The Reluctant Romantics Box Set (The Fall, The Mind, The Heart)

“Told you,” I said, resuming with my fork.

“Aren’t you embarrassed?”

“Not really.” I winced. “Jen, is that bad?”

“No, it’s bold and awesome,” Jen said before taking a sip of her drink, eyes still on Grant.

“I get it from my dad...well, and my mom. When it comes to what I want, dad, when it comes to speaking my mind, mom. I’m screwed, aren’t I?”

“Probably,” she answered, “but it’s awesome.”

“Lord, help me and my mouth through the rest of this year.”

“He’s not looking at you anymore. You must have scared him away.”

“It was too soon for marriage.” I felt a tiny tug in my chest but dismissed it.

Paging Dr. Rose Whitaker, please. I was instantly back where I started hours before.

Rose

A few days later, I was on my cell phone with my sister as I sat under a tree on campus, the hospital in my direct line of sight. Dallas had just started her second year of residency at Dallas Memorial, a teaching hospital situated directly across the street from my campus, and where I made clinical rounds. My first day of school, I’d sat under this same tree, studying the hospital for hours, dreaming of my future. Today I was attempting—in vain—to get a small amount of sun on my face and shoulders in my spaghetti strap, black sundress. The Texas sun bore down on me, the late August heat unforgiving. I spent so much time in sterile, cold rooms, and I reveled in it. I had a book in my lap and was trying to get the rest of my bases covered over the weekend. I would not fail. This was my dream. It amazed our parents that both their little girls had the same one. It was never a competition between us. We had decided long ago to lift each other up. We helped each other through school with rigorous hours of studying together. I helped her prepare for tests and labs and in turn, it helped me excel during my first few years. We were each other’s biggest cheerleaders. She and I were set on opening our own practice one day. We would offer a full-service practice with every specialty imaginable on site. She would govern general medicine, and I would manage surgery. It was a shared dream and we had worked for years to make it a reality. We were getting close—Dallas closer than I due to the additional training I’d need to become a surgeon. We both had a handful of years left, but it seemed like nothing compared to the long road we had traveled to get as far as we’d come.

“What’s it like?” I asked, gripping my cell tight to my ear so I could hear every word, even though I knew the question would annoy her.

“I’ve already told you this a million times. It’s exactly what you think. A lot like the rounds you make every day. It’s nothing like the movies or TV shows. It’s relatively boring until it’s not, then wham! intellectual orgasm.

“So are you getting any?”

“Dallas, I swear you talk like a man,” I huffed at her invasion.

“Good, sometimes I wish I was a man. Use this time wisely, next thing you know you will be held down by the same penis over and over.”

I quickly baited her. “Stop acting like you hate Josh. You love him.”

“Sure I do.” I could hear the sarcasm drip over the line. “I’m being paged. I love you, Rosie.”

“You know I hate that!” I snapped at her nickname for me. Suddenly the book disappeared from my lap and I gasped as Grant’s face took its place.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Dallas asked in a panic.

“Uh...nothing, Dallas. I just spilled...something in my lap.” His smile was mischievous, and I felt a strange urge to...kiss him. He placed my hand on the top of his head and I began stroking his hair without hesitation. It was pure dark silk. What in the hell was I doing playing along? I had to get this man away from me. Surely, the asylum missed him.

“Dallas, weren’t they paging you?” I asked, losing all train of thought as Grant’s blue eyes pierced me from below.

“Yeah,” she replied, clueless about the man-God staring up at me. “I fell asleep up against the wall.”

I let out another laugh at Dallas and at Grant, who was pantomiming a conversation with his hands.

“Love you, Big D,” I said with a smile, retaliating against her usage of my nickname by throwing hers back at her.

“Bitch.”

“Talk to you soon.” I hung up and pushed the intruder’s head off my lap. He chuckled as he took a seat in front of me, our knees touching.

“I’ve been looking all over for you. I wanted to see you before I left.”

“Still listening to the voices in your head, huh?” I said, placing my book so it rested on my stomach and chest as if it could protect me.