Chapter Five
Adrian
T he girl who ran into me at the grocery store .
Like I’m in a daze, I walk toward Dr. Miller and stop on the other side of the desk.
Her eyes bounce between her dad and I a couple of times before she focuses back on the computer and her call. “Yes… Yes, Polly ,” she says a little more aggressively. Her dad laughs under his breath as he flips through a chart sitting next to Blake. “Okay… Yes, okay. See yo—ugh,” she scoffs, pulling the phone away from her face to stare down at it. “See you in hell, you old hag,” she mutters and drops the phone on the stand.
Now my eyes widen and move to her dad’s expression. But he doesn’t look the least bit concerned about her customer service skills, even though he lightly scolds, “Be nice, Blake.”
“ Me ?” she asks incredulously. She opens her mouth to defend herself, but she seems to remember I’m standing here too. Her lips clamp together, and she stares at her dad.
Setting the chart down, his eyes shift to me and says, “This is my daughter, Blake. She’s a lot nicer than you’d guess at this moment.” My eyes slide to her, and she’s giving me a look I can’t quite explain. Her expression is blank, but she won’t look away either. She does roll her eyes at her dad’s words, and I’m not sure how true they are either… or that I mind the thought. So I don’t fight the smile that breaks out.
“And I don’t condone or accept rude behavior toward the patients. Blake and Polly just… have their own relationship,” he concludes with a smile.
“It’s an enemyship ,” she insists. We both look at her for a second in silence. With a quick side-eye thrown my way, she looks back to Dr. Miller and says, “It’s a real word. I looked it up.”
I laugh lightly and watch as her cheeks grow warmer just as they were starting to fade to her normal complexion. “What?” she asks, finally looking me in the eyes.
And fuck , they’re even more captivating when she’s looking right at you—almost like seeing straight into your soul.
“I love the commitment to the bit,” I cheekily retort and slip my hands in my pockets.
She purses her lips, making me think she’s fighting her own grin. “It’s true hatred. So I scheduled her for a day I’m off,” she says and swings her gaze back to her dad.
He doesn’t look the least bit perturbed by it. Honestly, from first impression, he seems like one of the chillest men I’ve probably ever met.
“Mick’s running late,” Tim tells us. Turning toward me, he says, “His daughter has some health problems, so sometimes he may be a few minutes late if you’re ever working the shift before him. Though, with your school schedule, that shouldn’t be much of a problem.”
“No problem if I do. And I’m pretty limited with my courses, but I’m happy to help out whenever I can, and it’s needed.”
Tim offers me a grateful nod. From the corner of my eye, I see Blake assessing me again, but she still doesn’t say anything.
“I need to meet with Julie before one of our next appointments. I had hoped to be here to introduce you to Mick, but I’ll have to leave you to your own devices for a little.” I nod, feeling more comfortable being here.
“Honey”—he turns toward his daughter—“would you mind showing Adrian around the front? Show him the extra supply closets, employee lockers, and the weight stations. Those kinds of things.”
She looks speechless, like a deer in headlights. After a second, she just nods and offers him an awkward smile. “Sure, I’ll make sure he finds Mick too.”
With a few more words and thanks to Blake, Tim takes the chart he’s been half-focused on and goes to the back again.
She turns toward me, and we just stare at each other for a second.
“You’re the gir—” I start but she cuts me off.
“Technically, everything other than the weight station is in the back, behind the doors,” she says as if the tour really is the most important thing right now. I close my mouth and listen, even though I really want to talk about the grocery store. “But we—the receptionists—help the assistants with the upkeep a lot. So they’re treated as the front. It’s confusing.”
It’s really not, but she continues to ramble, and it doesn’t stop. She spews out random, truly useless facts about why it’s considered ‘the front’ and even moves into the overall layout of the building.
Obviously, she’s nervous, and it’s fucking adorable. I fight everything in me to not let my smile break out this time, afraid she’ll get weird and close up again if she thinks I find her entertaining.
And she is entertaining. Not only that, I like the sound of her voice. It’s soft and raspy, even more so than I remember from our brief run-in.
Over the last month, I’d wondered about her a few times. Every trip to the grocery store is spent imagining her standing there when I turn the corner to another aisle. Preferably without my parents, or her friends, there this time.
But now that I’m seeing her again, I take in her defined cheekbones, full lips and the striking eyes that captivated my attention that night. Blake really is one of the prettiest girls I’ve seen face to face—maybe even the prettiest I’ve ever seen.
“Anyway…” she trails off and wraps a loose strand of hair around her finger. Once she seems to catch onto her own chattering, she corrects, “We can go back there really quick.”
Turning on her heel, she goes through one set of double doors, and I follow behind her. It’s a more in-depth tour of the back area, providing details about what responsibilities fall on different departments and how the rooms are organized.
The last stop in the back area is the supply closet. She walks in front of me to open the door, and I let my eyes drop to her perky ass for a second. If I didn’t have to worry about being caught by her, I’d let them linger there. It’s hard not to when she has a perfect bubble butt in well-fitting scrubs. But they’re back on her face by the time she turns around and holds the door open.
I step inside the dark room, turning around when the light flicks on and I hear the soft click of the door closing. She stands in front of it for a long moment before walking to her right, pointing out things like extra scalpels and needles, and where the door to the small stock room of cleaning supplies is. I don’t move from the middle of the space where I’ve been since we walked inside. I just twist my body to follow her as she gives more explanation than necessary and points at things.
As she makes her way past me and toward the door, I stop her with a question. “You’re the girl from the grocery store. Right? The one I bumped into?”
Moving to look at me, we’re only about two feet from each other, even though it feels closer—more intimate. She doesn’t step back but seems nervous with the way she starts to gather her hair on top of her head. It’s basically the same messy hairstyle she had that night.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she quietly insists.
Laughing, I lean forward, slipping my hands in my pockets so I don’t do something stupid like brush my thumb along her cheek. “Your eyes are a dead giveaway.”
“Excuse me?”
“They’re a unique color—maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t think I’d forget them.”
“Yeah,” she says slowly, a light pink spreading across her cheeks. “You’re crazy.”
Nodding, I lean back and tilt my head. A small part of me feels rejected, the other part is growing more interested in Blake. Maybe she doesn’t remember running into each other.
“My bad then,” I shrug and play off the insult. She scoffs, opens her mouth like she’s going to say something but chooses to close it instead.
When she doesn’t say anything else, I step around her and hold the door open.
With a guarded but curious glance, she exits the small room and takes the lead back to the front lobby. I let her finish the rest of the short tour without any more teasing, my interest only piquing more and more.
Soon after, Mick comes in for his shift, and I spend the rest of the evening shadowing him. He’s easy-going and the entire shift feels educational, however none of it’s anywhere near as interesting as Blake.