Tyler pulled a rueful face. “Believe me, it crossed my mind, too. But Jonny would kill me if I bailed on him before midnight.”
Damn it, he had a point. It wouldn’t kill me to wait a little longer, but I couldn’t help feeling impatient to be alone with Tyler.
Alone with him and making him beg…
Just as I was sinking into a very dirty fantasy, we were interrupted by Cooper’s father, Dr. Kincaid Senior. Tyler and I stood up to greet him politely, but he waved away our greetings. “Coop tells me you’re a nurse, young man!” he shouted at me. The music was loud, but Charles Kincaid was louder.
I’d readily admitted my vocation to Cooper tonight, when he’d asked me about it. Seemed that some of my conversation last night had tipped him off, when we were talking about his own medical career.
“Well—” I began.
“You’re a nurse?” Tyler stared at me.
“Uh, not fully. Not yet. I have a few more rotations, and then—”
“I never knew,” he said softly.
But whatever moment was passing between us was brushed away by Cooper’s dad—who I’d found out tonight ran the Kincaid Memorial Hospital. He swayed precariously as he clapped me on the back. “Good for you, son,” he said. “You just let me know where you want to work, and I’ll make sure they take you on.”
“Thanks,” I said, but he was already moving on. I smiled at Tyler. “Think he might have had a bit too much to drink.”
Cooper was following his father with an apologetic air, but stopped to talk briefly. “He’s definitely had too much to drink,” Cooper said, passing us with a smile, “but I’ll make sure he pulls those strings for you—as long as you’re okay with that.”
“Hell, yes,” I said at once. “Never turn down a free lunch or a free connection. Although I’ll probably stay in the city for now.” I glanced at Tyler. “Well. Maybe.”
Cooper nodded. “Dad’s got a lot of sway in New York, as well. And of course, if you ever venture west, I’d be happy to help you out as well.”
As Cooper hurried off to find Jon, I confided to Tyler, “I don’t feel like I deserve any of this.”
He looked up at me with an expression I’d seen hinted at in his eyes before, but never so clear. “You do,” he told me. “You do deserve it. You’ve been nothing but kind and considerate to me, and if you treat your patients with half as much care as you have me, they will be very lucky people.”
I pulled him close, just as the ten-second countdown to midnight started. Ten.
“Not sure I’d get medical approval for Big Blue,” I said, brushing his ear with my lips, “but I think we can safely leave him for just between the two of us.” Seven…six…
“Definitely,” he murmured. Four…
“I really like you, Ty,” I whispered.
Two…
“I really like you, too, Damon.”
Happy New Year!
I barely heard the roaring crowd. All I was focused on was right there in my arms, right there with his lips locked to mine as the fresh new year washed over us.
Chapter 14
Tyler
I’d been living in Grahame Cabin for a long time, but it had seen more action in the last two days than the entire time of my occupancy. Shane had never liked to come out to Northlake, citing the state of the roads—something that I took personally, since Stan and I graded them every year like clockwork, making sure the expensive cars that drove on them found them as smooth as silk.
Shane had come out only once, and the way he’d looked around my cozy home and sniffed had pissed me off at the time, though not enough to break up with him then and there.
More fool me.
Damon’s reaction, from the moment he’d walked in the door, had been sheer delight. “This is fucking amazing,” had been his immediate pronouncement on the day he’d arrived. I’d been transported back to my childhood, feeling that same excitement at sharing a brand new toy with my friends after Christmas, watching them enjoy it as much as I did. Damon had raced around inside and out, checking out the woods that surrounded me, exclaiming in wonder at the bathroom, the fireplace, the view out the window…
