Tryst (Take It Off #8)(5)
Author: Cambria Hebert

No?

That’s because it sucked.

My job was to do all the billing in a local doctor’s office. I spent most of my day sitting behind a desk in my cramped little office, dealing with insurance companies, billing codes, and people who thought it was unfair their insurance didn’t pay more for their bills.

A lot of times, I agreed with those people, but I wasn’t allowed to say so. My job was to put up with their angry calls and then try to work out a system or payment plan so they could pay what they owed.

It also didn’t help that the primary doctor in the office was an egotistical chauvinist. All the girls that worked in the office (there were no men) were all very beautiful, with toned bodies, perfect hair, and large chests.

And then there was me.

I did have full breasts, but my hair was never perfect and my body needed to spend about six months in the gym before it looked toned. I was one of those women who looked “soft.” I was shaped like an hourglass with ample boobs and, what people fondly told me as I was growing up, a bubble butt.

How telling anyone their butt was large was supposed to be fond I had no idea.

While I wasn’t really overweight I could stand to lose about ten pounds and to maybe run off some of the extra cushion in my trunk. Eating an entire ice cream cake and box of donuts was not the way to do this. I knew that, but I guess I didn’t really care. I’d never been the pretty one or the one that caught the stares of men whenever I was out. People always told me I was cute. I was always the one everyone would be friends with while they lusted after my friends.

In high school, I used to wish just one guy would tell me I was beautiful, because being beautiful in one man’s eyes would make being cute to everyone else okay.

I never did find that guy.

But then Blake came along in college. He was charming, charismatic, and self-confident. I was surprised when he started looking at me like I was more than just a friend. He could have any girl he wanted… so why was he looking at me?

I asked him that once, after we had a few dates. He said he liked a woman who wasn’t so caught up in herself. A woman who didn’t just think about how she looked all the time, someone who liked to laugh and eat popcorn with butter at movies. He also said he liked my laugh, that it was the laugh of an angel.

Angels = beautiful.

The memory left a bitter taste in my mouth. What he’d really meant was he wanted a woman who thought about him more than herself. A woman who would be too busy thinking how lucky she was to be with a successful businessman who had a well-respected family to notice he only cared about himself. He thought I would be too grateful to notice he lied. When he said he didn’t want a woman caught up in herself, what he really meant was he wanted someone who would look the other way when he slept with the kind of woman I wasn’t.

He should have paid better attention.

I might not be beautiful.

But I was nobody’s doormat.

He called my phone again about an hour after I started working, so I just shut it off and tossed it in my desk drawer. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with him today.

I was buried in numbers and paperwork when Dr. Asik walked by my office. I heard the high-pitched giggle of one of the girl’s out front.

I rolled my eyes. I never flirted with him. I never smiled coyly and giggled when he complimented my outfit (not that he ever did). I often wondered how many of the girls he was sleeping with in this office, and while it always gave me the creeps, it never totally made me sick… until now.

I was beginning to think I was some kind of asshole-attractor.

Molly, the receptionist out front knocked on my door as she walked in. “She’s out front. She wants to see you.”

Her voice was sympathetic and partly weary.

I groaned. I knew exactly who “she” was. Mrs. Luster was the epitome of a thorn in my side. She had been coming here since I started working behind this desk several years ago. I dreaded the times she or her children had to make a visit to the office. It always resulted in about a pound of paperwork for me. She was insistent that her insurance company pay every last dime of every single one of her bills. If they didn’t approve the whole visit or treatment, she would have me recode it and send the invoice out again. If that didn’t work, she would have me bill her secondary insurance. Yes, she had secondary insurance. It was a good thing to have. But frankly, this woman abused the system and she used me to do it.

And if I even looked like I was going to tell her she owed a portion of her bill, fireworks ensued.

There were days I considered calling in sick when I thought I had to deal with her.

“Can this day get any better?” I muttered.

“I could tell her to make an appointment…” Molly offered.

“She doesn’t have one?”

She shook her head. “No, she said this concerns a bill from a previous appointment.”

I groaned. I knew the bill. I’d resubmitted it like three times already. I managed to get the portion she owed down to about fifty dollars. I thought—no, I’d hoped she would just pay it and be quiet.

I guess my naivety extended to more parts of my life beyond men.

“Just send her in. Might as well get it over with.”

Molly seemed relieved. I didn’t blame her. She was brave to offer to make Mrs. Luster schedule an appointment because the woman would likely cause a scene. “Thank you,” she mouthed and then went to fetch the dragon—I mean, woman.

I pulled up her account, which I actually knew by heart, and then waited for her to enter. It didn’t take long.

She breezed into the room, all five feet of her. For a woman so small, she sure commanded a lot of space and attention. In her hands she clutched the bill. In the depths of her brown eyes churned the will of a WWE fighter.

The weight I felt on my shoulders earlier seemed to intensify. I cleared my throat and sat up a little straighter, battling against the heaviness I was feeling.

“I got another bill today. This one threatened to send me to the collection agency if it’s not paid by next month.”

“Mrs. Luster, I’ve submitted that particular bill three times. The point of the matter is your son broke his arm. It was an unfortunate accident. This office was very happy to help him heal and look after his care. How is your son, by the way?”

“Chandler is just fine.” She sniffed.

“That’s wonderful news,” I said cheerfully while my inner self was barfing. “I hope you will understand sometimes the insurance just won’t cover bills entirely, no matter how many times I resubmit them.”