Chapter 3 #2
“Thanks.” I left it at that, shooting her a brief smile before I stepped back into the corridor. The junior doctors were waiting for me in front of the next room, anxious and eager. Was this how Tay had watched me during his rotation—eyes wide and wary, shoulders tight?
I was ambitious, yes. But I’d never meant to become intimidating.
Maybe I could start by learning the names of my two newbies.
The first half of October blurred past in a haze of relentless shifts and too little sleep, listless takeout, family calls, and a couple of get-togethers with people I knew from college.
Tay and I barely saw each other—we tried, but any post-shift meetups got derailed by ER chaos or last-minute surgeries.
Somehow, he still became a steady presence.
My phone lit up a tad more often now, his notifications easing the sharper edges of my mornings and nudging a little spark into the too-early darkness of my evenings. Our mutual interrogation evolved—from texts to tentative voice notes, Tay’s tone starting playful and melting slowly toward candid.
His first voice message caught me off guard.
What’s your perfect day?
His turn to kick off with an answer, and he did a minute later.
“Honestly,” he said, “typing this feels like a test, so here goes nothing.” His tone was soft, a thread of laughter tucked into its folds.
“So, perfect day? Start of a golden weekend. No pagers for two whole days, no chaos, a little sunshine, brunch that isn’t from a vending machine and ideally comes with a fruit salad I didn’t have to make myself.
And then maybe someone nice enough to take a nap with. If you get my drift.”
I’d replayed it twice before I even noticed, something about his voice pulling me back in—the words were casual, but with my earbuds in, they sounded deceptively close and intimate.
Right. Okay. Seemed only fair to mirror him. It served a purpose, didn’t it?
Perfect day.
“No emergencies.” It felt stiff, formal, as though I were delivering a patient update.
I cleared my throat and tried to ease up.
“Sleep in, drink some good coffee, then gym or a run. Maybe lunch with a friend—I prefer that over dinner, if I’m honest. Finish with a good book or a movie that gets my brain to shut up for a bit. ”
Too revealing? Well, kind of the point, wasn’t it? I sent the message before I could talk myself out of it.
Tay replied within minutes—a simple heart emoji. Probably harmless, maybe something he tossed around like confetti. I stared at it longer than strictly necessary, then told myself to stop assigning weight to pixels and put the phone away.
From that moment on, the questions continued to circle gently closer.
Still ridiculous on paper, they held small truths smuggled in under the banner of “just for fun,” delivered with Tay’s signature mix of emoji cheer and honesty that melted my initial resistance.
I wasn’t enjoying it, no. But I kind of didn’t mind.
His answer to Do you rehearse phone calls? made me stifle a laugh in a deserted hospital corridor at one in the morning: “Only if they involve conflict, flirting, or ordering pizza. So, you know. Yeah.”
“Only when it’s important,” I replied. “And then I overdo it and end up sounding like a tax auditor.”
Question Ten packed a punch. Tay had sent it hours ago, and I was halfway through a late shift when I spotted it.
If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?
Jesus. My turn to go first, wasn’t it? I set the phone down and stared at the chipped corner of the staff microwave, where someone had taped a passive-aggressive reminder to clean up spills. I could lie. I could ignore it.
Or I could take a breath and give him just a sliver of the truth.
It’d be, well—prudent. Not that anyone was likely to bring up my father during the wedding, but there might be loaded comments, clues that Tay would be expected to read. So… okay. Here goes nothing.
I’d pick a version where fear wasn’t the baseline setting. For any of us.
I read it over, then deleted it. Too much. Replaced it with Less shouting in the middle of the night. Perhaps it was cowardly—typing the words rather than speaking them, less personal, but I could blame it on how I didn’t want to share past traumas with anyone who happened to walk by.
This time, I sent the words.
It took until morning for him to reply—a text.
I won’t push for the full story. But whenever you’re ready to share, I’m here to listen.
I sucked in a breath and closed the chat without responding, didn’t know how.
He just… God. It had taken me a year to share even just that much with Gregg.
Meanwhile, Tay had crashed into my life with his dark eyes and warm smile, and within two weeks of knowing him—properly knowing him—I was letting my walls wear thin.
Thanks
I managed eventually, an hour later. Just that.
He clearly got the hint because his next message moved right on, another voice note about how if he could change one thing about his childhood, it would be “less pressure to be the golden kid. Like, I know they meant well, but it was all ‘make us proud, make it count.’ And that’s…
fine. I tried. But sometimes I just wanted to mess up and not feel like the world would end. You know?”
I liked him. More than I should. More than made any sense.
On my way to bed, blinds whirring down to block out the day, I paused to start typing a message.
Then I reconsidered and recorded it instead, aiming for something light and teasing, not sure I fully succeeded.
“Dr. Carter, you’re up. The left recurrent laryngeal nerve—where does it run?
” I slotted in a deliberate pause before I chuckled and continued.
“There—you messed up a little that one time. And guess what? It wasn’t the end of the world. ”
Kind of felt like it, though
That’s because as a perfectionist, you inflate even small mistakes to epic size. Take it from someone who knows.
YOU mess up?
I bit my cheek against a smile.
I’m only human.
Allegedly
He replied, followed by a wink and another heart that had me grinning around my toothbrush.
Beyond our messages, it was a couple of quick smiles across hospital corridors as we each hurried this way or that.
We managed to align our breaks just once—twenty minutes in the same café where we’d met the other time, close enough to be convenient but far enough to make accidental sightings by colleagues unlikely.
Our chat was focused on logistics, checking flights and airport times, the need for travel adapters.
Casual, even though it felt like a shift since our first coffee date: His smiles came easily now, and I’d grown familiar with the timbre of his voice, the slightly rambling way he told a joke.
When a spoon clattered to the floor nearby, we both jolted, eyes meeting in a quiet flicker of shared amusement.
Yeah, okay. We could do this.
Probably.
“So,” Gregg drawled a couple of days later, when we grabbed a quick coffee together. “How’s the fake love life?”
Ha. Ha. I slid him a narrow-eyed look over the rim of my cup. “Is this where you demand a thank-you card or a fruit basket?”
“I’m partial to lychees.”
More days melted away between quietly stacked texts and voice notes as work continued in a frantic rhythm.
Brooke remained stubbornly abrasive, propped up in her bed like a cynical queen surveying her subjects.
“Great, another tour group,” she quipped as I entered, juniors trailing behind me. “Thought you’d forgotten all about me.”
“Hardly,” I said. “Someone’s got to keep my ego in check, right?”
An almost-smile tugged at one corner of her mouth and was gone again. “Here to help.”
It was strange to see a mirror of my younger self in her, the defensive sharpness she used like a shield. I’d outgrown that, though. Hadn’t I? The only one who still claimed my walls were higher than Mount Everest was Charley—which was rich, coming from someone who cried at laundry detergent ads.
I shared the second bit with Tay the day before he and Gregg were due at my place for a brunch after their shared night shift—a rehearsal of sorts.
It wouldn’t do to bring a boyfriend who stammered about the color of my kitchen tiles.
So, just brunch, no big deal. Yeah, so he’d be in my space for the first time, truly crossing from hospital floors into private territory, but, yeah. No. Big. Deal.
Which was why I’d asked Gregg along—so Tay wouldn’t feel…
whatever. Intimidated. Even if I was pretty sure we were past that.
Gregg, true to character, had declared he couldn’t wait to watch us try to act like we were head over heels for each other.
He’d threatened to give us notes, like it was some stupid audition for Dancing with the Stars.
Don’t judge
Tay replied to my note about Charley.
I cry over Pixar movies. Also, I’ll bring dessert tomorrow.
Which ones? And it’s fine, really. No need.
I insist. And all of them. Nah, but the Up montage? Absolutely wrecked me.
Right, the part at the start—two people meet, live an entire life together, and then she dies before they get to go on the trip they’d always dreamed of.
No dialogue, just music and quiet tragedy that packed an emotional punch—except I never would have admitted to that with Tay’s cheerful ease, like it honestly didn’t matter if people thought him soft.
It was kind of sweet
And sure—thank you.
My pleasure.
The day they were meant to drop by, I was…
I wasn’t fussing. Really. Just… ensuring everything looked normal.
Not too sterile, not too casual. Rearranging my bookshelf and wondering whether I should have gone for a bit more color and maybe one or two pictures on the walls.
I’d been meaning to, honest. Just… life. Busy.
At least the kitchen smelled inviting—roast potatoes with lemon-herb marinade, a recipe my mom had sent over. I wasn’t a half bad cook, even enjoyed the process; I just usually didn’t bother because a lavish meal for one felt more sad than fun.
I adjusted a slightly askew cushion and told myself it was just brunch. A totally normal, casual brunch with my best friend and my new fake boyfriend.
Right.