“I think we've earned lunch,” he said to Donna and I. “My treat. Donna, do we have any more patients scheduled for the day?”
“It's actually ten minutes past closing,” Donna informed him. She picked up her purse from under the reception desk. “It's way past lunch.”
Dr. Matthews frowned and looked down at his watch. I did the same to see that Donna was right. Time had completely flown by during the delivery. It felt like only seconds.
“Thanks for staying late then, Donna,” Dr. Matthews said.
“And miss seeing that baby?” Donna grinned. “I love babies. My babies won't be having their own babies for at least ten more years, so I have to get my baby fix somehow.”
I chuckled and waved goodbye to her before going to my office to grab my own purse. It was then that I realized my scrub pants had birth goop on them. When I worked on the Labor and Delivery floor at the hospital, we'd had stacks of backup scrubs in the locker room for just this reason. Births were messy.
Luckily, I always kept a change of clothes in my office. It wasn't anything fancy, just a pair of jeans, sports bra, and a white cotton t-shirt, but it was better than the dirty stuff I had on. After grabbing the clothes, I headed to the office shower.
There was a small shower in the break room near Dr. Matthews' office. It wasn't anything fancy, but it was always nice to have in case we had days like today or needed to rinse a patient off. I grabbed one of the last clean towels from our supply and headed in.
I stripped as I waited for the water to heat, still shaking and grinning with adrenaline. I piled my hair up into a bun to keep it dry. I didn't want to get it wet without shampoo and conditioner.
Everything had gone well. There was a new life in the world and I'd helped get it here. I felt like I could take on the world. There was nothing I couldn't do today.
I sang as I showered, letting myself enjoy the good feelings. Dr. Matthews and I had been an amazing team. I didn't feel hungry or tired anymore. I was pumped. I felt like I could go run a marathon and win. I knew it was all just the excitement and adrenaline from the experience, but I still liked the feeling.
Once clean, I got out and quickly dried off. As soon as I got dressed, I put my hair back into a ponytail and stepped into the hallway. I nearly opened the door right into Dr. Matthews. He jumped back and laughed.
“We've really got to stop doing that,” he said. “One of these days, you're going to knock me out with a door.”
“Sorry,” I said with a smile. “Bad timing, I guess.”
My hair was frizzy and I had no makeup on, but Dr. Matthews gave me a slow and obvious once over anyway. It made me feel surprisingly beautiful. When his gaze came back up toward my face, I noticed he stopped for a second too long on my chest. I glanced down, realizing that my nipples had grown hard from the change in temperature and were now poking through my shirt, creating obvious little bumps underneath the cotton. The sports bra was not padded and I hadn't thought it would be a problem.
He cleared his throat and looked into my eyes. “I'm going to take a quick shower, too. Why don't you order some food from the Bakery and have them deliver it here? I'll pay for everything. Get whatever you want. Dessert, drinks, whatever. We earned it.”
“Okay, I'll do that,” I said, moving out of his way so that he could head into the bathroom. “Meet you in the break room.”
Chapter 12
Everything moved slowly in my town. People moved at their own pace here. The bakery said it would be at least an hour before they could have dinner delivered to the office. It wasn't that big of a deal. I was willing to wait for a free meal, and it was still better than a can of soup back at my place. I wasn't ready to go home yet.
There was a soft and comfy couch against the wall in the break room, but I found myself still too pumped up to sit. It was like my body couldn't relax with all the adrenaline that filled it. I paced around for a bit and only stopped when Dr. Matthews stepped into the room.
He'd changed into a casual, lime green polo shirt and gray slacks. His hair was still damp from his shower. He wasn't wearing an undershirt and it was once again apparent how good of shape he was in. The outline of his muscular chest was obvious.
“I needed that,” he said, closing the door behind him.
“Me too,” I said. “I wanted to tell you that you did great today. Thanks for being awesome. I'm glad you were here.”
He took a step toward me, his eyes locking with mine. “Hannah, if it wasn't for you, I couldn't have done any of that.”
“I don't know about that.” My ponytail swung like a pendulum across my back as I shook my head. “You did all of the hard work.”
“Don't sell yourself short,” he said assertively, taking another step toward me and closing the gap between us. “I couldn't have done this without you. We were a team. Not to sound too cheesy, but where would Batman be without Robin?”
I laughed. “I think Batman would have been just fine.”
“No way,” he said. “While Batman was out there taking all the glory, Robin was handling the little things. He was making sure everything went smoothly. You're my Robin.”
It was a strange metaphor for our working relationship, but I actually found it endearing and cute. We stood there for a moment, just the two of us, in the privacy of the break room. It was silent except for our breathing and the faint sound of the air conditioner.
Something happened in that moment. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but there was suddenly a magnetic pull that drew me toward Dr. Matthews. It was powerful. So much so, that it felt like even if I had tried to resist it, it wouldn't have made any difference.