* * *
I ignored the Black Reapers as I went about my day. One by one, they all either left or rotated out. The ones who knew me—the former Bernard Boys, basically—occasionally gave me looks but stayed away otherwise. When new ones came in, I breathed a sigh of relief. They might have been dicks, but they wouldn’t know me personally.
As the night drew to a close, though, one man would seemingly not give up the chase. Unsurprisingly, that man was Zack. He caught me in a quiet moment when I was sitting at the closest chair I could find, going through charts on one of our patients.
“I’m sorry about all of this,” Zack said.
I looked up. He sounded genuine. Why the hell did he have to sound so compassionate? Why did he have to make it so he sounded like such a nice guy?
“You have nothing to apologize for,” I said. “I’ve dealt with pushy family members all the time.”
“Not like Brock.”
I sighed. He wasn’t talking about Brock being more difficult. If anything, in terms of how much he asked for, Brock was better than average.
It was entirely based on our prior history. And unfortunately, though you could get a family member’s behavior to change, you couldn’t do the same for your past.
“I just want to do my job and not have Brock bother me.”
“I’m sure I could help with that.”
I pursed my lips. He had a smile on his face. He knew what he was doing, damnit. He also knew it was effective.
“Did you set this all up so you could look good?”
I said it seriously, but Zack clearly picked up that I’d said it for more than just a straightforward answer.
“I don’t do things just to look good, and I don’t play games,” he said. “I like you. I’ve said as much. But you don’t want to hang out, so I get it. Doesn’t mean I can’t apologize for Brock’s behavior.”
He sounded so sincere.
But I also couldn’t shake the gut feeling, deep inside me, that just as Brock had used me for physical release, so, too, was Zack aiming to. That was what bikers did, right? They got their women, they used them for sexual gratification, and then they moved on. That was how they worked.
But yet…
“You don’t play games?” I said.
“I don’t,” Zack said. “None of us do. At least, we try not to. But I’m especially on the side of not playing games. I know who I am and what I bring. Either you like me or I don’t.”
“Why did you walk out the way you did when I said no?”
Zack smiled.
“What more needed to be said? You said no. I didn’t see a reason to ask you out again.”
Now I was starting to wonder if I’d made the right choice telling Zack no, and he had to know that he had me more or less pinned. He had to know that I saw him as different than the rest of the Reapers. He might have known it before, but he definitely knew it now.
I sighed.
“I don’t like the Black Reapers or the Bernard Boys or whatever name you want to call yourselves,” I said. “You all get in a group, and it’s testosterone overload, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. But as an individual?”
Zack put his hands in his pockets and arched his eyebrows. Again, he already knew—he just wanted to hear me say it.
“You’re not so bad,” I said. “I suppose I could do drinks or coffee with you.”
“Next week,” Zack said. “I have to go take care of some club business, and—”
I held up my hand and cut him off.
