18. Emma
CHAPTER 18
EMMA
“ I don’t really have anything else to wear.” I sigh into the phone. “He’s seen everything I brought. I wasn’t expecting to have to impress anyone! Maybe I should just call it off for tonight.”
“He’s invited you for drinks,” Phoebe says firmly. “You have to go.”
“Why? It’s nothing that serious. It’s just drinks.”
“Yeah, that’s why you should go. It doesn’t have to be serious. When was the last time you had any fun?”
“I’ve been having fun all week.”
Phoebe is being difficult again. Unfortunately, she’s also right.
“All week. Sure, I’ll accept that. And why has that been?”
“Because I haven’t been coming to work.” I know exactly what conclusion she’s trying to drive me towards, and I refuse to indulge her.
“And,” she says, and I can hear the grin in her voice. “It’s because you’ve been hanging out with Liam.”
“All right, so maybe it is. So what? Whatever it is between us doesn’t mean anything. There isn’t anything between us.”
“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” she says. “Just go and have some fun. He’s not going to care what you wear, especially if it’s not serious. He probably won’t even notice. What else are you going to do instead? Stay in your room and watch TV? Go for drinks. Maybe there’ll be a guy there that you hit it off with and you can take him back with you.”
“You’re scandalous,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I’m not on vacation for that reason.”
“You could be.”
I roll my eyes even harder. “Fine, okay, I’ll go for drinks. But only if you tell me, do I wear the green blouse or the black crop sweater with sparkles?” She knows my wardrobe better than I do, so I don’t need to explain things any better than that for her to know what I’m talking about.
“Sweater,” Phoebe says without hesitation. “Sparkles scream fun. Blouse screams stuck-up.”
“Does not,” I say with a frown. “You’ve told me that’s my most fun blouse.”
“It is, but the most fun blouse does not serve the same function as the most fun sweater. You’ll look like you’re trying too hard in the blouse.”
“Remind me why you’re my best friend again?” I huff.
“Because without me, you’d be totally boring.”
I chuckle, unable to keep pretending to be mad. That’s true enough. Without Phoebe, I wouldn’t have a social life at all.
Half an hour later, I descend to the bar in the black sweater with sparkles and high-waisted black pants that fall loosely around my ankles and almost look like a skirt from the right angle. Liam is already waiting for me at the bar, wearing yet another Hawaiian shirt.
He grins and waves at me when he sees me. “Hello there. You look good.” He says it almost stiffly, but by now I know him well enough to know that’s the highest compliment he can think to give.
“Thank you.” I smile. “How many of these shirts do you own?”
I gesture at his shirt, and he shrugs. “Six or seven. I only have a few with me.”
“Have you ever thought about anything less loud?”
“Nope,” he says. “I think they’re fun.”
“Fun?”
He pushes a drink towards me, ignoring my ongoing disdain. “Here you go. Cocktail.”
“What’s in this?” I ask, looking at it suspiciously.
He peers at it too. “Tequila?”
“Good enough,” I say, dragging it closer to me and lifting it to my lips to take a sip. It has a bite, but it’s also fruity and sweet. It’s good.
“How are your legs feeling?” he asks. When I roll my eyes at him, he huffs. “Not like that.” Then, before I can say anything else, he adds, “I mean, mine are aching, that’s all. Yours must be too.”
“They’re not too bad,” I say. “I’m used to being on my feet all the time.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. Still, walking feels like it uses completely different muscles than standing and performing surgery. I could do that for hours.”
“True.” I nod. “Sometimes you get out of the OR and your feet are so numb that you can’t even feel them, right?”
“Right! Some days I sit down and feel like I’m never going to get up again.”
“So that’s why you’re a doctor?” I ask, deciding to cut straight to the chase. I want to learn more about this man, and tonight is the night I am going to get to know this guy who has become my friend, despite everything. “Thrill of the adrenaline?”
He frowns at me. “I don’t know. Isn’t childhood passion a good enough reason for wanting to do what I do?”
“There must be something more than that,” I say. “Nobody goes into our line of work without a compelling reason. What makes you stay?”
He hesitates, taking a sip of his drink as if he’s trying to take a shot of courage. Mostly, I’m expecting him to just try and change the subject again, but maybe, if I’m lucky, today is the day I finally break him down.
And I must be lucky because he delivers. “My parents,” he says slowly. “I guess it was seeing my parents.”
“Oh, were they doctors?”
He lets out a harsh laugh, and I wince. I guess I’ve gone and put my foot in that one.
“Totally the opposite,” he says. “They did their best with what they had, I guess, but they weren’t too loving. We never had enough when I was growing up, so whenever I was sick, I was just given a painkiller and told to deal with it. I didn’t want other people to have to go through that.”
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “That must have been difficult.”
He shrugs with an air of distance, like he has a wall he’s built around his pain. “It’s over now. But that’s why I work so hard, I guess.” He speaks slowly, like it’s a conclusion he’s only just coming to. “I’ve seen exactly what not having enough does to you. I’ve seen so many people unable to provide for their kids, for their parents, for their friends. That’s what kills people, the inability to do anything because you’re just struggling to survive every day. That’s what I don’t want for myself.”
“I get it,” I say.
He turns his eyes on me, blazing with emotion. “Do you?”
I take a deep breath and swallow. “Not exactly like you. I was very lucky with my parents, but I get the need to work hard. I get the need to feel like you have to keep pushing yourself to your limits every single day, because if you don’t, you’re going to lose everything you’ve got.”
He nods, his shoulders dropping slightly, as if for the first time I’ve said something that he can truly agree with. “That’s exactly it,” he says so softly that I can barely hear him over the noise of the rest of the room. “I stayed here for you, you know,” he says suddenly, and I have to strain my ears to pick up the words.
“You did?” I ask.
He looks me in the eye again and nods. “I was supposed to go home that night when I met you again, when you said you were staying. I was supposed to be on my way to the airport.”
“Why would you stay for me?”
His mouth drops open as he tries to formulate words, and without thinking, my own gaze drops down to his lips. His full, strong lips and the rough facial hair on his chin.
“I don’t know,” he says, and I can see that he’s being honest. “There was… something about the situation, about you, that made me want to stay.”
“I’m flattered,” I say quietly. Then before I can be a coward, I add, “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you did.”
Suddenly, something is shifting between us, tectonic plates crashing together. We’re on the same page, in the same book. There’s an understanding we’ve been missing, a wire that has been crossed about our aims, our reasons for being here.
I’m allowing myself to listen to the voice in my heart that’s been telling me that Liam is worth pursuing. From what he’s said, I’m thinking that maybe he feels the same.