“I’m sorry, Dallas. I know you’re miserable right now with Josh.”
“Completely, but not because of Josh. Dean is working on the ninth floor in my hospital.”
She couldn’t hide her excitement. “Oh really! Dean! Huh, the guy who broke your heart?” she cooed.
“He said I broke his,” I replied dryly, completely sure of who was right.
“You did, and he broke yours. It’s a sick thing to watch. So what happened?” she asked, sipping her tea.
“He took me out to dinner and then tried to kiss me. I freaked out on him, telling him to leave me alone.”
“He’s married, isn’t he?” she asked, trying to hide her smile. Rose had been Dean’s strongest advocate and her first crush when she was a kid.
I looked at her pointedly. “He is engaged. I can’t get involved with Dean. I won’t. He can’t be trusted.” I ended it there as she looked at me in question. “And you know as much of a whore as I know he’s always been, I never thought he’d be the type to cheat on his fiancée.”
“Me neither,” she said, still listening, but I could still see her faint smile.
“What?” I asked impatiently.
“Nothing, it’s just that…I always saw you with Dean, everyone did. I’m glad he’s back.”
“And engaged, Rose. It’s just never been…right with us. Anyway, Josh showed up with his mother and all hell broke loose, we were at Chantilly of all places. He was treating his mother to dinner and he saw me in my ‘do me’ dress flirting with Dean.”
“You are kidding me!” she said, laying her hand on my arm with excitement.
“Nope,” I sighed accentuating the ‘p’ with the pop of my lips.
“He took you to Chantilly? Did he know about that place!” she asked with awe in her face. My sister had gone from a love-shunning moralist to a romanticist in a month. I shook my head slowly with distaste, nowhere near ready to lose her to the bright side.
“No, and, Rose, that was the right reaction to the wrong part of the story I just told you. It doesn’t matter where he took me!”
“I know but he took you to Chantilly. It’s a sign!” She clapped her hands together happily as if she had been in on the secret that the universe would dump Dean at my door…or hospital.
“It’s not a sign! Look, I have to get back to work, keep your damn happy voodoo shit away from me for now. I am happy being miserable,” I said, throwing the rest of my drink in the trash.
“Why don’t you give Dean a chance instead of assuming the worst about him? Talk to him and see what’s going on. If I remember correctly, you are the one who screwed it all up.”
“I think something is wrong there, Rose, but I can’t afford to care right now. I’m working harder than ever to research what needs to be done to set up shop, not to mention my current patient load. Can we just drop it?”
“Fine, but this is Dean. God, does he still look like a completely fuckable movie star?”
“Better,” I said on another sigh.
She smirked at me and grabbed my arm. “Do you really think it’s Grant?”
“Isn’t it?” I said, trying my best to conceal my concern. I didn’t want her to see how bitter I was. She had dealt with enough when I came back from college. She knew from experience how risky it was to put your heart out there. Her personal life had been no picnic. “Be happy, little sister, you deserve it. But, you know…be careful, too.”
“I will. Not much I can do at this point. I am with Grant,” she said quickly as I saw a small amount of fear cross her face.
“It scares me, too, but enjoy him. I am behind you. And I want to meet him,” I said sternly. If some stoner creeper was claiming love for my sister in less than a month, I had the right to question their sanity.
“Soon,” she said with a smile as she adjusted her backpack on her shoulder.
“Get to school, Whitaker. We have a practice to open.”
She gave me her widest smile before she walked away. “Love you.”
I walked onto Dean’s floor the next day after rounds and caught him in between appointments.