Coach Thomas said that he was worried about Sebastian for next season, and he wanted me to do some tests to get him up to scratch over the summer. The last doctor did a half-ass job and players were dropping like flies because he wasn’t revealing the extent of their injuries.
He spent most of his time boozing and it had taken the club the whole season to figure this out. It was completely unethical. There was so much political maneuvering and backhanding in medicine that no one wanted to rat him out. I thought that it had been bad in the hospital! I suppose I was naive to think that it would be any different in the sporting industry. Maybe being a sports doctor wasn’t such a good idea, but I had no choice: I needed the money.
I was hired last week, and my first assignment was to get their all-star quarterback player back on the field for the whole season. Everyone was cheering for me to get in the damn pool.
“Sebastian, it’s me.”
Then this blue-eyed guy with really tight swimmers on said, “Shit, did I hire you before?”
Really?
Were the only women that come here strippers? I looked at the other end of the pool, and there were a couple of naked gals, so I figured that answered the question.
I wasn’t a fucking stripper. I was a doctor, and I came here to talk to him about coming to see me. I don’t do personal visits, but he hadn’t picked up his cell or house phone either. The only times it had been picked up was by his housekeeper, who had a tendency to tell me that it would be easier to visit him and then she would hang up the phone.
“Yes!” I replied in frustration.
“No!” I countered, realizing my mistake.
I realized that I was trying to reason with people that were half-naked. Or—in the case of the girls at the other side of the pool—completely naked. Even Sebastian’s eyes were half-open; I wondered how much he’d had to drink.
“Which one is it?” Blue-eyes asked as if he was trying to figure out if I’d been hired as their stripper or not.
God, what was his name again?
I’d met him when I was introduced to the team, but I’m crap at names. Faces: brilliant, but names: crap. When I had to consult with a patient—and due to cutbacks in my previous hospital, I was dealing with more and more patients every day—I could always tell what they were in for just by looking at them and matching their faces to their conditions.
“Look, I came here to give Sebastian a once-over.”
That had so been the wrong thing to say.
“Sure, we know, but it looks like Sebastian wants to get straight into the action. So, if you move it along. I’ll give you double.”
“I’m not a stripper.”
“You should be,” one of the girls shouted over. “Especially with those breasts. Did you pay for them or are they natural?”
Everyone tilted their heads to the side as I stood by the side of the pool.
“They bounced as she came in here. I say natural.”
The other girl blurted, “Nah, she paid for those. Just like me; was it Doctor Xin who did them?”
I looked down. No one had ever commented on my tits. Sure, I knew that they weren’t small, but what did she mean by “they bounced”? No one had ever asked me if they were natural or not. Of course they were natural.
Then the blue-eyed guy came over and said, “They can’t be; they’re just fucking huge!”
So, I did what any girl would do when she’s been completely insulted: I slapped him. I didn’t care if he was some big-time player or not, he was out of order. I had a feeling that if I hadn’t done that, then the next thing he would have tried do was touch them.
“I came here to tell Sebastian about his doctor’s appointment. We need to schedule it in, before the next season.”
I dug in my pocket and handed the blue-eyed guy a card. I didn’t wait for anyone else to comment. I didn’t wait for Sebastian to figure out how to coordinate his hands and legs to get out of the pool. He had tried twice and failed miserably, laughing both times.
“Shit, that’s right she’s the new doctor.” the blue-eyed guy said as I started to walk away.
One of the girls said, “See? Her butt bounces the same way. Definitely Doctor Xin.”
I ran to the car, thinking that as soon as I got home. I needed to walk in front of the mirror. How did I walk to make her think that both my prized assets were false? I shook my head at my paranoia, and as I drove out, I saw the real stripper, and I shouted out, “Good luck, you’re gonna need it!”
“Sebastian is even worse than when he was a kid,” I said to Sophia as we both sat down and grabbed some dinner at the Holiday Cocktail Lounge. I’d been in town for a couple of weeks, and we’d planned to meet up tonight in East Village. It was as if we were reliving our college days. One thing I loved about this place was the cocktails; no place beat them. This place was the reason why I went up a couple of dress sizes. The damn cocktails and food were to die for.“Don’t be like that; it’s been how many years?”I looked up and saw that the same Christmas lights were hung above the bar. It was as if this place was stuck in time: we’d changed, but the place hadn’t one little bit.“Can you believe that they still have that?”I pointed to the lights, thinking about the past.She nodded, “Sure, it’s the bar’s trademark. They’re not going to get rid of that. It would be like if they stopped serving cocktails.”She had a point there.“The atmosphere of the crowd, the music and everything, bri
“Sophia, you were always getting me into trouble,” I said as I was danced with some guy that looked as if he’d had more cocktails then we had. As I got closer toward him, I realized that he was old; he made my dad look youthful. Fuck!“I’m not ready to be any guy’s sugar baby!” I said as I pushed him away and started to scan the bar for someone else. Anyone younger than Grandpa!“Let’s see if we’ve still got it.” Sophia had said when she winked at me earlier. “What do you mean?”“Remember we never had any money, so we used to get all these guys to buy us cocktails? Then by the end of the night, we’d tell them that you and I are more than friends.”“That’s so wrong!”“Emma, remember that guy? The one that told you that his dick was so big, that he could convert you!”I squeal as I remember the guy, the idiot telling me that he converted his last girlfriend!That was when we had started scanning the place for guys to buy us drinks and for some reason she had ended up with a hot guy an
I had held my phone in my hand for the last twenty minutes with only one thing on my mind, and that was to call Emma and apologize for what had happened last night. I had managed to grab her card from Mason. The stripper was good, real good at stripping. But I’d lost track of what she was doing, thinking about Emma in my house. She had really brought it all back home. The girl that I’d met when I dropped my big sister at college—and hadn’t stopped thinking about since then—had walked back into my life. That wasn’t something you forgot about in a heartbeat. My parents used to tease me about wanting to go to see my big sis at college all the time. Sure, Sophia and I were close when she was at home. She used to drop me at practice and all that kind of considerate stuff that a big sister would do. But when I first met Emma, she felt like she had put me under her spell or something. I just wanted to go back to that college every damn weekend. Now I thought about it, Emma was my inspiratio
“Why did I agree to this?” I had asked Mason the same question when we left the house and again as we sat in the car. But I had to ask him one more time as we sat on the plane. I was supposed to be resting before the next season, and so far my best friend had me doing everything but rest.He whispered, as he looked around the plane as though someone might be interested in our conversation, “You know why. You were sitting there this morning, just staring at the doc’s card. And let’s not even get started what happened with the stripper.” He held his head down in shame. “A hot, sexy stripper and you were dead man. You think I didn’t know?” I shook my head. “You’re dead down there and if anything can wake you back up, it’s Vegas.”He patted me on the leg as if it was as simple as that. I didn’t even want to go out of town for a day, let alone a weekend, because on Monday Mom would get the results of her biopsy and I wanted to know once and for all if the cancer was back or not. “Even you
“This is crazy; you know that, right?”Sophia nodded as we stood in line to check into the Wynn. The place was wild; from the number of guests that were checking in to the tiled multi-colored flooring, it was a place to have fun. I just didn’t see why we had to come here and couldn’t just wait until the weekend was over. Why did she insist on us coming to act as her baby brother’s sitter? I was a doctor, not a babysitter!She asked me one question; “You ever been to Vegas?” When I told her that I hadn’t, she’d insisted that we came to rescue her brother. I had never been to Vegas, and I hated to admit how naive I felt coming here. I never expected it to be like this, but then I suppose that’s why everyone gets wild in Vegas. It wasn’t because it was a quiet destination; it was the complete opposite. The lighting in the reception was unreal. I felt like a kid visiting the candy store for the first time. They had lights on the walls which looked as if they were spitting fire. Everythi
I took a deep breath, wondering what I’d got myself into. I should tell Sebastian that this wasn’t going to happen, I hated losing, and most of all I hated casinos. I had a feeling that he knew exactly what was going to happen next; I had been naive thinking that I had the upper hand. As they called for the last bidder I wondered if Sebastian knew that he was about to win. “You’re not tricking me are you?”Sebastian smirked, wordlessly answering my question, which should in itself have made me want to leave the table. But my feet felt as if they were stuck in quicksand as curiosity got the better of me. Sophia’s brother had filled out and was so fucking hot. Like too hot. He was once a spotty little kid that used to hang on to my every word. That was back when we’d first met, when Sophia was my roommate back in college. Since then he’d filled out, and judging by the tight biceps that were holding onto me, in more places than one.I could smell his strong musk, and as I turned to him
“Hey, so what’s up with you and the doc?” Kent said as he tried to snap the chips out of my hand. I avoided his grip. “You want your money back; then you’re going to have to win it. Like winners do, not losers.” He passed me a glass of champagne that the waitress had just given him, along with her number. Yep, the big bad giant boys were in town. “Give that to Paul!” I titled my head disapprovingly. I had admired Mia and Kent for being in a relationship, and now Kent was going to act like some dog and cheat on her. Not cool; not cool at all. Sure, I knew that plenty of players did it, but that was their business; none of them were my close friends. Besides, Paul was single and it didn’t matter if he hooked up with nearly every waitress in Vegas; there wasn’t anyone back home waiting for him.“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!” Kent said as he slipped a couple of my chips into his pocket. Now I was acting like my mom as I took my chips out of his greedy hands. I was trying to
I decided that I was thinking too much about it. I just saw a couple of chairs that were free at the “Quick Hit” slot machines and took my card out of my purse and just went for it. Before Sebastian sat down, he said, “Are you sure about this one?”I raised my hands and said, “This is supposed to be fun!” I wasn’t going about it the right way though; I was looking at ways to win on the machines, reading the winning patterns. At the same time, I was using my phone to figure out the Vegas laws for the rules of the payouts.I shook my head. Sebastian was right. The whole point of it was to have some fun. I was turning it into a tedious exercise, which wasn’t the point of us coming to the slots in the first place. I thought for a split second that maybe I’d come over here to get Sebastian alone, away from his friends. Especially seeing as he was so mad with Kent. Sophia had given me a quick rundown of their names before we came down to the table, seeing as I’m crap with names. Kent had