The V-Spot. Wendy S. Marcus

      “Because I like you. Because I wanted to be the one to make your birthday special. Because you work so hard and care so deeply for each of your patients and their families. They all love you. I figured if anyone deserved to have their birthday wish granted you did.”

      She stood there, watching him. So he went on. “When you left I pulled Sadie aside and told her to put me at the top of her list.”

      “And she did, easy as that?”

      He smiled. “If I’m to be totally honest, it took some convincing.” And sincere promises to make tonight Emma’s best night ever, to keep the specifics of their date private and to treat her heart with care.

      “Come here.” She motioned him forward. Two steps and she reached up to his right shoulder and tugged. “Bend down.”

      He did.

      She placed both of her hands on his head, moving it from side to side as she checked his ears. An impromptu health screening? When she finished he said, “That was random. What were you looking for?”

      “An earwig,” she said, straight-faced. “This situation has Cyrano de Bergerac written all over it.”

      And he lost it. “You know what? I am sick and tired of you thinking I’m some dumb wrestler incapable of coherent speech or being thoughtful without someone prompting me. While I’m not in the habit of bringing my resume on dates, I’ll have you know I hold a Bachelor of Science degree in exercise science. I’d just started on my master’s degree when my now agent came over to me at the gym and offered me the chance to make more money than I’d ever dreamed possible.”

      After discussing all the perks, which included an endless supply of hot, willing women, it hadn’t taken much convincing to get a then twenty-one-year-old Brody to drop out of school and join National Coast to Coast Wrestling Entertainment the very next day. “And I’ve granted the most Make-A-Wish requests of any wrestler in the NCCWE.” Every single one he’d received. “A total of forty-two visits to terminally ill children around the country, at my own expense. You’ve seen my visits to your hospital. I make similar visits in whatever city I happen to be in whenever it can be arranged. Does that make me good enough for someone like you, or do you need to hear more?”

      “Why the secrecy?” she countered. “Why not just ask me out on a date? Embarrassed at the thought of your friends seeing us together?”

      No. “So you think I should have come right out and asked you out on a date?” he asked. “How exactly should I have gone about it? Corner you in the crowded Nurses’ station? Maybe follow you into one of those little rooms? Staked out your car in the parking lot? And if I had, what would you have said?”

      Her guilty expression told him all he needed to know. “On the first day we met you took one look at me and judged me as unworthy of your time and attention,” he told her.

      “I did not,” she tried, but her words lacked conviction.

      “You saw my public persona and decided that’s all there was. There couldn’t possibly be more to me than my looks, my flirting with the fans and the physicality of wrestling.”

      She looked down at her pretty, bright red-painted toenails. “I’m sorry.” Then she tilted her head up. “So this isn’t some elaborate prank?”

      “No.”

      “You honestly wanted to take me on a date for my birthday?”

      He nodded. “I knew you wouldn’t go out with me if I went the traditional route.”

      She gifted him with her first smile of the evening. A small, almost shy one that didn’t last all that long, but it was something. “I’m having a hard time processing the fact I’m at a voyeur motel with The Bull.”