She scrunched up her nose, and I saw the immediate pain that flashed over her.
“Did you pass out at all?” I questioned as I walked back.
She stood up, her hand going to her face.
“I don’t think so,” she admitted. “I ran straight from the shop here. Then you found me right when I was doing my vomiting act.”
I snorted. “What did you eat today, anyway? It looked like you ate something putrid green.”
“Spinach smoothie with kale and sweet potato.” She paused. “It was horrible.”
I started to laugh. “Probably just as bad coming back up as it was going down.”
She sighed. “You’re not wrong about that. It was really bad.”
I left the room then, heading toward the supply closet. There, I grabbed a towel and an ice pack, then made my way back into the room to find the nurse, the one from earlier based on her body composition and hair.
“Who are you?” the nurse asked with venom lacing her words.
“I’m Tide’s soon-to-be wife, Coreline.” she answered sweetly. “Who are you?”
I rolled my eyes. “Elvis.”
Both of them whipped around, and even though they were both angry, it was Coreline’s eyes that had me captivated.
Goddamn her and those gray eyes. They haunted my dreams.
“Your nurse friend, Nasty, said that she was your girlfriend,” Coreline drawled. “But I know that can’t be true.”
Nincy, the nurse she was talking about, flushed a bright red. “That’s not what I said, Dr. Crow.” Nincy denied. “I was saying…”
“You can go,” I grumbled. “Is Dr. Porter here yet?”
Dr. Porter was my relief and would hopefully be here sooner than he was last night when he’d replaced me—which was an hour and a half late due to a few mishaps on the interstate.
“Actually, I’m right here,” Dr. Porter called out from the nurses’ station. “You’re officially relieved of duty.”
Thank God.
I was fucking exhausted.
Which sucked because now I had other shit to deal with.
Working a shift in the ER was way over what I ever wanted to do, but as the surgeon on call, that was what I did every once in a while, whether I wanted to do it or not.
Luckily, today had been rather quiet—even though I wouldn’t voice my thoughts aloud. That always led to chaos. And I wasn’t about chaos when it came to work.
Now in play…
“Can you give me a ride home?”
CHAPTER 9
Once in a while, someone comes along… and here I am.
-Coreline to Tide
TIDE
An hour after dropping her off, I arrived at her door with barely concealed impatience.
She was supposed to meet me outside five minutes ago, yet she wasn’t anywhere to be found.
The knock shook my entire upper body with the force I used, causing me to sigh.
“Jesus Christ, Roll Tide,” she grumbled as she yanked the door open. “Can’t you fucking hold your horses?”
“Oh, I like that name.”
At the sound of my brother, Haggard’s voice, Coreline turned and surveyed my driveway.
It was filled to the brim with bikes.
All of them being my family, whether in blood or just by name.
“Haggard,” Coreline said as she finally slipped the chain from the door and came out onto the front porch completely. “How’s it going?”
“Better than you,” Haggard teased.
Sophia knocked him in the bicep, but my eyes were officially glued to the bruise that was now very well formed on the side of Coreline’s face.
“Elvis,” I said as I reached forward and touched the bruise lightly. “You doing okay?”
“My headache is gone.” She paused. “But my face feels like one big throb.”
“Getting punched in the face will do that to you,” Easton, the newest member of our MC, said. “By the way, guy never came back to the shop. He must’ve seen the error of his ways.”
“That, or he forgot where he dropped it off,” Coreline grumbled. “Are you sure you want me to go?”
No, I wasn’t sure I wanted her to go.
Mostly because I was about to parade this woman out in public with myself and my club, as well as about thirty other clubs, and how many other bikers. And there was no way in hell they were going to miss her black eye. Some of them might turn a blind eye, but most of them would get offended on her behalf, and I might have a fight on my hands.
First, we had to set a few ground rules.
“When you go out with us today,” I said carefully as I eyed the rest of the outfit. Holy fucking shit, she was wearing the jeans. The jeans that, no matter when she wore them, always made me want to peel them off of her and do bad things to her. “You have to act like you like me.”
She threw her head back and laughed, the muscles in her throat rippling with her hilarity.
“I’m being fuckin’ serious,” I grumbled. “If you go in there looking as if you hate me, I’m going to get my ass kicked. Please don’t. I have a surgery tomorrow.”