But as I walk up the grand staircase to my room to dig out my leather jacket, I realize something. The gravity isn't holding us down anymore.
We’re just using it to slingshot ourselves into something much, much more fun.
Maxwell
The St. Jude’s Annual Winter Gala is usually an exercise in torture.
It is a sea of black ties, bad champagne, and donors who want to tell me about their palpitations while eating shrimp cocktails. It is four hours of smiling until my face hurts and pretending that I care about the Board Chairman’s golf handicap.
But tonight feels different.
Tonight, I am not walking in alone. And I am not walking in afraid.
I stand in the foyer of the hotel ballroom, adjusting my cuffs. I am wearing my tuxedo—the Tom Ford, midnight blue, peak lapel. It is perfect.
Beside me stands Jax O’Connell.
He is wearing the charcoal suit from Giovanni’s. But he has made... adjustments.
He is not wearing a tie. The top two buttons of his crisp white shirt are undone, exposing the tanned column of his throat and just a hint of the dark ink of his chest piece. And on his feet, instead of the patent leather shoes I suggested, he is wearing a pair of pristine, polished black combat boots.
He looks like a rock star who crashed a funeral. He looks magnificent.
"You’re sweating," Jax whispers, leaning close. He smells of cedar and expensive whiskey (he had a shot before we left the loft "for nerves").
"I am regulating my body temperature," I correct. "The ambient heat in this room is excessive."
"You’re nervous," Jax grins. "Don't be. You’re the hero, remember? You saved the Trauma Cowboy."
"I did not save you," I mutter. "I merely prevented you from freezing to death due to your own lack of self-preservation."
"Same thing."
He reaches out. In the middle of the crowded foyer, surrounded by the elite of the city, he takes my hand.
His grip is warm, rough, and solid.
"Ready to storm the castle, Princess?"
I look at him. I look at the doors to the ballroom.
"Ready," I say.
We walk in.
The room goes quiet. I don't think I’m imagining it. The chatter dies down. Heads turn. The spotlight is instantaneous.
Everyone knows. The story of the blizzard rescue was in theTimesthis morning."Top Surgeons Risk Lives in Dramatic Bus Rescue."There was a picture of me gripping the gurney, covered in snow, looking at Jax like he was the only thing on earth.
We walk through the crowd. The sea parts.
"Dr. York!" A donor I have avoided for three years rushes forward. "Incredible work! Just incredible! And this must be the famous Dr. O'Connell!"
Jax smiles. It is his "Patient Relations" smile—charming, disarming, and entirely fake.
"Nice to meet you," Jax says, shaking the man’s hand with a grip that I know could crush bone. "Please, call me Jax. 'Dr. O'Connell' makes me sound like I pay my taxes on time."
The donor laughs nervously.
