Page 70 of Love Sick

“It was supposed to be Maxwell’s and hegot sickat the last minute. I was conveniently the only one around to assist.”

The back of my hand connects hard with his shoulder. “Julian! You’re thieving surgeries?”

“It was gifted to me.” He rubs his arm, as if my hand could do any damage to the marble there.

“Fine. Teach me your ways, Golden Boy.”

He starts the basic training modules—the ones I’d started last winter and abandoned in total frustration. They aren’t explicitly required, so I decided my time was better spent elsewhere.

Quitting definitely had nothing to do with the hit to my perfectionism, and the place was under refurbishment, anyway. Totally out of my control.

“It’s all about depth perception.” He opens a module on clip placement and grasps the instruments, long fingers sliding into the handles. My gaze snags on the movements. His tendons flex and his veins dilate as he works.

With his attention riveted to the screen, he’s oblivious to my hand lust. What is it about his hands? Maybe it’s simply that they’re so capable. So skilled. I clearly have a competence kink.

They’d have that same proficiency on your body, Grace.

Frozen wasteland. Frozen wasteland. Frozen wasteland.

Don’t kid yourself. You’ve been thinking this for months.

Look at him, smiling at the screen.

That jaw.

And he’s so nice.

Ugh. He doesn’t like me that way, does he? He hasn’t given any hints. He doesn’t flirt. Never makes a move. Do I evenwanthim to like me that way?

“See?” he says. “Once you get the depth perception down, the rest is all hand-eye coordination.”

He steps aside to let me grab the instruments, then stands behind me. I take three times as long to do what he did and make the simulated patient hemorrhage in the process.

“Okay.” He tilts his head at all the fake blood spurting over the screen. “So you’re as bad at this as I am at flashcards.”

“I told you.”

A smile touches his mouth while he bounces a couple times on his toes. “It’s fine. We got this. Practice makes perfect. Do it again.”

I do it three more times, and while I do improve with his suggestions, I still fail. Growling, I toss the instruments, but they’re stuck in place so they go nowhere.

He laughs and clicks his tongue. “Patience, Sapphire.”

“I really don’t like being bad at things.”

“No. You?” he says, sarcasm dripping from his voice. I glare and he chuckles, pointing at the screen. “Try it again.” His hand touches my shoulder, firing electricity across my skin. “I promise you’ll get it eventually.”

I slog through the modules. He cheerleads the entire time. Sometimes, he places his hands over mine to demonstrate techniques he’s learned, but it’s lost on me as the brush of his skin and heat from his body steal all my attention.

Icy snow. Blasting winds. Cold, cold, cold.

But I’m on fire within.

When I finally pass a module, we high-five like I’ve saved a bus full of orphans. I’m not ready, but he pulls up the ectopic pregnancy module for fun and I make a fantastic accidental cut straight through the IP ligament. The patient bleeds out and Julian’s chuckles become full-bodied laughter. His forehead drops to my shoulder.

Releasing the instruments, my hands fall to my sides, and I close my eyes to savor his proximity. “This is way harder than doing it in real life.”

“Yeah. I’ve seen you operate. You’re not this bad.” The cinnamon on his breath seeps inside me. The heat of it fans over my back and around my neck, soaking through my scrubs.

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