Six
“You’re a lifesaver,” Maria, one of our medical assistants, greeted me as I emerged from an exam room. The unexpected deluge of patients that they’d called me in for had thinned considerably, so I had a moment to chat with her as I finished up my notes on my tablet.
“It’s no problem at all.” I wasn’t faking my cheerfulness. My days off could drag on, so I seldom minded being called in for emergency coverage or being asked to handle some follow-up calls. I liked being needed, and being too busy to dwell on the previous day’s events was an excellent side benefit.
“It’s your day off. And the weather is finally warming up.” The sun filtered in through the clinic’s windows, casting a warm glow over our work area behind the exam rooms. Maria was slightly older than me, with a tired but kind face, and always on me to use my downtime rather than end up back here, even as she herself could always be relied upon to grab an extra shift in a pinch.
“I’ve still got the afternoon,” I said as I added a few more notes about the kid with a rash and the worried mother, making a point to add her to the follow-up call list. It was likely only contact dermatitis, but she’d been super concerned, and I didn’t mind spending an extra five minutes later on to put her mind at ease.
The afternoon would be enough time to make the casserole I had planned for Adam’s visit, and not having to pass the morning stewing over whether the invitation had been a good idea had been nice. The bustle of the clinic always relaxed me. Spending time around a hot guy like Adam could make me awkward and tongue-tied, but here I had years of education and practice to fall back on. Spotting a case of strep throat or a minor break masquerading as a sprain made me feel competent again. Professional.
“Big plans?” Maria asked as I clicked the tablet off and set it on the large circular desk shared by the support staff.
“After I review the call logs, you mean?” I kept my voice light. She didn’t need to know that I planned to go over the follow-up list while grating cheese and boiling pasta. I was out to our team, but she’d read far too much into the dinner invite. “I’ve also got a journal article on the latest in spotting diabetes warning signs with my name on it.”
I could catch up on my continuing ed reading while the casserole baked. As a busy urgent care center, we often straddled the line between preventative and emergency care, and I was always looking for new ways to up my game. The same curiosity that had propelled me through medical school and residency kept the job here interesting for me as there was always something new to discover or a new technique to try.
A short while later, as I prepared to leave, Maria renewed her quest, urging, “Do something fun.”
“I might.” I supposed Adam counted as fun. And unlike my usual careful plans, I didn’t have a clue as to what I was doing by inviting him over.
On my way home, I stopped for a walk on the beach. Like the clinic, this was another place I could always count on clearing my head. However, this time not even the discovery of a gorgeous piece of polished blue glass was enough distraction. Thoughts of Adam continued to hound me. I could have said thank you a million other ways, including a gift card or a pack of new T-shirts. I didn’t have to have him over. I could have simply dropped a casserole off at his place.
But I’d wanted to see him again, and I’d convinced myself that a thank-you dinner was me being noble and had nothing at all to do with him being a hot-as-sin lumberjack whose lap I wanted to curl up in like a cocker spaniel.
Thank you, Daddy. I kicked at a stray rock on the sand, but the words refused to budge. As my memories had filtered back, that one had lingered most of all, the way Daddy had felt so right on my tongue. He was hot, no question, but there was something else there, an unmistakable energy that tapped into my deepest fantasies. I’d been rude to him because I wasn’t used to being so seen, was used to keeping my desires secret.
We’re practically doctors now. I’d shut down my libido for large swathes of time during my training, but I could still remember the way one particular friend-with-occasional-benefits had sneered when I’d tentatively broached the topic of kink. His sharp words had been a reminder that I was supposed to focus on my professional life and that any stray kinky interests were best left in the past. Except my libido had never received the memo, and my porn tastes remained embarrassingly the same as they had been during my college years. Even worse, the more time passed, the more I felt vaguely ridiculous scrolling the hookup apps. As if everyone else there spoke jargon I didn’t quite understand and had experience in all the things I’d kept to fantasy land.