Resisting you a single d.., p.1
Resisting You: A Single Dad Romance (Words We Never Said Book 2), page 1
Resisting You
WORDS WE NEVER SAID
BOOK 2
E.M. LINDSEY
Resisting You
E.M. Lindsey
Copyright © 2024
All rights reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This book is a work of fiction.
Any resemblance to persons, places, jobs, or events is purely coincidental.
Cover by: Natasha Snow
Photographer: Golden Czermak
Model: Gus Smyrnios
Edited by: Sandra with One Love Editing
Proofing: Abrianna Denae
Content warning: Death of a spouse (off page, in the past) grief, hate to love, homophobia (not between MCs), parental abandonment, slut-shaming language, a cheating spouse (in the past, not the MCs), and rough sex.
Contents
EM Lindsey Links
Foreword
Resisting You
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
Also by E.M. Lindsey
About the Author
EM Lindsey Links
EM’s Ream Stories
EM Lindsey's Website
Free Short Stories
EM Lindsey's Amazon Account
EM Lindsey on Instagram
EM Lindsey on Bookbub
Foreword
This book is for entertainment and dramatic purposes only. The plot of this book contains medical professionals, but it is not meant to accurately represent work in the medical field.
Resisting You
“Do you think I can go to jail for cutting holes in all the toes of my boss’s socks? Because that’s where I’m at in life.”
Frey’s a single dad, a nurse, and ready to wage a one-sided prank war against the arrogant surgeon with the sexy accent he keeps getting paired up with. And while there might be more to Dr. Renato Agosti, Frey isn’t sure he wants to feel anything but hatred for the man who said his biggest accomplishment was that he never met a resident he couldn’t make cry.
But everything changes the day Frey’s pranks go too far, and Renato corners him behind closed doors. In a series of bad decisions, hate turns into something else—something forbidden and delicious—and it doesn’t take long before Frey realizes the fine line between hate and love has started to blur.
Frey’s not sure he has room in his life for something complicated with a man who doesn’t know what he wants, though. He has a son to worry about, and a future to figure out. Still, the more Frey and Renato keep sneaking around, the more Frey starts to realize his feelings might be real.
He just needs to figure out if resisting Renato is worth the pain, or if loving him is worth the cost.
Resisting You is the second book in the single dads series, Words We Never Said. It contains an enemies to lovers one-sided prank war, hurt/comfort, grumpy surgeon/sunshine nurse, and a spicy, gently angsty, comedic romance that will leave your e-readers steaming.
Chapter One
Frey stared at his cup of coffee, betrayal making his heart beat faster than normal. His beloved brew—the one thing that allowed him to function like a rational, semi-normal human being—was ruined. He had exactly six minutes to fuel up before he had to be back on the floor, and it was going to take at least seven minutes to clean up the grounds and brew another cup with enough time to drink it.
He stuck his finger in the warm liquid and stared at the little flecks of coffee grounds.
He didn’t know how this had happened, and he still didn’t know why, but he did know who was responsible.
Dr. Dickhead.
Or, more accurately, Dr. Renato Agosti.
The asshole with the beautiful face and the sexy accent and the name that belonged on some model in a Gucci ad.
The asshole who had decided to make Frey’s life a living hell ever since his transfer request from labor and delivery was approved. He thought he was getting a better deal out of the whole thing. Better shifts, less screaming—at least, he assumed less screaming since most people in ortho weren’t pushing babies out of their vaginas.
Frey wasn’t moving departments because he didn’t enjoy being around babies and recovering parents because he did. The babies were cute, and the parents were always adorably clueless and happy to have a nurse who cared. Frey was a parent, after all, so he remembered exactly what it felt like to look down at a tiny, vulnerable little thing that depended on him for survival.
But he’d started to realize it was that exact reason he was good with the maternity ward that he was spiraling.
His son was now a happy, healthy six-year-old without a care in the world, but Rex hadn’t always been that way. His birth was difficult and traumatic. He was born early, and the pregnancy had been hard on the mother. And within hours of his birth, he’d turned blue, and his vitals crashed. Frey had felt unbearable panic with no idea what to do in spite of the fact that he did this for a living. He remembered yelling for the nurse and watching as they rushed in, then took Rex’s little bed and disappeared.
Hours later, Frey and his now ex got to peer through the NICU door window at Rex’s small bed, where he was hooked up to oxygen and so many tubes Frey could barely make out his little body. He was diagnosed with severe endocarditis, and there was a medication that would save his life.
Neither Frey nor Jace had hesitated in giving the go-ahead. They were warned of the risks that came with it, but Frey was pretty sure neither he nor his ex had really heard what they could be. And several days later, after a barrage of tests once Rex was stable, they learned their son hadn’t escaped entirely.
He was profoundly deaf.
It was not how he imagined his and Jace’s surrogacy story going. It was supposed to be a fairy tale. They’d found the surrogate, and while Jace had been cagey and refused to ask his sister for a donor egg, he was happy to help in the selection process at the clinic. They made jokes when Frey went in to give his sperm collection, and they’d cried when they got the news that the surrogate’s test had come back positive.
It was a dream.
Until it wasn’t. Until she was seven and a half months and they were getting a frantic call at two in the morning because the false labor she’d been feeling wasn’t false at all.
He didn’t sleep for weeks after the birth, waiting to see if Rex was going to pull out of it without any major complications. Frey got familiar with the NICU, and in the background, he watched his husband slowly shut down, bit by bit.
And by the time Frey got to lay Rex down in his little crib without an oxygen monitor or the constant worry that his tiny, struggling little heart was going to stop beating, Jace was gone, and Frey was a divorced single dad. And Rex was a child with only one parent because the courts had agreed since Jace hadn’t contributed anything biologically, he was allowed to back out.
And that was that.
So yeah, when a spot opened up in ortho, Frey had jumped at the chance. He loved the tiny babies, but going home to his son with the stark and constant reminder that nothing had gone to plan for him the way it did for most of the families he took care of every night was too much.
But it seemed like the universe was fucking with him because instead of peace, it had given him a doctor who hated him on sight and had apparently decided it was appropriate to fuck with Frey’s coffee machine.
“Do you think I could mortgage my house for bail money if I murdered him?” he muttered.
The nurse beside him, Cole, just laughed into his protein shake. “I mean, probably. You’ve got prime property. You’re what, ten minutes from the beach?”
More like an hour with the shit traffic, but Frey didn’t bother correcting him.
He walked over to the sink and dumped his mug, watching the coffee ground sludge move toward the drain like it was sentient. “I mean, I could get off by reason of insanity, couldn’t I? That’s not just a TV thing. And no judge would convict me if I told him that someone messed with my coffee.”
“He didn’t mess with your coffee,” Cole said tiredly.
Frey knew everyone was probably getting tired of his accusations, but there was no way this much was going wrong at work without there being a reason for it. He was a logical guy. He believed that most things were coincidences—not some sign from the universe. But at some point, people had to admit that he was clearly someone’s target.
And that someone had to be the one doctor who hated his guts more than anyone else on the floor.
“I’m going to cut the ass out of all of his scrubs, I swear to God. He’s going to stroll into the OR with his big, bouncy cheeks just…hanging all out there.”
Cole gave him a flat look. “Is that supposed to be a punishment?”
“I hate you,” Frey said. But Cole was right. Maybe Renato would have been embarrassed, but it would have been a treat for everyone else. For an older man, the man had an ass he could bounce a quarter off. And as much as he hated him, Frey didn’t mind watching him walk away.
He was painfully single and hadn’t had sex in five years, sue him.
Cole dropped down to a chair and kicked his feet up on the empty seat. “Have you considered that you’re tired and you put the little filter in wrong?”
“I considered that I set this up right before I visited my guy in six, and it was fine then. Then I saw that dick-weasel walking out of here, and somehow, my perfectly prepped coffee is now sludge,” Frey said, crossing his arms.
Cole rolled his eyes. “Well. He has been in a mood today.”
Which was par for the course when it came to Dr. Agosti. The man was a walking nightmare. He didn’t have the worst bedside manner, and he was one of the region’s best orthopedic surgeons, but he had a reputation for making all the residents cry. Hell, it was something Frey had heard him bragging about his first week in ortho.
What kind of monster did that?
That was when he started keeping a diary of all the things he’d heard Renato say during surgery. He did dramatic readings for the guys in his Single Dad Club on pub nights. It was great entertainment, but he still didn’t understand how one man could be such a monster.
Or why that monster was so bound and determined to make Frey’s life miserable. It wasn’t like he was a bad nurse. He was damn good at his job, and patients loved him. So did the rest of the staff.
But then again, he wasn’t sure what he expected from the person who got off on crushing the spirits of future surgeons who were just trying their best.
Frey rubbed his hands down his face and fought back a groan as he realized he was due back on the floor and he wasn’t getting his caffeine fix. He had two hours until lunch. It was going to be hell on Earth.
“Tell me he’s gone,” Frey said, walking back to the sink to wash his hands.
Cole laughed. “He’s back at his office. But you’ve got a BTK at twelve and…”
“Don’t tell me,” Frey begged. Because he knew. At this point, if his life wasn’t secretly being filmed for a prank show, he was pretty sure he was cursed.
Yep, he was cursed. He was definitely and totally cursed. At the moment, he wasn’t fired, but things had gone from bad to worse on his shift, and now Frey had to go home and pretend like everything was fine. It was something he was well practiced at, but there was an ache in the pit of his stomach because after a day like today, he wanted to come home to someone who cared. Someone who wanted to be there.
And right then, he had no one.
Renato was definitely coming after him. It wasn’t just the coffee, but that had been the start to Frey’s absolute shitshow of a shift, and he was hoping he could have a few minutes before he had to start thinking. And panicking about what he’d do if he went in tomorrow and realized that Renato had gotten his way and Frey was let go.
He shuffled through his front door, wanting nothing more than to collapse on his couch face-first and scream until he went hoarse. Which he probably could have done without upsetting anyone, considering his son was Deaf, and so was the man sitting in his recliner.
But he was pretty sure falling face-first on his furniture in front of Oz and Rex would cause some questions, and he had no answers to give. He didn’t want to admit to anyone how close he was to losing it. He had zero plans of quitting his job, of course. Rex would need to have his heart monitored for any lingering issues until he was an adult, and he couldn’t afford any kind of pay cut since insurance didn’t cover much of what Rex needed when it came to at-home accommodations.
Hell, he was still paying off the hearing aids he’d gotten his kid when he was three, not to mention the yearly—and sometimes twice a year—new earmolds for his son’s growing body.
No, he’d just have to suck it up and deal with Dr. Douche. And continue to dish out a little of his own revenge against him whenever he got the chance. Like the week before and cutting holes in all of Renato’s socks. He’d heard Renato’s frustrated rant, and it had brought him at least a little joy in his otherwise monotonous day.
Oz lifted both brows and raised a hand to his chest, dragging his middle finger up toward his collarbone. ‘What’s up?’
Frey flopped a lazy hand at him as he sank onto his couch and kicked his leg up on his coffee table. God, his mother would have smacked his ankle with a spoon if she’d seen him do that. ‘Nothing. Long day.’ His signs were getting better—flowing with a little more ease now that Oz was hanging out a bit more often and Frey had someone older than six to sign with.
Frey had signed his son up for a Deaf mentor program at his school the year before. He’d been a little freaked-out about the idea of some grown adult spending time alone with his son, but watching Rex flourish in his own identity—embracing his language and a culture that Frey wouldn’t ever fully understand gave him some peace of mind he didn’t realize he’d needed.
And peace was something he hadn’t been sure he was going to get after his marriage fell apart.
‘It’s Dr. Dickhead, isn’t it?’ Oz asked, keeping his hands shielded from Rex.
Eventually his son would be a tween and learn how to swear with the best of them, but for all that Frey was a trash-mouth, he was hoping he had a few years before his son picked up on his bad habits.
Frey pressed his hands to his face and let out a long groan before dropping them and giving Oz a look. ‘Remind me why going to jail is a bad idea?’
Oz just flicked his gaze over at Rex, and Frey rolled his eyes.
‘Fine,’ he signed with a pout.
Oz laughed and leaned forward. ‘Don’t you have Dad night soon? Talk them into going to a club so you can find another hookup and take some of this edge off.’
Like everyone else, Oz assumed that Frey was still in his post-divorce hookup phase. In the beginning, it had been his own fault. His friends had been relentless about him finding a rebound, but he was dealing with sleepless nights, a colicky, sick baby, and a shattered heart because everything he’d worked toward building had been destroyed with a single Dear John letter pinned to his fridge with an eggplant magnet.
The letter hadn’t been long, but it was detailed.
Jace was leaving. Because he was cheating. He couldn’t take the stress of a complicated life. He didn’t want a disabled kid, he’d written, and Frey’s refusal to consider entertaining the idea of cochlear implants on their newborn—never mind the procedure wasn’t safe for their son with a weak heart, let alone the fact that Rex was only three weeks old—was apparently the last straw for him.
Jace took comfort in a stranger’s dick, and when he realized that was the life he wanted to keep living, he’d said goodbye and had never looked back. He hadn’t even shown up to the divorce hearing. He sent his attorney and gave up everything. Frey got their shared account, the house, the car, the kid. Jace even took the debt, and that was when Frey realized how far his ex was willing to go to shed his former life.
It shattered him. But it also healed him in a way because Jace had never been the kindest man. He just wished it hadn’t taken all this for Frey to see it.
When it was all over, Frey did what he was good at. He flirted, he acted like he was unbothered, and he lied to his friends. He said his mourning phase was over, that he’d never really loved Jace, and that he’d already started casually dating. He didn’t need their help.
He was fine.
Really.
He was.
Then he hid the pain behind laughter and sarcasm, and he wasn’t sure if he hated everyone just a little bit for not seeing through the ruse. It wasn’t their fault he really was a good actor, but for once, he wanted people to notice that maybe he wasn’t okay. Maybe he was lying. Maybe he really was a lonely bastard who just wanted his happily ever after with a man who accepted him and his son for who they were.
He didn’t blame Oz for that, though. They’d only just met. And the guy was nice, but he was in his life for Rex, not him.
