I step into the elevator and turn around to watch the doors close. Then I study myself in the reflective chrome.
Shit.
What I see looks an awful lot like a guy going to a girl’s house for a date.
I showered. Shaved even. I used cologne for Christ’s sake. I can’t even remember the last time I did that. I have a bag full of Sal’s Chinese takeout that could feed an army.
Yeah, definitely crossing a line.
But is it a line I want to cross? I know nothing about Elizabeth. Except that she has three scars, hates oysters and has never been out of the country.
She could be anyone. A girl on the run. A criminal.
No. No way.
I can see it in her eyes. She’s no criminal. But she’s . . . something. A closed book, that’s for sure. I’ve never seen someone so strong yet so helpless at the same time.
And she’s not even my type. Gina—she’s my type. Elizabeth is so far removed from my type, she’s not even in the same damn ballpark. My girlfriends have all been scholars. Glass-ceiling types who won’t take shit from anyone.
But then again, Elizabeth doesn’t take shit from me. Every time I try to pry, she puts me in my place.
And she’s pregnant. Soooo not my type. I need a family as much as I need a hole in my head. And what the hell has she done to make me even think she’s the least bit interested?
Okay, so she smiled when I called her. Maybe she was just so glad it wasn’t her landlord or a bill collector that she had no choice but to crack her face in two with a smile that could brighten a room at midnight.
She’s not a brunette. There, that proves it. I’m only attracted to brunettes.
This is just a friendly dinner with a patient who needs friends. And by the time I reach her room, I’ve all but convinced myself of it. But then I stop in the doorway, my breath hitching when I see her.
I was wrong. Green isn’t her color, either. It’s pink. Definitely pink. But hell, she looks good in anything. Maybe every color is her color.
She’s talking to someone, but I don’t see anyone in the room. Then I see her rub her belly and it dawns on me that she’s talking to the baby. I’ve never wanted to hear a conversation as much as I want to hear this one. And then, Holy God, I realize she’s not talking at all. She’s singing.
I lean in further and catch a few words, just enough to recognize the tune.
“Blackbird singing in the dead of night . . .” she sings sweetly.
Damn it if my dick didn’t just swell in my pants.
This is wrong, Kyle. You should turn around and go find Gina. Page her and meet her in the on-call room and fuck her brains out. Fuck all this . . . whatever this is . . . out of your system. She’s your goddamn patient. And she’s pregnant. She’s off limits.
But my feet are cemented to the floor and I strain to hear her soft voice sing that sweet melody.
Turn around, Kyle. Walk away.
I will my feet to shuffle backwards, inch by slow inch until I’ve backed up a few feet from her room. Far enough so I can’t hear her sing. I close my eyes and breathe. I can breathe better if I’m not hearing her sing. I convince myself to walk away. I can do this. I’m a doctor. I get called into emergencies all the time. Hell, maybe I can go downstairs and find a case to work on. Then it wouldn’t even be a lie when I tell Elizabeth I was working.
“Dr. Stone, you’re still here?”
Shit.
I see Elizabeth’s head snap towards the door as I look behind me to see Abby questioning me. Too late to get out of this now.
“Hi, Abby. I thought I’d save our patient from meatloaf night,” I say, holding up the bag of food.
“Is that so?” she says, giving me a look. A look of disapproval. A look that says I should be home sleeping. Or hanging out with the guys. Or paging Gina.
A look that says I’m crossing the line.
“I think I went a little overboard,” I tell her, nodding to the large Sal’s bag. “You want to join us?”
“No, thank you,” she says. “In my experience, three’s a crowd.” Then she looks into Elizabeth’s room with raised brows. “And with those two in there, things are already looking a bit crowded, don’t you think, Dr. Stone?”
I lower my eyes to the floor and nod like a dog with my tail between my legs. What the hell was I thinking?
“Dr. Stone?” Elizabeth calls out from behind me.
I could pull out my pager and fake a 911 call. I could just walk over to her and hand her the food and walk back out. No harm. No foul. I could man up and tell her this was a mistake and doctors shouldn’t be bringing dinner to their patients. I could do all that.
But I don’t.
“See you tomorrow, Abby,” I say, crossing into Elizabeth’s room.
“That you will, Dr. Stone,” Abby says, before I close the door on her.
I don’t need anyone else looking in on me and judging me. I’m only helping out a patient. I’ve done that dozens of times before. I’ve even brought food to some. It’s not uncommon for interns or even second-years to sit and socialize with patients. It’s all part of the job. Just because this one patient happens to be my age, young and attractive, and, I don’t know, mysterious . . . just because she’s all those things doesn’t mean I can’t sit with her like I have some others. Right?
“Oh, my gosh. Is that what I think it is?” Elizabeth squeals.
I smile at her as I walk across the room. She holds out her arms, her hands beckoning me closer. Or beckoning the food closer.
I laugh. “Patience,” I say.
“Screw patience,” she says with a giggle. “I’m starving. And maybe salivating.”
I roll her tray table over to the side of her bed and unload the bag, her eyes going wide at the smorgasbord I’ve brought her. I have Lo Mein, Chow Mein, Kung Pao chicken, shrimp and broccoli, white rice, fried rice, and of course, egg rolls.
She leans over as far as she can with a thirty-four-week belly and inhales the aromas coming from the little white boxes.
“Oh my God, I love you,” she says. “You are my favorite human being that is not currently residing inside my body.”
I laugh, mesmerized by her sheer joy over Chinese food.
I reach inside to pull something else from the bag. I get all serious. “I have a question to ask you,” I say. “And your answer will tell me a lot about you as a person.”
She sits upright and looks taken aback. It’s the same look she gave me when I brought up marriage in the ‘never’ game. I hold up some forks in one hand and chopsticks in the other. “Which do you want?”
The sigh that comes from her practically echoes throughout the room. The smile that follows lights it up.
“What self-respecting American would eat Chinese food with a fork?” she asks.
I toss the plastic forks over my shoulder, hearing them bounce off the floor as I hand her a pair of chopsticks. “My kind of woman,” I say.
She takes the chopsticks from me and when our hands touch, she blushes. I made her blush. Women don’t blush unless . . . hell, I don’t know. My kind of woman—did I actually just say that to her?
I look at her as she tears open the paper package and removes the chopsticks from it. She breaks them apart and rubs them together as I take in her appearance. Her chin-length hair is pulled back in a clip with wisps of tendrils falling around her ears. Her blue eyes stand out even more with the makeup that she’s used to highlight them. Her cheeks and her lips are pink, matching her nightgown.
Even her toenails are painted pink, as I see them peek out from under her bed sheet. Have they always been painted? Maybe I’ve just never noticed before.
This woman—she looks anything but homeless.
She looks dangerous.
Dangerous for me. Dangerous for my career.
Then I think of my brother, Chad, and what he used to say when we were kids. “I eat danger for breakfast,” he’d say.
Breakfast, dinner, it’s all the same. I pull an egg roll out and hand it to her.