Single Dad Seeks Juliet

She stumbles over basic human functions, looking over her shoulder and around the room and back at me with little-to-no traceable rationality. When she lands back at me, I raise my eyebrows.

“I…I know this is a doctor’s office,” she stutters. “This is your doctor’s office?”

I laugh again and scratch a hand through my hair. My brain is starting to hurt a little. “Are we speaking the same language at all?”

“No, yes. I mean…sorry. It’s just… This is my doctor’s office. My…” She lowers her voice to a whisper. “Gynecologist. I… Do they do something for men now?”

I turn to look back up at the front desk window again, and a big typed-up sign is in the center of it.Piper Gynecology and SoCal Family Medicine are temporarily sharing office space.

Please excuse the confusion and the mess, and sign in on the correct sheet.Holley follows my line of sight and, apparently, reads to herself.

“Oh my Jesus.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. “I guess we’re doctor buddies today, huh?”

She looks ready to crawl out of her skin, leave the shell here, and slither out the door.

And hell, if it isn’t making me want to tease her even more.

“Doctor buddies,” she mutters with a fake giggle instead. “Great.”

“I doubt they’ll put us in the same room,” I joke. “Though, I bet we could request it.”

She shakes her head violently and grabs my arm as I pretend to turn to the receptionist. “No!”

“Relax,” I comfort with a laugh. “I’m just kidding. I’ll go get the broomstick of the witch in my room, and you’ll go do whatever it is you do in yours.”

“The broomstick of the witch?”

I nod. “Extremely powerful, but nearly impossible to procure. Isn’t that a requirement for Bachelor Anonymous? Everything else is.”

She bites her lip, and finally, as the panic recedes slightly, breaks into a small smile and shrugs. “I guess if it’s in there, you might as well grab it. Can’t hurt.”

“That’s what I figured. I also assumed I needed to get all this testing and such done as soon as possible, right?”

She nods. “We are working on a bit of a deadline with the first date next week.”

“Right. So, I called the doctor first thing this morning, and they fit me in for today.”

“The doctor’s office squeezed you in same day?” she asks disbelievingly.

My answering smile is conspiratorial. “I told them it was really important.”

“Still…a physical doesn’t usually get them jumping to it—”

She stops midsentence when I rock my head back and forth on my shoulders. Her eyebrows pull together, and I curl a finger in her face, suggesting she come in closer. She does, but not nearly close enough. I widen my eyes, and finally, she gets close enough that I can lean right into her ear to whisper.

“I may have…possibly…told them that I was experiencing some pain I’m not.” She gasps. “Maybe, kind of, sort of chest pain.”

She snaps back to standing, her back ramrod straight.

“You told them you were dying?” she whisper-yells.

I laugh. “No, no. I just suggested that maybe they should fit me in is all.”

“You gave them the sense that you might be in cardiac distress, Jake.”

“No. They may have surmised that on their own—”

“Oh man. You’re bad.”

I waggle my brows. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“What do you think they’re going to say when you get in there and you aren’t experiencing chest pain?”

“Nothing.” I shrug and slide my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “I’ll play dumb. They’ll think it was a mix-up, and I’ll get my physical.”

She shakes her head, her eyes wide with panic, and I have to laugh.

“What? That’s not something you would do?”

“Never,” she says vehemently.

“You’re a good girl, huh?”

“I’m not psychotic, if that’s what you mean.”

I chuckle.

“Ms. Fields?” the receptionist calls, making Holley jump almost ten feet in the air. She glances back at me with unrepressed angst and then heads for the reception desk like I’ve somehow included her in high-level Russian espionage.

I watch avidly as she bends into the window, discussing something with the receptionist I can’t make out, before standing up and making her way back across the room to me. We sit down in chairs next to each other, but it’s more than obvious she thinks even looking at me will make her guilty by association. I lean over and whisper in her ear again.

“I’m not with the KGB, you know. You don’t have to worry about Homeland Security or anything. This is just a doctor’s office.”

“You probably just got us both flagged and put on the terrorist watchlist, I hope you know,” she whispers back angrily. “They listen to everything through our phones.”

“Yeah,” I say with a laugh. “But I said not KGB.”

“Stop saying KGB!”

“Are you secretly a Russian operative? Is that why you’re so nervous?”

“Jake!”

“All right, all right,” I soothe. “I’ll stop.”

“Great,” she says with a roll of her eyes. Clearly, she thinks it’s too late now anyway.