Chapter 10
LAINE
Reid
Hey, it's Reid. I know it's been a few days, but I was wondering if u want to grab dinner with me this weekend. Somewhere nice. Just the two of us
Istare at the text message, sitting in the break room with my half-eaten sandwich forgotten on the table in front of me. It's Thursday night, middle of my shift, and I've been wondering if I'd hear from Reid again.
Four days. Not that I've been counting or anything.
Actually, that's a lie. I have been counting. And I've been alternating between "he's busy, relax" and "he met someone better at a gas station and forgot you exist" with absolutely no middle ground. This is what I do. I'm aware it's not healthy. I'm doing it anyway.
Somewhere nice. Just the two of us.
My stomach does a thing. Not the good flutter from the diner — something tighter. Like excitement and panic had a baby and it's living in my ribcage.
Somewhere nice sounds... serious. More serious than our diner breakfast or our park date.
More serious than I'm sure I want things to be right now.
A few days ago, maybe I would have been excited.
But four days of silence have given me plenty of time to do what I do best — overthink until the good thing starts looking like a threat.
I was letting myself fall too quickly. This new start was never supposed to be about a guy. It was supposed to be about building a whole life.
And maybe Reid is just a really beautiful, pancake-loving distraction from that.
My phone buzzes with another text, this one from
Bethany
Drinks tomorrow? That place with the cute bartender?
I set my phone aside and take a bite of my sandwich. I don't know what to do about either of them.
"You look like someone just asked you to donate a kidney," Joyce says, settling into the chair across from me with her dinner.
"What?"
"You've got that look. Like you're trying to solve world hunger or decide whether to quit your job and join the circus." Joyce unwraps her salad and gives me that direct stare that always makes me feel like she can see through walls. "What's going on?"
"Just thinking about... things," I say.
"Things like world peace or things like that paramedic from festival night? Reid?" Joyce has this innocent look on her face, but she's got to know something. The gossip mill around here could power a small city. "Anything happening there? I heard you two went on a date."
"We did. A couple dates, actually." I take another bite of my sandwich, buying time. "The first one was just breakfast after festival night, but then we went to Hendricks Park and ended up helping at the Pine Street camp."
"Sounds nice. How was it?"
"Really nice. Too nice, maybe." I pause. "He's... I don't know. Different from guys I usually date. More real, I guess."
"Real how?"
"Like he actually sees me. Not just the fun, temporary version of me, but the person I'm trying to become here.
The settled version." I set down my sandwich.
"He asked about my life like he wanted to know the answer.
Not just the highlight reel — the real stuff.
The lonely parts. And he told me about his brother, about Blake, about all of it. No filter. Just — here I am."
"And that's a problem?"
Yes. Heat creeps up my neck. "Maybe."
"Ah." Joyce spears a cherry tomato. "What did he do?"
"He asked me out. To dinner. Somewhere nice."
"And this is a problem because...?"
"It's not a problem. It's just..." I pause, trying to find the words. "I've been here three months. I'm focused on building a life, making friends, figuring out who I am when I'm not planning my next move. And now there's Reid, and he's..."
"Wonderful?" Joyce supplies.
"Distracting." The word comes out sharper than I intended.
"I catch myself thinking about him when I should be thinking about other things.
Wondering what he's doing, when I'll see him again.
Making plans that include him without even realizing it.
Then he went silent for a few days and I just..
." I pick at the crust of my sandwich. "I spiraled.
A little. Okay, a lot. I told my fiddle leaf fig about it. "
Joyce's mouth twitches. "What did the fig say?"
"Nothing helpful. As usual."
She nods slowly. "You sound scared."
"It should scare me, right? I just made this huge decision to stay put and build something permanent. I don't want to mess that up by getting swept away by the first guy who makes me feel..."
"Feel what?"
"Like I could fall for him." The admission comes out quieter than I intended. "Really fall for him."
Joyce is quiet for a moment, working on her salad. Around us, the break room hums with the usual hospital sounds — pagers beeping, conversations from the hallway, the coffee machine gurgling to life.
"Can I ask you something?" Joyce says finally.
"Sure."
"When you were traveling, moving every few months, what did your relationships look like?"
"Casual, mostly. Nothing too serious because I knew I'd be leaving. A few guys here and there, but nothing that..." I trail off, seeing where she's going with this.
"Nothing that lasted."
"Right." I think about Caleb in New Zealand.
Marco in Spain. A handful of others whose faces are already blurring.
Nice guys. Fun guys. Except for Caleb, they were guys I could enjoy for exactly as long as the assignment lasted and not one day longer.
I was really good at that. I had a system.
"I had it down to a science, honestly. Keep it light, keep it fun, and get on the plane before anyone catches feelings. "
"And now you're staying put, building roots, and along comes someone who makes you want something that could last. Someone who fits into the life you're building instead of taking you away from it."
She's right. Of course she's right. Reid isn't asking me to leave Eugene or give up my job or change who I am. He's asking me to dinner. He volunteers at the same homeless outreach I do. He gets along with everyone. I can't imagine anyone fitting into my life better.
So why does the thought of getting more serious with him make me want to run?
"I don't want to be one of those women," I say finally.
"What women?"
"The ones who move somewhere new and immediately change their whole life for a man.
" I've seen it happen. In the Philippines, there was this nurse — Sarah — brilliant, funny, had all these plans to open a clinic.
Met a guy three weeks into her assignment.
Two months later, she'd dropped everything.
Moved to his town, changed her specialty to match the local hospital's needs, stopped talking about the clinic entirely.
Last I heard she was miserable and blaming herself for losing the plot.
"I watched it happen to a friend. She moved somewhere, met a guy, and then she wrapped her entire life around him.
I'm supposed to be figuring out who I am here, not who I am with Reid. "
Joyce sets down her fork and looks at me with something that might be exasperation, might be affection.
Probably both. "Honey, I've been married for thirty-five years.
Trust me when I say there's a difference between changing your life for someone and letting someone become part of the life you're building. "
Thirty-five years. That's longer than I've been alive. Not that I think she'd appreciate me sharing that fact.
"What's the difference?" I ask.
"One makes you smaller, and one makes you bigger." She pauses, studying my face. "From what I know about that boy, he's not the type to ask you to be someone different. He seemed to like you just the way you are."
She's not wrong. Not once — not over pancakes, not at the park, not during any of it — has Reid suggested I should be anything other than exactly what I am.
That's the scary part, isn't it? He's not asking you to change. He's asking you to stay. And staying is the thing you've never been able to do.
But I can do hard things. I've done a lot of them. But this one, this building a life and staying put is one of the scariest things I've ever done.
"So what are you going to tell him?" Joyce asks.
I look at my phone, where Reid's text is still waiting for an answer. Somewhere nice. Just the two of us.
"I don't know," I say. "What would you tell him?"
Joyce grins. "I'd tell him yes, but maybe suggest something a little more casual. You don't have to jump into fancy dinner dates if you're not ready for that level of... intensity. But don't let being scared of big feelings keep you from someone who might be worth getting swept away for."
My phone buzzes again. This time it's the ending of my break timer.
"Duty calls," I say, gathering up my sandwich wrapper.
"Think about it, Laine," Joyce says as I head for the door. "Sometimes the scary thing and the right thing are the same."
I spend the rest of my shift thinking about what she said.
Between checking vitals and distributing medications, I find myself replaying every interaction I've had with Reid.
The way he made me laugh during that crazy festival night.
How natural it felt to work together at the homeless camp.
The way he looked at me when he took my hand in his truck.
The cheek kiss outside the diner that I've thought about approximately four hundred times.
None of it felt like I was changing who I was for him. It felt like I was becoming more myself.
So why am I being chicken about this?
By six AM, I've made my decision. I find a quiet moment between patients and pull out my phone.
I'd love to.
Delete it.
Dinner sounds great! How about—
Delete it. Too many exclamation points. I sound like a children's TV host.
I'd love to have dinner with you.
Stare at it. That's good. But somewhere nice still makes my chest tight. Not because I don't want to see him — God, I want to see him — but because I want it to feel like us. Like pancakes and bad coffee and talking until we forget we're exhausted. Not like a performance.
Delete it.
I'd love to have dinner with you. But would you be open to something a little more low-key? Maybe we could cook together at your place? I make a mean pasta sauce.
I read it three times. Four. It sounds confident and casual and like a person who has her life together, which is a spectacular illusion.
Just send it. Send it before you rewrite it fourteen more times and end up texting him a grocery list by accident.
Send.
I put my phone face-down on the desk. Then pick it up. Then put it face-down again.
It buzzes back almost immediately.
Reid
That sounds perfect. Sat at 6??
I check my schedule, making sure I have this Saturday off, then text him back.
See you then.
Short. Simple. Done.
I put my phone away and lean back in my chair. My heart is beating faster than it should be, and I'm not sure if it's excitement or anxiety.
Both. Definitely both.
You're cooking dinner at his house. The house he shares with Blake. The best friend he talks about like he hung the moon. You're going to be in their space, making pasta sauce, trying not to burn things or catch feelings or—
Stop. You're making pasta. You're good at pasta. Focus on the pasta.