2. Why the Plastic Surgeon ISN’T Actually Hot AF

TWO

WHY THE PLASTIC SURGEON ISN’T ACTUALLY HOT AF

#2 how the curl on his forehaed flops over his left brow when he tilts his hed.

Present

T he clipboard fell to the floor with a loud clatter of particleboard meeting vinyl. For a second, I wondered if I was imagining things. Because really, what were the odds that the nerdy yet gorgeous barfly who sat quietly at the end of my section of a second-rate lounge was actually a plastic surgeon who served the rich and, well, really rich of Manhattan?

But the second he looked up, I knew it was him.

Mr. Chocolatey Bedroom Eyes.

Sir Curls Galore.

He Whose Name I’d Completely Forgotten but who sat silently on the same stool at the end of the bar every Thursday night, ordered the same scotch that he barely drank, and seemed completely immune to my charms.

Honestly, I’d just figured the guy liked more T than A. Apparently, I was right, if he was a freaking plastic surgeon. The man was probably up to his eyeballs in perfect breasts he had made himself.

“I’m Doctor Hunt,” he said. “Nathan, you might remember.”

“Nathan,” I repeated numbly. “Man, small world, isn’t it?”

He shivered when I said his name, then seemed to snap out of it and turn to the dropped clipboard. “I—sorry—give me a moment.”

I watched as he picked up the clipboard, then shoved his glasses up his long nose while he read through my chart again.

I could easily imagine what it said. Or should say, in this scenario.

Name: Giovanna Zola

Age : 24

Sex: Female

Occupation: Washed-up dancer and absent-minded bartender

Address: Her grandmother’s house for three more days

Status: Desperate AF and suddenly horny

“Oxygen, ninety-eight. BMI slightly low, but that’s typical of an ectomorph. Blood pressure on the low side too, but normal.” Dr. Hunt was muttering to himself again while he paged through the chart.

I hooked my ankles together as I swung my legs back and forth. “Means I’m perfect, right?”

His head snapped up. “What?”

I grinned. “My chart. It tells you all the reasons I’m absolutely perfect. Except for these things.” I pointed at my chest. “But you already knew that. I wouldn’t be here otherwise, would I? Hey, how come you didn’t tell me you’re a doctor?”

Dr. Hunt’s full mouth opened and closed several times, a perfect imitation of my sister Marie’s goldfish, Tangerine. He died when we were twelve, but I used to love staring at the little guy blowing kisses in the bowl on her desk.

I had a feeling I’d like this guy’s kisses even more.

He looked back at the chart, then to me again, and frowned. “I thought your name was Joni. This says Giovanna.”

“You find me sitting in your room, and that’s what surprises you?” I had to laugh. “You know, I should have guessed you’re a doctor. Now that I think about it, you said you worked at the hospital once. But I probably thought you were a custodian.”

The frown turned into a delicious scowl that made his glasses ride up his long, almost-straight nose. “I look like a custodian?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Do I look like a bartender?”

He stared at me for a long moment but didn’t answer.

So much for jokes.

Of course, I already knew Dr. Hunt wasn’t much of a joker. In all the weeks he’d come to Opal, he’d never once laughed at one of my punch lines. Not one .

Didn’t stop me from coming up with others, though.

I sighed, making my big red hoops swing back and forth over my shoulders. “Joni is a nickname. Short for Giovanna. I, um, couldn’t actually pronounce my own name until I was almost seven, so the version I could say was the one that stuck.”

I honestly didn’t know why I told him that embarrassing tidbit other than the fact that I generally had a hard time not saying the first thing to pop into my head anyway. This was why Nonna was forever telling me to think before I speak.

“It’s all right,” Dr. Hunt said almost absently. “I didn’t speak at all until I was almost four.”

I brightened. “Really?”

It seemed unlikely. Smart guy like this—I assumed he had to be smart if he was a freaking surgeon—and he didn’t talk until he was four?

Huh.

“Nathaniel was difficult for me until my palate formed completely.” He nodded but didn’t meet my eye as he flipped through my chart. Looking for what? Inconsistencies? Credit Scores? My personal dating history in case he wanted to ask me out?

In my dreams. Guys like this didn’t fall for girls like me. They took us home for a night and forgot our names the very next day.

“Nathaniel?” I tested the name on my tongue. It tasted like the deepest, darkest chocolate. My insides warmed. “I could see that being tough for a toddler too. But I like it.”

Dr. Hunt looked up, his dark eyes softened a bit. I wondered if he might smile, but he didn’t. “Thanks. I like Giovanna too. I like the way it feels on my tongue.”

His gaze flickered to my mouth. We stared at each other like it was completely normal for a doctor and patient to pronounce each other’s names like they were the dirtiest words in the dictionary. As if I wasn’t sitting here in nothing but a paper sheet, imagining exactly how this physician might growl the name while doing something a whole lot dirtier than reading it off a chart.

What was wrong with me?

Oh, right.

Desperate, remember?

Dr. Hunt sat on his stool and turned toward the desk to finish reviewing my chart like I wasn’t a quivering mess on his exam table. Obviously, he wasn’t affected by this odd tension. Something was very, very wrong with me.

“I should have known Nathaniel Hunt was you when I came in here,” I babbled on, because I honestly could not deal with silence. “Should have remembered it from your credit card. I mean, how many Nathaniel Hunts are there in New York? Twenty? I doubt even that. But it’s not something I would ever pay attention to, which my family absolutely can’t stand. They always say I’m a dumb blonde without the hair color. I don’t even have more than two cents to rub together.”

Dr. Hunt turned back with another frown. “I don’t think you’re dumb. There’s no logical reason you would know what I do for a living, since I never told you.”

I smiled at the joke. But when he didn’t return my smile, I realized he wasn’t actually making one. Just pointing out a fact.

“Well, thanks,” I said. “Maybe it’s a good thing that my plastic surgeon is also kind of my friend.”

For some reason, the doctor stiffened when I mentioned his profession.

He cleared his throat roughly. “So, a breast augmentation? Why don’t you tell me more about what you want?”

I nodded, then hooked my ankles together to keep them from jiggling. I was having an even harder time keeping still than usual. “I—I think it will, um, suit me. Improve things, maybe.”

Dr. Hunt remained as still as a statue while he listened. “I don’t—all right. Let’s talk about what you’re looking for in terms of size and shape.”

I swallowed hard. This was the weird part.

“So, don’t judge, but my cousin works at a strip club, and she said her tips doubled after she got hers done. She’s a patient here, by the way. Rochelle Ortiz. Did you do hers?”

Nathan shook his head numbly. “No.”

“I didn’t think so. They gave me this appointment because there was a cancellation. And, well, you probably already know I’m not the greatest bartender, but I was thinking if I got, I don’t know, something more Pam Anderson and less Emma Watson, I’d start raking it in. But more natural, okay? Like out to here, not here. And I don’t want them to feel like rocks.”

I mimed where I wanted my boobs to turn out, which felt weirdly like the way frat guys tended to talk about girls they liked. By the time I was done, Dr. Hunt’s gaze hadn’t moved from mine, but I honestly wasn’t sure if he was listening anymore. His eyes had sort of glazed over, and his mouth had folded into a tight line.

“Well?” I asked. “What do you think? Bump me up at least four or five sizes, since there isn’t much to work with. Do you think I can handle a triple D?”

Dr. Hunt blinked rapidly. “Triple—what?”

“D,” I repeated. Sheesh, I hope he wasn’t this distracted in surgery. “I’m barely a B-cup now, and that’s if we’re being generous. I figure if we’re going in there, might as well do it right, you know?”

He blinked again, and this time, his eyes sharpened as they traveled over my body. There was nothing lecherous about it. He wasn’t undressing me with his eyes, like too many bar patrons did after a drink or five. But I couldn’t help feeling, well, naked under that intense gaze anyway.

Lord, the man could look right through a girl.

“Dr. Hunt?” I asked when he still didn’t speak.

That seemed to yank him out of his…whatever it was. Stupor wasn’t the right word. He was too focused to be daydreaming. But he wasn’t exactly paying attention to what was coming out of my mouth either.

He hadn’t even answered my question.

“All right,” he said abruptly, standing up from the stool. “First, I’ll need to take a look and perform a quick exam. When you’re ready, please remove the top half of the gown. You can let it settle around your waist.”

He turned around to wash his hands, dry them, then put on some exam gloves. By the time he was done, I was sitting topless on the exam table, trying and failing to remind myself that this was no different than getting a basic breast exam from my family doctor.

Because he was a doctor, after all. A stupidly handsome, annoying, broody, Henry Cavill-lookalike doctor, sure. But also kind of an antisocial dick—and maybe that was a good thing. The only one having unprofessional thoughts here was me, clearly.

Dr. Hunt turned around and stumbled, but that scowl was still fixed on his face as he approached the exam table.

I sat straight and tall. I wasn’t a dancer anymore, but the posture had been beaten into me since I was barely able to walk. You can take the girl out of the dance studio, but you can’t take the studio out of the girl.

I hated how true it was.

Dr. Hunt stood to one side of the table and reached out as if to begin the examination. I looked up at the ceiling and waited for that cold, clinical touch. And waited.

And waited.

When I looked down, he was frozen, hands out.

“Eh, what’s up, doc?” I said in my very best impression of Bugs Bunny.

The doctor started, as if he’d been snapped on the nose, yanking his hands back to his side and practically jumping away.

“Everything all right?” I wondered.

He cleared his throat for what had to be the fifth or sixth time since walking in the door.

“You aren’t sick, are you?” I wondered as I stretched one arm over my head to touch the nape of my neck, just like my family doctor usually had me do when she did the same exam.

Dr. Hunt tugged at his collar and shook his head. “No, I would never come to work ill.”

I smirked. “I know. I was just joking. It’s kind of hot in here, don’t you think?”

“Oh.” He seemed to think about that for a moment. “I was actually wondering if you were cold.”

I glanced down. Okay, my nipples were standing at attention, but he couldn’t know that probably wasn’t entirely because of the room temperature. Or maybe he did. I doubted this was the first time a patient had been hot for doctor.

Even so, my shameless cheeks heated. “I’m not cold.”

He was standing right next to the table, unable to quite meet my eyes. Close enough, however, that his scent of fresh water, soap, and a hint of coffee floated around me like a warm cloak. It smelled unbearably good.

“You aren’t wearing cologne,” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

God. Had I really just said that? Yes, I was impulsive, but I hadn’t word vomited in years. Not like I did when I was a kid.

The doctor’s brown eyes finally met mine again, clearly confused. “I—no, I’m not.”

“Why?” I wondered. Now that the question had occurred, I had to know. “All the men I know are freaking doused in the stuff. Every boy I knew in high school took a bath in body spray every morning before class.”

Dr. Hunt blinked, but to his credit, he didn’t look at me like I was speaking a foreign language. “A lot of patients are sensitive to fragrance, and I don’t care for synthetic scents anyway.”

“Me neither,” I agreed. “They smell fake. I have this perfume that I love that’s only made from the oil of?—”

“Gardenias,” he said as the tips of his ears turned pink. Then, in a huskier voice: “I can smell it. It’s…nice.”

We blinked at each other like owls, and only then did I remember that I was still topless in front of the gorgeous doctor, talking about how he smelled, and listening to him admit that he was smelling me too.

Dr. Hunt cleared his throat for what had to be the twentieth time. “So. The exam, just to make sure there isn’t anything irregular. Then we can go over your options and what would be best for your frame.”

I nodded quickly, trying not to notice how absurdly chiseled his jawline was, bearing just enough stubble to catch a reflection from the lights overhead. Or that his hair was brown, but it was about a thousand different shades.

Once again, I looked up, waiting.

Once again, absolutely nothing touched my breast.

I turned back. Dr. Hunt was staring at my breasts like he’d just seen a ghost.

Jesus, were they that bad?

“Um…Dr. Hunt?” I ventured. “Nathan?”

Again, my voice seemed to disturb his trance. But this time, he whirled around as if he couldn’t bear to look at whatever monstrosity he’d observed, sat back on his stool with a thump, and scooted as far away from me as possible.

“Everything all right?” I asked.

Obviously, it wasn’t. Something was very, very wrong. Once again, he was looking at literally anything else in the room but me.

“I apologize, but I don’t think I’m the appropriate doctor for this consultation.”

“What?”

I looked down, wondering what the hell he saw that scared him so much. Nothing that I could see. Still the same preteen-sized-in-a-push-up-bra-if-I-was-lucky, mosquito-bite breasts I’d had since age twelve. Still completely inadequate for a job where half my tips came from customers who needed to think I was attractive. But not horror shows or anything. They were perfectly normal.

Dr. Hunt’s voice was gruff as he spoke. Curt, almost irritable. “I said, I don’t think I’m the appropriate?—”

“I know what you said.” I cut in, suddenly irritated. “I’m surprised, not deaf.”

What the fuck was this guy’s problem? I’d paid good money to be here and was planning to spend a whole lot more. The least he could do was take a look.

Dr. Hunt’s gaze finally met mine, thick with something that looked weirdly like pity but not. Regret, maybe. Or sorrow.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “It’s not going to work.”

I looked down at my breasts again, then back up to him. “What’s wrong with them?”

“Nothing,” he said a little too quickly. “I just can’t do it.”

Obvious bullshit.

“No way,” I said. “I paid my two hundred dollars for this appointment, and I can’t afford another. Are you or are you not a plastic surgeon?”

“Of course I am.” Now Dr. Hunt was the one who sounded impatient. “I just can’t be yours. I realize this is inconvenient, but?—”

“It’s beyond inconvenient , Dr. Hunt,” I snapped, though I’d already yanked the sides of the medical gown closed. No more freak show for him.

Even more infuriatingly, he seemed relieved.

Asshole.

“I want to see your manager,” I said, then bit my lower lip to keep it from trembling as tears pricked at my eyes. Fuck, why did I care so much what this stuck-up doctor thought of me?

Because I was already at rock bottom, that’s why.

Because everyone else in my life thought I was a fuckup, and my sitting here was basically the next step to scraping the bottom of the barrel, desperate for any validation, even if it had to come surgically.

Because even if I was as pathetic as everyone said, for some reason I couldn’t even try to understand, I didn’t want him to think so.

“I don’t have a manager,” the doctor was saying. “It’s a group practice, so we manage ourselves. You can see one of the other doctors if you like. They might have appointments in another few months. Otherwise, I’ll make sure you receive a full refund.”

“Fuck that.” The words cut my tongue even as my voice shook. Totally inappropriate for this bright office, and certainly too uncouth for this posh neighborhood. “I don’t have a few months—I only got this because of a last-minute cancellation. And if I don’t?—”

I cut myself off then. No, he didn’t deserve my story. Not that he even cared. I was nothing to him, just another service worker rich men like him could treat like garbage, someone whose meager savings he could afford to turn down just because he didn’t like the look of me.

A hand landed on my knee, warm and solid. I looked down to see that Dr. Hunt had scooted across the room so that he was right next to me, tall enough that even seated several inches lower than the exam table, he was almost able to look at me eye to eye.

If I could stop staring at his hand, that is.

It was a completely inappropriate way to touch a patient. But I supposed I wasn’t that to him. Not anymore. Now I was just an object of something worse than derision. His pity.

He removed it almost immediately, like my skin was hot to the touch. Apparently, the rest of me disgusted him as much as my breasts.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked quietly. “Honestly.”

“I, um, don’t think that’s any of your business.”

I hugged my arms around my body and twisted my ankles together. I was naked except for this paper gown and my Wonder Woman underwear. I wanted nothing more than to put on my familiar jeans and hot pink sweater and get as far away from this room and this hot, mean doctor as possible.

“You just said we’re friends,” Dr. Hunt said. “So, I’m not going to give you my professional opinion unless you tell me what brought you here. You’re very young to be considering a breast augmentation.”

And there it was. The judgment I knew was waiting for me.

“I’m twenty-four, not fourteen, Doctor ,” I said with every bit of sass I could muster. Which was a lot, if you asked my sisters. “You’ve never had a girl my age in here looking to have her tits done?”

“I have,” he admitted. “But they’re generally women married to much wealthier men, women recovering from the effects of childbirth and breastfeeding, or strippers—exotic dancers, I mean. You’re not married, you haven’t had children, and you’re not…”

I looked up. Did I really have to say my plans out loud?

Especially when I hadn’t exactly voiced them to myself?

I mean, when my cousin suggested I visit her plastic surgeon, it wasn’t because she was making a killing serving drinks. And while I’d told him it was because I wanted to earn more as a bartender, in the back of my mind, I probably knew I was lying too. That, in the end, I always knew I’d be right where Rochelle and too many other has-been dancers in the tri-state area ended up.

But clearly, I didn’t need to say a thing.

“Oh.” So much realization in one little word. So much shock in those big brown eyes.

I wanted to melt into a puddle on the floor just to slip under the doorway, away from the abject horror I saw there.

“Can I ask why?” His voice was stern and gentle at the same time. “It’s certainly your prerogative. But I’ve seen you at the bar, Joni. You don’t like it when strangers hit on you or make comments about your body, and they do it a lot. Once, a customer offered to give you fifty dollars to shake your chest at him, and you sprayed him with water until the bouncer took him outside.”

I peered at him. I’d honestly never thought he’d even noticed me beyond the drinks I poured. Every other time I’d seen this man at Opal, he’d always sat quietly at his corner, staring at his scotch instead of consuming it.

“That was different,” I said. “That guy was just demeaning. He called me sugar tits.”

“And you think men receiving lap dances will be different?”

I glared at him. Who the fuck did he think he was, judging me like this?

“Fuck,” muttered the doctor.

I couldn’t have agreed more.

Without an answer, I jumped off the table and sprang into immediate, if awkward, action, clutching the gown to my body with one hand while I grabbed my clothes off the other chair in the room with the other.

It was hard. A lot of stuff fell. More than once.

“Joni.” Dr. Hunt stood up. “Joni, stop.”

“Nah, I’m good.” I managed to shove one leg into my jeans, then the other, hopping around like an idiot in the process. My underwear just went into my purse. “And you know what, Nathan? You’re right. You should definitely not be my doctor. Now, I gotta go and get back to my demeaning job.”

“At a bar, or…”

“Oh my God!” I screeched. Christ on a cracker , the man really couldn’t stop himself, could he?

I threw my coat over the disposable gown, not even caring that I was going to walk out of here looking like I’d escaped from a looney bin. My T-shirt was somewhere on the floor. Right now I couldn’t have cared where.

“Joni, please.”

Just before I reached the door, Dr. Hunt managed to capture one of my wrists, pulling me back to face him. His fingers burned, but it wasn’t unpleasant. In fact, it was nice.

Maybe too nice.

“I didn’t want to—I didn’t mean to—” he stumbled. “Look, I don’t care where you work. If you want to strip or dance or mix drinks, neither I nor anyone else should have a say about it.”

“Thanks for stating the fucking obvious,” I gritted through my teeth. “Now let me go.”

The hand around my wrist felt like a brand I’d never known I wanted. The idea was infuriating.

“Not before—fuck, I just want to know why you have to change anything when you’re perfect just the way you are!”

Time stood still. For a moment, we stayed there, staring at each other, my wrist braceleted by his big hand while his brown eyes met my green without a trace of judgment, but with something that resembled…fear?

What did he have to be afraid of here?

Ever so lightly, his thumb brushed the inside of my wrist, over the thinnest, softest layer, tracing the pattern of my veins.

I shivered even as a tear fell down my cheek.

He wouldn’t say that if he knew the truth.

“This body,” I said with a voice that creaked, “is definitely not perfect. And neither am I.”

Dr. Hunt sighed and shoved his other hand into the mess of silky curls atop his head. “No, of course not. No one is technically perfect, but?—”

“This body used to be good at one thing ,” I continued, uninterested in his rationalizing. “And now that’s gone. So now I might as well be good at something else while I can because that’s pretty much all I have left.”

Dr. Hunt looked up, curiosity flaring as an eleven-shaped mark appeared between his brows as his hand dropped my wrist. “What do you mean, that’s all you have left? What were you good at? What’s wrong?”

It was more questions than he’d ever asked me in four solid months.

Another tear fell. No, this asshole did not deserve my sob story.

“You know what?” I used my free hand to swipe at my face. “No. As you said, you are not my doctor, so you don’t need to ask these questions anymore. And you can also keep your know-it-all, judgy-as-fuck, stupid handsome nose out of my business. I can make decisions about my own body without you, thank you very much.”

And with that, I turned to the door, leaving the doctor standing in the room, frozen like a statue, while he watched me leave.

I looked over my shoulder with the last shred of dignity I could manage. “See you never, Dr. Hunt .”

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