Matched with the Doctor (Lunchtime Romcoms #1)

6. Ben

Ben

P icking up on Colleen’s strong hint to get away from her, I left the exam room, heading right for my office. I was sure there was another patient waiting, but I needed a minute to recover from what had just happened. Closing the door behind me, I collapsed on my chair.

Colleen O’Malley. I couldn’t believe it.

I’d wondered if I’d see her when I moved back to Cedar Creek. I assumed that when she graduated high school she’d move to a big city somewhere like Seattle or New York City. I figured by now she was married with a couple of kids, only coming back to town for the holidays.

I had no idea she still lived here, which was kind of weird, given that I’d run into her mother last week. Mrs. O’Malley hadn’t mentioned her oldest daughter, and neither had I. Our break- up had been a little ugly and dramatic in the way that teenage relationships could be, and I hadn’t heard a peep about Colleen over the past twenty years since I graduated high school and left Cedar Creek.

We’d dated my entire senior year. Colleen was a sophomore – two years younger than me – but from the minute we’d met at Cedar Creek Coffee I was in love with her. Unlike Colleen, I hadn’t grown up in the small town. My parents divorced the summer between my junior and senior years and much to my teenaged horror, we’d left Portland to move in with my grandparents.

I got over that horror real fast when I met Colleen. Like now, she was short and curvy. At five three she barely came up to my shoulders. Her hair was a cross between red and brown, a kind of burnished auburn that contrasted against her pale skin. She wore it shorter now, just a few inches past her chin. Like mine, her eyes were brown, but in some light they seemed to have flecks of green.

And those curves. Even with the barrier of those unflattering paper gowns I could tell that her curves had only gotten fuller since we’d last seen each other. She’d always been self-conscious of her weight when we were dating. She’d never been fat, but she was definitely thicker than a lot of the other girls at school, primarily because she had larger breasts and wide hips.

She’d been the perfect hourglass figure.

I’d fallen in love with her at first sight and we’d had an incredible year together, but then I graduated and left to pursue my dream of being a doctor. Even though we’d both known it was coming, she’d been devastated. I could still see Colleen sobbing in my bedroom as I packed to leave for college. She’d begged me to go to college in Portland, or even Seattle, so we could keep dating, but I had a full scholarship waiting for me in Colorado and plans for a better life.

The last words she ever said to me were, “ I’m never going to forgive you Ben Williamson, not as long as I live. I hate you. You’re ruining my life.”

When I saw Colleen in the exam room, I’d been shocked. It wasn’t just that I hadn’t been expecting to see her. It was the fact that I’d looked into her eyes and knew something with one hundred percent certainty: I was still in love with Colleen O’Malley.

Or maybe I was in love with her again. Could love at first sight hit twice? Either way, I needed to see her again. Get to know her. And talk to her about becoming the mother of my children.

And I knew exactly how to find her. I headed out to the reception desk and sidled up to Tricia, the receptionist and billing clerk for this practice. She’d worked here since I was a kid and when I purchased the clinic building from the children of the previous doctor, she was the first person I contacted.

Somewhere between sixty and seventy years old, Tricia knew everything that happened in Cedar Creek. She was also good friends with Colleen’s mother Mary and her Aunt Bianca.

“Colleen didn’t stay long,” Tricia noted, giving me a curious look.

“She didn’t know I was the new doctor,” I said. “It made her uncomfortable getting an exam from me, given our past relationship.”

“I bet it did,” Tricia laughed.

I stood there, trying not to fidget, and Tricia gave me an appraising look.

“She’s still beautiful, that one. Sweet, smart, and completely unattached.”

I recognized an opening when I saw one.

“Yeah, about that. If I wanted to run into her some time, how could I make that happen?”

Tricia started cackling like a cartoon witch. She was still laughing when she handed me a piece of paper. I looked down, seeing it was one of those old-fashioned phone message slips. It was a message from Mary O’Malley, Colleen’s mother, inviting me to their “family dinner” this Sunday.

Things were looking up for me.

A few days later I walked up the sidewalk to the O’Malley home. Well, one of them. Colleen’s mother and her best friend Bianca had grown up living next door to each other. After they’d married brothers, they bought neighboring houses so they could raise their kids together.

It was either really sweet or over the top, I’d never been able to decide.

I knocked on the door, but it was too loud for anyone to hear me. Even from the doorstep I could tell that the O’Malleys were watching the Seahawks game and arguing about it loudly. Shrugging, I opened the door and let myself in, just like I’d done when Colleen and I were dating.

Following the voices, I headed into the family room where the five O’Malley siblings and their parents were sprawled out on an enormous sectional couch. They were all dressed up, no doubt coming over after attending church at St. Stanislaus, the Catholic Church six blocks up the road.

“Hey!” I called, waving the bouquet of daisies that I’d brought for Mary.

Colleen’s mom jumped up to pull me into a hug.

“Ben, what a nice surprise!”

I looked at her in confusion. “You invited me,” I reminded her, wondering if she was having cognitive issues.

It happened sometimes with post-menopausal women, but usually they were a little older than Mary. She narrowed her eyes at me in warning and I clamped my mouth shut.

“Colleen,” she hollered over her shoulder. “Look who’s here. It’s Ben!”

I looked over Mary’s shoulder to see Colleen staring at me in shock. She walked over, her gaze pinging back and forth between me and her mother. Someone turned the volume down on the TV and I felt the rest of the family staring at us.

“What are you doing here, Ben?”

“Ben’s having dinner with us, dear,” Mary said. “I thought it would be good for us all to catch up.”

Colleen looked less than enthused about that.

“These are for you,” I said, handing the flowers to Mrs. O’Malley.

“Oh, aren’t you such a sweet boy?” she beamed. “Colleen, help Ben find a vase and put these flowers in water, won’t you?”

“But…”

“Colleen Marie O’Malley!”

My ex-girlfriend rolled her eyes at her mother’s tone, but she stopped arguing.

“Fine,” she said. “Come on Ben. Let’s find that vase.”