoughts.
3
Just As Bad
“Struck out I see.”
Wyatt looked up to see Sam standing there with a sandwich and chips on a plate. He sat down in the chair Adriana just vacated.
Wyatt didn’t even have enough time to appreciate her fine...assets when she walked away from him.
Curves that he knew were hidden under her scrubs. He’d bet she had a nice trim waist and muscles in all the right places.
Skinny girls were nice...some of the time. But personally, he liked a woman with some curves on her. One that wasn’t afraid to eat either.
Though Adriana did have a salad for lunch, she also had it loaded with chicken, cheese, and some creamy dressing. Yeah, no dieting there. It was like him when he was forced to eat a salad as a kid, he hid it under all the good stuff.
“I wasn’t even up to bat,” he said back.
“Funny, considering your eyes were on her the entire time during the surgery,” Sam said.
“I had my eyes on my patient,” he said back. Did they flicker up to see Adriana moving around the OR doing her job? Yeah, they did. And he was smart enough to know that she was watching him just as much.
Sure, her eyes moved away if they met his, but they had to be looking at him to know enough to move away.
And when he and Sam were talking and busting on each other before the patient went out, she’d been fighting back a grin, he’d seen it a time or two. He’d seen the look in her eyes that was the only thing exposed. She wanted to smile, but it was almost like she was forcing herself not to.
“Don’t take offense to that,” Sam said. “I know you take your job seriously. Everyone here does. You need to get that shit out of your head from your residency.”
“I’m not carrying it around like you think,” he said. At least he didn’t think so.
Did Dr. Raymond get half the residents to change their disciplines before the first week? Yep, he had. And a few more dropped out before the year was done. Of that group, just he and someone else remained until the end.
There was no way he was giving that old coot the satisfaction of dropping because Wyatt knew damn well Dr. Raymond had been waiting for it. Hell, he probably had bets out on it since Wyatt had heard the guy loved to gamble.
Freaking hypocrite. They all had their vices outside the OR.
Just because he liked to date and play jokes on people in the office didn’t mean he didn’t take his job seriously. Or that he was the one to make the class laugh during lectures.
Hell, even his family knew what he was like and totally expected all the shit he did to them growing up. Since he didn’t live with anyone, he’d cut back on most of the practical jokes.
Except on Sam. He got the brunt of it now at work. Or in his office.
“If anyone can understand how quickly things go wrong, it’s me,” Sam said. The first patient Sam had assisted on with his mentor died on the table, from a reaction to anesthesia no less. That almost made Wyatt change his mind on his career right then and there when Sam told him. “And if you carry it around you’ll never find happiness. Not even if you think you are happy.”
“I can’t believe I’m getting a lecture from you when you were just as bad playing the field as me.”
“I’m not talking about playing the field like that. Everyone who knows you knows that you don’t date anything like Ryder does. You don’t pick up women in bars and you don’t get on dating apps. But you don’t have relationships longer than a month and you know it.”
“I haven’t found the right person,” he argued. “Unlike you. I still think if Dani saw me first, she’d be all mine.”
Sam laughed. “You couldn’t handle her. She wouldn’t put up with your shit.”
He snorted. “And what shit is that? Maybe you should explain.”
“The jokes. I’m not talking about women. I’m talking about the fact that everything is a laugh and a joke to you. You love to do it and we are used to it. She’s used to it now, but living with it isn’t always that much fun. Or at least your brothers and sister say that. I should know. I get enough of it at work. Not only that, you can’t sit still or shut up.
