Page 10 of When the Smoke Clears

She flinches. “Will—”

“You should have told me!”

Again she flinches, but this time, her back hits the door like my words physically propelled her into it. Tears fill her eyes.

I hate these fucking tears because they take me back to the girl I thought was the girl. My foolish heart made space for that girl. But I was so very wrong.

Chapter Five

Everleigh

Eleven years earlier . . .

I was four when they suspected I was different from other kids. I remembered everything with exceptional accuracy. And my insatiable curiosity presented a unique challenge in raising me.

College at twelve. Undergraduate degree three years later. By the time I met William Landry, a sexy firefighter, I was a second-year med student at Stanford University. Of course, I had my pick of any medical school. And to everyone’s disappointment, I shunned all the Ivy League schools, opting to get as far away from my mom as possible. California was as good as it got.

“Is that a dick?” A tall guy with sandy blond hair, a mustache, and the bluest eyes I’d ever seen perched on the stool next to me at the bar.

I was there with friends from medical school. It was the first of a week’s worth of celebrations leading up to Victoria’s wedding. The doodle on my napkin was a detailed anatomical drawing. Yes, there was a penis, but I didn’t label it like I did the other parts: frenulum, superficial and deep fascias, spermatic cord, perineal membrane . . .

Wadding up the napkin, I returned a nervous smile. “I’m a medical student.” My voice shook. He smelled of cologne, the rugged wilderness kind, not the overbearing kind rich guys wore with three-piece suits.

“Are penises going to be your specialty?” He smirked before nodding to the bartender and ordering a beer.

“You mean a urologist? No, and they specialize in more than penises. They deal with the kidneys, bladder, adrenal glands, ureters, urethra.”

He took a slow swig of his beer before offering a lopsided grin.

“But yeah, if you need help down there, I suppose a urologist could be considered a penis doctor. However, that won’t be my specialty. Who wants to look at that all day?”

He coughed behind his fist to hide his laughter. “Tell me about it,” he said. “Every time I take a piss, I roll my eyes like, ‘Jesus, not this again. I’m so tired of looking at that flaccid glob of skin.’”

It was time to abort. Make a run for it. But I immediately liked this tall guy with an addictive sense of humor.

“Cheers to that,” I said, tapping my water glass to his beer mug.

His grin doubled. “I’m Will. Are you in med school with Victoria?”

“I am. Are you one of Tyler’s groomsmen?”

He nodded. “I am.”

Will had a tiny mole beneath his left eye, like a little beauty mark. He also had a jaw that looked as strong as his broad shoulders, stretching his white T-shirt.

“Are you an accountant too?” I asked.

“Firefighter. Tyler and I were childhood friends,” he said, blue eyes assessing me as he took a long pull of his draft beer.

Victoria said I needed some life experience to be a good doctor. It wasn’t my fault that most of my fellow med students were in their mid-twenties to early thirties, while I was a month shy of my eighteenth birthday. In hindsight, an evening at the bar just off campus wasn’t the best way to gain life experience. But Victoria had dried the hell out of my amber-dyed hair until it was straight and silky, and she applied enough makeup to make me look twenty-seven instead of seventeen.

Push-up bra.

Tight jeans.

Heels.

And a fake ID.