Perfectly Adequate(12)

What did I miss?

“I’m terrible at this.” He sighs.

“I don’t know what this is, but I think it’s probably me. If you need to buy me dinner, that’s fine. Just don’t get all … stressed.” My nose wrinkles. “And if you need a babysitter … I can do that too.”

He stands, turning his back to me, scratching his head while surveying the area.

I so desperately want to read his body language, the unspoken words between the lines that I can’t see. Is he mad at me? He looks frustrated.

“Dorothy … Roman likes the cape. I like your shoes and your smile. Both feel like something I need …”

“I got the shoes online. Amazon.”

Dr. Hawkins turns. “Amazon,” he whispers before chuckling an odd chuckle like a crazy man on the verge of losing his mind.

I stand, brushing off the grass from my butt and the back of my legs. “Yes. And my smile is from Dr. Crowe. He’s an excellent orthodontist. I still wear my retainers three nights a week. But you have nice teeth, so I don’t think you need Dr. Crowe.”

He digs his nice teeth into his lower lip, eyes narrowed a bit. “I think you should spend some supervised time with Roman before you babysit him for me. He’s with his mom this week. Would you like to have dinner with us when I have him again?”

“Sure.” Okay. Thank god. It’s not me. It’s him and his concern about a stranger watching his son. That’s cool. Too many parents blindly leave their kids with complete strangers from babysitting services. I respect his approach. If I planned on having kids, it would be my approach as well.

“Sure.” He grins. “I like sure. So I’ll call you after I check my schedule.”

“Or text me. We don’t have to talk. No one calls me except my dad. He doesn’t like to text.”

“What if I want to talk to you?”

I can’t imagine why that would be. Maybe he doesn’t know how to text, like my dad.

“Then you better call after I get home from school during the week … so after three, except on days I have clinical. Then it’s after four. Or you could call me after I get home from work on the weekends … so after eight-thirty.” I shake my head. “That’s not true. I walk for an hour and a half, so tack on ninety minutes to both of those times.”

He smiles like my parents smile at me and maybe a few friends I used to have, like Nicole. It feels comfortable like … acceptance. “Noted. I have to get back to work. I’ll call you.”

“Okay.” I start walking toward the hospital entrance. He walks beside me. “Did Dr. Hathaway listen to those burn podcasts? I bet she did. She’s so brilliant.”

“I didn’t ask, though I’m sure she did. Because, yes, she’s brilliant. She’s always on top of cutting-edge treatments in her field.” He exhales like his ex-wife, Boss Bitch, amazing doctor isn’t a great thing.

But she is. Julie Hathaway is the pinnacle of achievement for any woman in the medical field. I’d give my right nipple and even my clitoris on most days to feel that successful, confident, and generous.

“Was it weird? Asking her to look at your burns? I heard she left the exam room a bit aggravated.”

He pushes the elevator button and turns to face me, arms folded over his chest. “Just how much gossip about me do you hear on a daily basis?”

The doors open and I step onto the elevator first. “I’m not here that often. But if you divide the gossip into a daily amount and multiply it by seven, then I’d say it’s a lot.”

He follows me onto the elevator and leans against the opposite wall. I stare at his shoes. They’re older blue Nikes. Not great, but far from awful. And not on my No Way In Hell list. His sinewy arms and his genetically sculpted face make up for the worn Nikes.

“People feel sorry for me?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. They just talk about you and your …” I stop before saying hotness.

“My?” His eyebrows lift.

They’re good brows. Not a unibrow and not like some of the older doctors who get one long-ass brow that’s like an inch long and standing straight out, ready to stab someone. Whenever I see that, I just want to pluck the damn thing from their face. Do they not have a mirror or close friends to tell them about it?

“I don’t know … really.” And I don’t know for sure. I know a lot of the nurses whisper inappropriate comments about him. Inappropriate because of sexual misconduct rules at the hospital and inappropriate because they’re married with kids and attending church on Sundays.

My opinion of his hotness stays in my head. No one can fire me for my thoughts … except when I let them slip out to patients like, “Yeah, you might die.” A rare occurrence that happened only once, just after I started and at the end of a very long day when my brain felt ready to explode. In my defense, the boy was fifteen and knew he was dying. He just wanted one person to give it to him straight. And that just so happens to be my specialty.

But I never join in the break room chatter about Dr. Hotness Hawkins (not my label) and the speculation of his penis size in relation to his hand size and finger length ratio. There is nothing scientific to back that up. That I did mention in the break room once, but it wasn’t well received by my coworkers. I think they used the word “killjoy” to describe me.