Jennifer Crusie - Anyone but You

"You're good at this," she said, and the surprise was in her voice.

He put the last suture in and sat back. "Don't sound so amazed. I have a med-school diploma and everything."

"I'm sorry," Nina said hastily. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded."

He turned to her and looked down at her T-shirt and closed his eyes for a moment. "You look like you've been in a knife fight," he told her. "Get rid of that, will you? Zan will give you a scrub shirt."

"Sure," Zandy said, looking surprised again.

Alex stood up. "I can't stand looking at that. You scared the hell out of me, woman. Next time you show up here, break a leg or something. The sight of all that blood on you makes me want to throw up."

"I thought doctors weren't supposed to get sick at the sight of blood," Nina said.

"That depends on whose blood they're seeing," Alex said. He opened his mouth to say more, but then there was commotion in the hall, and he and Zandy went to look, and then he was gone.

"I'll be back," Zandy told her. "Don't move out of that chair. You could still be woozy from the blood loss."

"I'm fine," Nina said, but Zandy was already gone, so Nina stood up and moved to the doorway to see what was wrong.

The girl on the gurney that an orderly was shoving down the hall made Nina look like a piker in the spilt-blood department. She was sobbing, and there were people all around her, but all Nina could see was Alex, striding along beside her, giving orders that sounded like Greek in a voice that carried without shouting, calm, focused, completely in control while people scattered to do what he'd said. The whole time, he smiled down at the injured girl, interspersing comfort with command. "You're going to be all right," he told her as the gurney went past Nina's doorway. "We've got you now. I know you're scared, but you're going to be all right."

By the time the gurney was out of Nina's sight, the girl had stopped crying, and Nina felt like starting.

She went back and sat down, trying not to cry, close to it anyway because he'd been so wonderful, first to her and then to that girl, feeling stupid because all she'd ever seen him as was a good time and a body to fantasize about. She'd been as bad as Tricia. Norma was right; she'd been blind. She might be too old for Alex, but Alex was definitely not too young for her.

Zandy came back in a few minutes later.

"Is that girl going to be all right?" Nina asked her.

"Sure." Zandy picked up Nina's hand and began to swab the bloodstains off. "She's on her way to surgery now, and they'll put her back together."

Nina swallowed. "Alex is good, isn't he?"

Zandy stopped swabbing. "He's the best. Are you okay?"

Nina nodded. "I'm a little rocky. It's been a rough night."

"I brought you a shirt." Zandy handed her a green bundle. "Alex was right about that. You'll be back to normal as soon as that T-shirt is history."

Nina looked down at the gore that covered her shirt. "Right," she said, but she knew she'd never be back to normal again.

Norma would be so pleased.

"I just want to take care of her for the rest of my life, and she won't even consider it," Alex told Max the next night as they sat in Alex's apartment after work. "I walked into that examining room and saw all that blood and almost lost my mind just because it was her, and that's when I knew it was all over."

He looked at Max, trying not to be pathetic. "This is it. This is the one. I'm crazy about her, but as far as she's concerned, I'm a kid." He took the beer Max handed him and collapsed back onto the couch, naked except for his shorts, trying to cool off from the heat of the July evening and the heat that just thinking about Nina generated in him. The second kind was the worst.

Max sat across from him, pulled another can from the six-pack he'd just dropped on the coffee table between them and popped it open. "As far as I'm concerned, you're a kid. Take those shorts, for instance."

Alex looked down at his Daffy Duck shorts. "There's nothing wrong with these shorts. As a matter of fact, your mother gave me these shorts."

Max snorted. "Oh, that's good. You're wearing Mommy's Daffy Duck shorts. You are a kid, Alex. Face it."

Alex looked at him balefully. ''You are not being helpful."

"Sorry." Max chugged some beer and closed his eyes as it went down. He finished swallowing and sighed with pleasure. "God, that's good. Okay, let me think. You can't ask her out on a date because you're too much of a wuss."

"Thank you, Max."

"So we'll have to cut to the chase. Have you tried just asking her to sleep with you?"

"No," Alex said, "because she would say no. I have to get some moves here because just asking isn't going to do it."

"Well." Max shifted in his chair. "This isn't my way, of course, but have you tried hinting?"

"It's not my way, either," Alex said, "but hell yes, I've tried hinting. If I hint any more, I'm going to be one of those guys who goes 'heh, heh, hen,' after every sentence. It's not working, and she's driving me crazy."

Max pushed the six-pack closer to Alex. "Have a drink."

"I have one." Alex stopped thinking about Nina for a minute to concentrate on his brother. "Max, you're drinking too much."

"No, I'm not," Max said and finished his beer.

"I'm not kidding." Alex sat up. "For the past couple of months, every time I've seen you, you've had a six-pack in your hand. That's not good, especially considering our genetic makeup." He stared at the can in his own hand for a moment and then put the can on the table, still half-full. "In fact, considering Dad's little problem, neither one of us should be drinking."

Max picked up his second beer. "I've got it under control."

"Max-"

Max held up his hand. "I'm not kidding. I never drink before work. I never drink in public. I never drink alone. And a couple times a week I buy a six-pack and come over here and relax where I know there won't be any more booze once I'm finished with my three, and there won't be any hassles, and I can forget all the crap and just shoot the bull with you."

Alex stopped, dumbfounded. "This is it? This is the only time you drink?"

Max sighed. "Hell, Alex, have you seen me drinking any other time lately?"

Alex thought about it. "No. Not since Christmas, anyway. All what crap?"

Max waved the thought away. "Nothing. I just like coming over here and kicking back. Is it a problem?"

"Hell, no." Alex leaned back into the couch again. "I'm always glad to see you. Sorry. About the booze lecture, I mean."

"Don't be." Max closed his eyes. "Believe me, I know how easy it could be. I've been watching Dad for thirty-six years, remember? I wish to hell somebody had bitched at him before things got out of control." He opened his eyes and grinned at Alex, and Alex felt a rush of love for his brother that was completely out of character.

"I had a bad day a couple of months ago," Max went on. "One of many lately, and I got a six-pack on the way home and stood in the kitchen and drank the first two, and then I thought, 'Christ, two beers, standing up, alone?'" Max shook his head. "I poured the other four down the sink, and it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. That's when I decided that unless I was with you, I wasn't drinking. You never screw up, so I knew as long as I was with you, I'd be fine. I swear, this is it. You're my control."

"Anytime," Alex said, touched by his big brother's faith in him. "Hey, anytime."

"Well, don't go mushy on me," Max said. "Now let me give you some advice about Nina."

Nina. Alex groaned and fell back against the couch again. "There is no advice. I have known that woman for three months. If she was at all interested, she'd have said so by now."

"No, she wouldn't have," Max said. "She's ten years older than you are."

Alex glared at him. "That doesn't-"

"Not to you, it doesn't matter," Max said. "It does to her. Women do not handle turning forty well."

Alex looked at him with contempt. "And you know this because of your vast experience in dating hundreds of women twice."

"No," Max said, sounding not at all perturbed. "I know this because I'm a gynecologist."

"Oh," Alex said. "Right."

"Forty is when they start rethinking plastic surgery," Max said. "They look at magazines and see all those damn seventeen-year-old anorexics in push-up bras, or they go to the movies and see actresses with tummy tucks and enough silicone to start a new valley, and then they look at their own perfectly good bodies and decide their sex lives are over."

Alex thought of the gelatin-mold conversation he'd had with Nina a couple of weeks back and winced. "Oh, hell."

"And if you tell them their bodies are normal and attractive, they think you're being nice," Max finished. "Sometimes, I swear to God, I'd like to set fire to the fashion industry. They're screwing with my women's heads.''

Alex raised an eyebrow. "Your women?"

Max looked philosophical. "I like to think of all women as my women. I'm just here looking out for them."

Alex nodded. "The way you couldn't look out for your mom when Dad dumped her."

Max pointed his last beer at Alex. "Don't try to be Freudian. It's not only useless, it's out-of-date. Think Jung."

"I don't want to think young. That's the reason Nina won't look at me now."

Max looked at him with disgust. "And you wonder why I drink when I'm around you." He finished his beer and put the can on the table. "I haven't met Nina, so I'm sort of working in the dark here, but my guess is that if she's spending that much time with you, she's interested."

"We're friends." Alex picked up his beer again, needing the alcohol. "She likes me."

"Well, that's a hell of a good start, Alex," Max told him. "What you have to do next is kiss her."

The thought of first Nina's mouth, soft and pink, lips parted, and then of his mouth on Nina's mouth, hot and hard, was such a jolt to Alex's system that he shivered.

"Boy, you've got it bad," Max said.

"I can't kiss her," Alex said, recovering. "She'd slap me silly and never let me back in her apartment."

Max shook his head. "Nope. You just have to pick your moment. Sooner or later, if she's interested at all, she'll give you an opening. It may be just a little one, just the way she holds her head when she looks at you, or a hesitation at the door, but she'll give you one." He picked up his last beer and leaned back. "And then, my boy, you take it and run with it."

Alex thought about Nina and the way she always looked over his shoulder when they watched movies. Sometimes he'd turn his head and her mouth would be so close, he'd almost go for it until he'd think of the look that would be in her eyes if he tried it: startled, insulted, upset. Nope. "I'll lose her. One wrong move and I'm history up there."

"Wait for it," Max said. "There'll be a moment, trust me." He took another drink. "There's only one real problem."

Alex closed his eyes. "Only one? I see about twelve."

"When you finally get your shot," Max said, "don't blow it. You'd better be the best damn kisser in North America, or she's going to remember the ten-year difference and say no."

"Thank you, Max." Alex drained his beer and cracked another one. "I'm going to drink these next two beers and throw up now."

"You can do it," Max said. "Hell, I did it under a lot worse circumstances."

"Did what?" Alex sat back with the rest of his beer. "Kissed North America?"

"No, seduced an older woman." Max smiled, remembering. "Betty Jean Persky."

Alex swallowed more of his beer, trying to remember Betty Jean Persky. "I have no recollection of this woman."

"She was a senior, I was a freshman," Max said. "They said it couldn't be done."

Alex frowned. "You're talking about college? Hell, Max-"

"I'm talking about high school," Max said. "And if you think ten years is a big difference now, you try getting a senior cheerleader to look at you when you're a freshman science geek."

Alex thought about it. "You may have a point."

Max nodded. "That's what I'm telling you. You pick your moment, and then you make damn sure she's never been kissed like that before." He shrugged. "Of course, I was a damn good kisser even at fifteen."

Alex nodded. "I remember you practicing on the dog. So how did you get Betty Whosis to kiss you?"