Page 27 of One Last Rodeo

He pulls off his baseball cap, running his fingers through messy, light brown hair that absolutely has not seen a brush today, but somehow still works for him. Everything about him fits him in a way it shouldn’t.

His knee pops as he stretches out again. He doesn’t react, but I catch it. Years of training mean I can practically diagnose a stranger walking down the street. Unfortunately, I can tell that Jensen's about three years away from a knee replacement if he keeps abusing his joints the way he does.

My ex always complained about me noticing these things. He'd say that I was“always on.”Personally, I saw it as a perk. I'll never forget the time I diagnosed an unmanaged thyroid disorder in a server at a restaurant we were dining at. He was so grateful that I said something, but my ex looked like he was embarrassed that I’d brought it up... or disgusted that I noticed it before he did. I'm not sure.

I never showed that his disregard for me hurt, just shoved it deep down, but I could never grasp why I wastoo muchfor him.Too helpfulfor him.Too smartfor him.

Maybe it wasn't just my parents that conditioned me to never show my emotions or ask for connection. It was my ex, too.

Jensen leans back, and the top couple buttons of his flannel shirt give me a quick, sharp glimpse of the bull horn tattoo on his chest and the nearly invisible scar there from where I cut into him. I remember looking down at that tattoo, gloves on, chest shaved and cleaned and thinking why would a man this attractive do that? Why ink something that's already perfect?

And in the same vein, I remember thinkingwhy the hell am I thinking about that, right before I cut into this guy?

I’ve never slept with a patient before. Hell, I’ve only ever slept with one person. And that experience looking back had been uninspired. Embarrassing, even. But sex has always been mechanical for me. Something to do, not something to feel.Check a box.I have this awful suspicion Jensen would be rougher, rawer than my ex just judging by the way he shakes hands, rides on a bull, and carries himself. Not gentle and tentative like sex with my ex was.

I don’t know if I’d like it to be rougher. I’m not sure I’d hate it. I don’t know anything anymore, and that's a terrifying place to be in for a woman who likes to have things figured out.

“I didn’t ignore your advice because I thought I knew better than you,” he says, finally, choosing each word carefully. He flips his cap backward while he wrestles with his next sentence.

I blink.

Oh.

Oh, I like Jensen in a backward baseball cap too much.

“…It’s that bull riding is all I have,” he finishes, his voice quieter. “And I’m not ready to give it up just yet.”?

I take a sip of my drink to distract myself from how hot he looks in that hat. Normally, I’d immediately think about the increased risk of heart disease or organ strain or whatever else my brain likes to throw at me. But something in me quiets with the taste of the whiskey. Softens. For once, I don’t want to analyze the dangers of what I’m doing. I want to understand the man who’s sitting across from me without hyper-fixating on what could go wrong.

I wet my lips. “I understand that looking at me, and given what you know about my last job, you probably wouldn’t assume I know much about orthopedics, or sports medicine.”

He takes a sip of his water, watching me carefully. “That wouldn’t be fair for me to say.”

“I don’t care about fairness. I care about honesty.”

He lifts his brows, then nods slowly. “Okay. Yes. That’s true. That is an assumption that I have made about you.”

I nod back. “I spent a full year working for the San Jose Breakers after I finished med school.”

He sets his water down so fast it almost tips. “The professional baseball team?”

“Yes.”

His eyes narrow with something like suspicion and disbelief. “You’ve worked in sports medicine?”

“I did,” I confirm, swirling the last bit of melted ice in my drink. “I have a double specialty in cardio and orthopedics. Chose those specialties because I’d always believed they are closely related. I knew that I wanted to go the heart route with my career, but I had a hard time getting the fellowship that I wanted straight out of residency. The Breakers needed a team doctor last minute, so I saw it as an opportunity to get in some clinical hours whilecontinuing to work toward my cardio fellowship. That’s largely why Hayes vouched for me with Craig. I did mostly surgeries with the baseball team. A couple shoulders. Rotator cuffs are practically a rite of passage in baseball. I was young and still learning and deferred most of the easy, general medicine work to the head of physical therapy so I could focus on surgeries. But I handled their non-surgical needs, too.”

He sits back in his chair. “I had no idea.”

“Most people don’t. It was short, and I knew I wasn’t in it for the long haul. I got the fellowship I wanted about a year later, and after completing that, immediately was hired as a Cardiothoracic surgeon at the hospital of my dreams. Been doing that ever since.”

He nods. “Makes sense why you went the heart route. You’re incredibly skilled and passionate about it. Why give it up?”

The question doesn't hit me the way it used to. There was a time when it would've put me on the defensive immediately. Now, it just settles between us, familiar and heavy.

People always wonder. When you're winning awards, when you're the rising star, when everyone keeps telling you you're destined for greatness, they can't understand why you'd walk away from it. Sometimes, I still wonder too.

“I’ll go back to it someday,” I say quietly. “Maybe. I don’t know.”