Chapter Eleven
ASSHOLE.
Cal shut his phone off and turned back around in his chair to grimace apologetically over the table. Doc frowned at him, blue eyes somewhere between irritated and disappointed behind smudge-free lenses.
“Work again?” he asked. “Who’d have thought being a driver was so demanding. I save lives for a living, but they still give me time to eat.”
Cal had to give himthe jab about drivers. At this point even Cal, who’d always kind of viewed dating as a contact sport, had to admit he was being a dick. Not to mention the fact that an hour into their second date, he still didn’t know Doc’s real name. Cal had never noticed before how rarely you said your own name in conversation.
Yet somehow the guy couldn’t let five minutes pass without the reminder he was adoctor.
“Long hours, short contracts,” Cal said shortly. “End of the month, I could be sitting on my thumbs.”
The doc laughed. “Or mine,” he said. “If tonight goes well.”
Cal paused and gave him a dubious look. That was weird. Doc realized it too as he laughed nervously and jabbed his fork into a piece of fish. It disintegrated into the sauce.
“That, umm, came out wrong,” Doc said.
“I noticed,”Cal said. He glanced back over his shoulder to see what Joe was doing. Still spying on Cal’s date was the answer. Cal glared at him in frustration and then tried to smooth his face back out as he looked at Doc. “Look, do you mind if I step out for five minutes?”
Frustration pinched Doc’s mouth together in a puckered line. “Actually, I’d rather you not,” he said. “Most of my dates don’t feel theneed for a breather.”
Cal looked at him for a second, shrugged, and got up anyhow. He crumpled his napkin up and dropped it next to the half-eaten burger he’d ordered. First Kristen at breakfast and now this. Apparently there was a conspiracy that didn’t want him to finish a meal.
“Up to you,” he said. “Tell the waiter to bill the meal to my room.”
Color spread across Doc’s cheekbones, underthe wire rims of his glasses. He put his knife and fork down on the plate.
“I don’t appreciate this,” he said stiffly. “And I don’t deserve it.”
“I know,” Cal said. “That’s why I’m covering the bill. See you around, Doc.”
“You won’t.”
Cal thought about that for a second. “Seems fair,” he said and headed across the restaurant to Joe’s booth. He leaned his shoulder against the hard wooden edgeof it and scowled down at Joe, who looked lean and elegant in a gray suit and lavender tie. His hair had wilted out of its quiff and fallen into loose dark curls around his face. Cal didn’t think about what it would feel like to bury his fingers in them, because he’d decided that wasn’t what he wanted.
Liar, a sly little voice accused from the back of his brain where he kept all the things hehad to work at not caring about—his mum, being an ex-con, the fact he was built to be a dirty little secret—you want all of it.
It was, for once, wrong. Cal didn’t. He wanted Joe, but he didn’t want closed bedroom doors and plausible deniability in public. But Kristen was right—that was all that was ever going to be on offer. Not because of her either. Take her out of the equation and Cal wasstill the itch that got scratched on a dirty weekend, not the guy you brought home to Mum.
Hell, even his own mum didn’t want that.
“I’m on a date,” he said as he crossed his arms. “This couldn’t wait?”
Joe leaned back in the booth and laced his hands together on the table. “Hmm, now you mention it, I suppose it could,” he said. “However, since I guess the date’s over now? Do you have anythingbetter to do?”
“Do you? Because I had him to do,” Cal said as he jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the table. “So my night was all booked up.”
Joe leaned out of the booth to check the table. “He’s still there,” he said. “I can wait if you want.”
Shit.
The immediate, dismayed reaction made Cal wince. Okay, so the date hadn’t gone great. He probably shouldn’t be disappointed that thedate hadn’t already ended badly.
Cal turned to look and the table was empty. The plates with their half-eaten meal were abandoned, and Doc’s wineglass had been drained to the dregs. Guilt tried to pinch at Cal’s stomach, but it struggled to make an impact through the quick rush of relief. Maybe later.
“You’re an asshole,” he told Joe.
