Chapter 37

37

Genny was sore. No denying that. But she would be okay. She'd told no less than a dozen people just that. She worked the desk, mostly. She handled a few toddlers with temperatures, and an elderly woman who had thought she was having a stroke, but thankfully wasn't. It was an easy shift—at least at the beginning.

And she suspected a certain Dr. Alvaro, Dr. Fisher, Dr. Fields, and Dr. Hiller had teamed up—to see she did nothing too strenuous. Her peeps were definitely taking care of her now.

Chad Fields was most certainly hovering.

Well, so was Guthrie Hiller. Between the two of those men, she had a big hulking dude in the ED with her almost the entire first four hours of her shift.

They were so cute. She'd keep them.

If she didn’t clobber them both first.

"Truth. How are you feeling?" Aubrey asked, after they wound up their dinner break. They had finally managed to escape those doctor boys for a few minutes.

Genny didn't truly mind.

It made her feel loved. Her brother and her man were taking care of her—because they loved her. That mattered.

"Sore. Ouch. And well...well-loved, honestly." She shot her friend a smile. "Guthrie and Chad are both very annoying and very endearing at the exact same time. What's a girl to do with them?"

"I can think of a few things," Aubrey said, scowling.

Genny leaned forward. “Okay, spill. What’s going on with you?”

“Your brother is seriously up to something. And I can’t figure out what.” Aubrey’s face was solemn. “He stayed with me—the night you were hurt. After my car was vandalized.”

“So I heard. I meant to ask, but well…Chad-of-distraction got me again. What happened?” Aubrey would never be easy in a man’s presence. That she had let Guthrie, who Genny knew she was afraid of, stay at her house, just the two of them, alone—it had to be something big. But Aubrey kept secrets, sometimes.

The older woman thought she had to handle the bad stuff all by herself. To protect.

Well, sometimes Aubrey Fisher needed reeducated. Genny had made it her job to do just that when this bestie needed it.

“He was a perfect gentleman.”

Genny waited. And waited. Then waited some more. “Okay. I’m not seeing a problem here. Did you want him to not be a perfect gentleman? Because though he’s a bit of a player, my mama did raise him right. He wasn’t going to do anything unless you told him he could…do something.”

Just like Gene hadn’t done anything Chantal hadn’t wanted him to. Her brothers were—mostly—civilized. At times. At times.

Her mother had worked so hard to achieve that.

Genny should tell her mother she’d done a good job when she had a chance. Just so her mother knew all those years of seriously hard work hadn’t been in vain.

But Guthrie—he never would have hurt Aubrey. Genny suspected that was a lesson Aubrey was needing to figure out on her own. Guthrie was safe. Aubrey would see that, eventually.

But in the meantime, Genny was going to have a talk with that brother of hers. Make sure they were on the same page. Just so he didn’t inadvertently do something to hurt Aubrey.

She was a very fragile woman, this bestie. A very fragile woman.

Genny had made it one of her life’s missions to take care of Aubrey because of it. If Guthrie was just messing around, thinking casual with Aubrey—well, Genny was going to fix that as fast as she possibly could. Her bestie deserved the real deal, after all.

Well, come to think of it: Genny’s big brother did too.

She had some serious thinking to do. Some scheming, maybe. And, well, she had two sisters she needed to consult now…