Large Women.
Unknown name, frankly horrible message—she was telling him the truth. It was only coincidental that she’d happened to come into his club.
“He’s no one important,” she said, but held her hand out for her phone again. Something stabbed him in the gut—he’d say it was guilt, but, with the things he’d done in the past, only one thing had the power to shame him. No, more like vicarious embarrassment. He hit the back arrow to clear the message from the screen and placed the phone in her upward-turned palm.
“You know, you only ever have to ask me for anything once.”
If that. She was his favorite surgical nurse for good reason. He scheduled his most difficult surgeries on Mondays and Thursdays—the days he’d been able to claim her from the surgery rotation. He’d even once bribed another surgeon to get her on a Tuesday.
Even without medical school, he wouldn’t be surprised to hear of her conducting surgery on the side. With her in the OR, it was almost like having a second surgeon on standby. She anticipated his needs.
It was hard to think of this sexy, sarcastic creature as the same person. Even when she got quiet and the embarrassment he’d known was coming wiped the sass right off her face.
“He stood you up?” Dante asked, more gently than anything else he’d said to her.
“He was supposed to be here an hour ago, but it seems he magnanimously bowed out after leaving me to wait for over an hour, so I didn’t meet him and fall helplessly in love...because he’s never been attracted to Large Women. Capital L on that.”
Like he hadn’t read it already.
Large with a capital L. Yeah, that had to hurt.
The mojitos arrived and she took a deep drink. He followed suit, for once not sure what to say. Stood up by someone she’d never met, and she’d worn that dress? That’d have made an impression on the man.
She hit the drink hard and eyed the dance floor again. “They make great mojitos...”
Uncomfortable. Speaking to fill the air with words, any words.
“I always hire good people.” He tried again. “Why were you meeting a man you didn’t know wearing that dress?”
“You haven’t heard the rumor mill?” She leaned forward, elbows on the table, to speak closer. “I’m surprised. Someone questions or lectures me about it nearly every day now.”
“I don’t chat at work, makes it easier to keep things clean.” Which was supposed to make it easier to keep his two worlds separate and ignorant of one another. “So what’s the rumor?”
“I’m being fixed up on five blind dates by the more insistent nurses on Eight Blue.” The neurological unit at Buena Vista. Their unit. “None of them have been all that thrilling, though. The first two couldn’t carry on a conversation if their lives depended on it. Then that jerk, and, you know, I don’t care if he didn’t show up, he counts as number three. They get two more fix-ups, not three. Not my fault they picked so poorly.”
“Why have they focused their attention on you?”
The question she’d been dreading—it had started to feel like a trap anytime anyone asked it—but Lise liked to live her life in the open, so she’d answer. She didn’t hide things. She didn’t keep secrets. She didn’t lie. If someone called a woman Large, Lise would’ve at least made commentary on people being rude. Unlike Dante.
Whatever. She couldn’t waste time working out what was going on in his head. Better to be open, and let the chips fall where they may. It was preferable that people reject her for who she really was than to be fooled into loving her then turn her life inside out when they found out she wasn’t perfect.
“Because I decided to start a family on my own, and they’re all basically horrified that I’m sperm-shopping or, as they call it, ‘giving up on love’ and ‘not waiting for my soul mate.’” She rolled her eyes, and looked back at the dance floor.
Chatting with Real Living Dante was much less satisfying than sharing the sexy imaginary banter that occasionally took place in her head when she wasn’t busy doing something important. Imaginary Dante would’ve already convinced her that she was perfectly shaped and that he loved the way she looked. Imaginary Dante would’ve compared her to Venus, and Venus would’ve come in second.
Imaginary Dante was definitely better.
“I see.” He said it like he agreed, pulling her gaze back to him, and there was a look—not The Look, a judgmental look. “That’s why you have yellow duck nursery photos in your phone?”
“Maybe...”
“Sounds like you’re having a bad evening, Bradshaw.” He leaned his elbows on the table, like they were close friends who talked close. Definitely not like he was about to kiss her, that’d have been an Imaginary Dante move.
So she leaned back again. “Lise. If I’m calling you Dante, call me Lise.”
First he failed to discount the notion that she was overweight, and now dissing her Maternity Manifesto and the awesome, adorable, happy and cheerful ducky room?
Enough.
She didn’t have to sit with him, pretending not to be bothered by Jefferson’s abject failure to arrive, followed up by his text-based slap in the face. This wasn’t the hospital, it was a dance club. Dr. Valentino wasn’t even there. He was probably off being cold and indifferent while heroically and brilliantly saving lives somewhere, and she didn’t like Dante, dance club owner, bar band pianist.
“This night’s getting less thrilling by the minute. If you’re going to try and speed up the evening’s deterioration by lecturing me too, you can...you can just shut it! Because you’re rude, and I was going to tell you how wonderful the music was too. But now I’m not going to!”
Because her good friend mojito said it didn’t count if you said it like that.
“And, for the record...” she lifted a finger when he opened his mouth to speak, shouting over the music from across the small table “...if a woman says someone called her Large, Big, or even Rotund, and she’s not, you’re supposed to say that other person is delusional. And even if she is, you have to say something about the other person being rude. That you did neither means you think I’m a Large Woman too, with all the capitals. I’m not. So...good day, Dante.”
Another song popped onto the house system, perfectly timed. Lise grabbed her purse, slung it back across her torso to leave her hands free for Mr. Mojito, and stepped past him toward the dance floor.
She’d gotten only one foot onto the polished tile floor when a large, warm hand clamped around her free wrist, stopping her escape.
“You’re not a Large Woman, Lise. But you do a good job of hiding in oversized scrubs at work.” She didn’t look back at him, but he spoke the words over her shoulder, so near her ear that goose bumps raced up her arm, away from that warm, talented hand.
Even if he was taking up for Sandy. Sandy, the one who’d picked Jefferson. Sandy, who must’ve been the one to label her Large.
“They’re
