Her voice is low and barely above a whisper. The sweat bead has trickled down her face, and instantly, she wipes it with her sleeve, embarrassed.
“It’s Jess,” she begins, then stalls. “Jess infected me. He gave me the STD.”
My stomach drops, the bile rising in my throat. I cover my mouth instantly, running to the kitchen and barely making it to the sink as I vomit profusely.
I do all the mental calculations in my head, rewinding back to the time we were together. I wasn’t stupid, we always used a condom.
Except that one time.
The one time Drew and I stood in the bathroom fighting for the last one. He’d brought a girl home, and Jess was going away for the weekend.
It was rock, paper, scissors that decided our fate, and I’d lost.
Drew happily walked away with the gold packet while I walked back to my room to a livid Jess.
He begged me to fuck him, bareback, saying that if I loved him, I would do it.
And I did.
Chapter Sixteen
Drew
It’s the kind of night that dragged on. I got stuck with admin work. Boring and mundane, filling out form after form until my hand cramped. The hospital’s quiet, the emergency ward practically empty.
The problem is it gives me way too much time to think. I don’t mean to get all obsessive, but I have texted Zoey several times to make sure all’s good between us.
Despite our shopping trip, something doesn’t add up. I know her too well. And on top of this, I tried my very best to be her friend and ignore my sexual feelings toward her.
Take, for example, when we got home from grocery shopping. She escaped to her room and emerged in her ratted tee and these skimpy boxer shorts. I could barely peel my eyes away from her legs. The same legs that had been draped over me a million times on the couch usually covered in hair during what she called her ‘winter season.’
And now, they were calling my name, begging to be touched, to run my fingertips along them until I reached her…
Never mind.
“Hey, Drew,” Kristy calls, bumping into my arm on purpose.
“Hey.” I glance at the chart she’s holding. Lucky Kristy got all the good cases tonight.
“Admin work?” she asks, followed by a laugh. “Enough to bore you to death. You look a million miles away.”
“Yeah, just… argh, it’s stupid.”
“I’ve got five. Wanna grab a coffee?”
I nod my head and tell the nurse I’ll be back in five minutes. We walk along the quiet corridor taking the elevator down a level. We order our coffees, waiting aside until they’re ready.
“So, what’s causing Dr. Drew to be all down in the dumps?”
“I wouldn’t call it down in the dumps. There’s this…” I hesitate, extremely uncomfortable talking about my feelings.
“Girl,” she finishes. “Has to be a girl making you go cray-cray.”
“Yes,” I admit. “It’s complicated.”
“When isn’t it complicated?” She smiles. “So, what’s the deal?”
“She’s a friend. Been a really good friend for years. In fact, my best friend.”