Tobias: Book One of the Cantrell Brothers Series

Chapter Four

“So, he's the one that everybody's been talking about?” Sara questioned Jane with her trademark skeptical expression as Tobias left the Rehab Center.

Jane thanked the sky everyday that Sara had contracted food poisoning from Mexico that had kept her out of work for another four days. Even though it was a Friday, she was still feeling a little crappy. Looking over to Sara, with long, brown hair and eyes so dark they were almost black, Jane had to admit that her top enemy was very beautiful. Sara was about a year or two older than her, years of excessive alcohol use making her age almost terribly.

Jane turned around and focused on typing reports on her computer. Every time she had to perform the painful procedure known as ASTYM on Tobias, she felt like she should be sent to jail for torture. It's not as if people haven't had some of the same injuries as him, but he was special. He tried to downplay all of his pain by telling her jokes and asking her about herself. They had learned a lot about each other these past couple of days.

For example, he was afraid of cats because a cat that had been living in one of his family's barns had given him rabies when he was younger. His favorite flavor of gum was strawberry-watermelon, but not strawberry-mango. He had a seven-year-old siberian husky named Rex. Liam Neeson was his favorite actor and so on and so forth.

“What do you mean?” Jane asked Sara as she fished her turkey sandwich out of her string-drawn bag.

“Oh, please. Don't think that people don't hear you guys talking to one another all the time. Those curtains aren't as sound proof as you'd like to think.” Sara sneered at her.

“Really, Sara? All I'm doing is helping out another one of my patients. Something that you should do instead of just making them sit there and boss everybody us around. I really don't want to talk about this. I just want to enjoy my lunch with my fellow co-workers, because unlike you, they don't hate me for no reason.” With that, Jane was about to walk outside when she saw Karen and Alex feeding each other some type of muffin and then thought better of it. She didn't want to interrupt them.

“Hey, Alan. Mind if I sit with you?”

“Of course you can sit with me, doll. Is it true?” the man asked, his glittering eyes reflecting the lights from above.

“Is what true?” Jane asked meekly, seeing how almost everybody stopped talking and was now listening intently for whatever she was going to say next.

“You know, that you and Tobias are...” Alan trailed off suggestively and bit into his greasy cheeseburger.

“Are what? What's the rumor mill spinnin' out these days? Really, I'm interested in what I've been doing.”

“You two are seeing each other and the reason why he's always cursing in that curtained off room is because you're blowing him, and he gets off on the whole thing because he's an exhibitionist, and that you use that gel for-”

“Enough, enough. Wow, I didn't know that,” she said loudly enough and smiled as she heard everybody begin talking amongst themselves again. “Who the hell would start that? There is nothing going on between us. It's against policy, and I don't feel like getting fired for something like that.”

“So you don't like him then? But he's so attractive!”

She lowered her voice down to barely above a whisper so that nobody else could hear. “This is between you, me, and Karen, alright? Yeah, I think he's attractive. Who wouldn't? Sure, some people say that his face is too rough, but I like it that way. He hasn't asked me for my number, and I haven't asked him for his. So, if you must know, nothing is going on between us. Besides, we've only known each other for about two weeks.”