Chapter Fifteen The Color of Almost
The trouble started with a birthday she had absolutely no intention of announcing.
“You’re turning twenty-six in nine days,” Sophia said, appearing in the doorway of the supply closet where Jennie was restocking gauze, “and you weren’t going to tell anyone.
” “How do you even know that?” “HR sends out a spreadsheet. I read it for fun sometimes.” Sophia leaned against the doorframe.
“Does Lin Xing know?” “No. And he’s not going to.
I don’t want him to feel obligated to do anything.
” “That’s insane. That’s a genuinely insane plan.
” “If he finds out on his own,” Jennie said, with the serene confidence of someone who had clearly not thought this through, “that’ll mean more than if I remind him.
If he remembers, it’s because he was paying attention.
” Sophia stared at her for several seconds.
“You’re setting a trap for a man who forgets to eat lunch on a normal day.
” Word got out anyway — word always did, in a hospital this size, and by Thursday half the pediatric ward knew, largely because Emma had “casually” mentioned it to three separate nurses who then mentioned it to three separate residents, until the only person on the entire floor who remained blissfully unaware was, predictably, Lin Xing himself.
He noticed something, though. He noticed things, generally, and on Friday afternoon he found her scrolling apartment listings — an old habit that had never entirely gone away, even months after she’d stopped needing to — with a distracted, worried expression.
“Something wrong?” he asked, dropping into the seat across from her.
“No. Just — thinking about clothes, actually.” She showed him the screen, though it wasn’t apartment listings anymore, but a mall directory.
“I need something for a family video call this weekend. Feeling a little underdressed lately.” It wasn’t quite a lie.
It was, at best, a very generous interpretation of the truth.
“What sort of thing did you have in mind?” “Something nice. I don’t know.
I haven’t shopped for myself in months.” He considered this with the seriousness he brought to everything, and then, to her genuine surprise, said: “I could come with you. If you’d like a second opinion.
” Jennie’s heart did something complicated.
“You? Shopping?” “I have opinions.” “You wear the same three shirts in rotation, Lin.” “I have efficient opinions.”
They went that evening, and it turned out — much to Jennie’s delighted surprise — that Dr. Lin Xing’s efficient opinions were, in fact, excellent ones.
“Not that one,” he said, as she held up a bright red dress against herself in front of a boutique mirror.
“The color fights with your undertone.” “You—” Jennie lowered the dress.
“Sorry. What is an undertone? How do you know what an undertone is?” “I paid attention during my dermatology rotation.” She laughed, delighted, and reached for a black dress instead.
He shook his head before she’d even finished holding it up.
“Too severe. You’re not trying to look like you’re presenting a case.
” “Then what?’ He walked to the rack himself — which she had genuinely never expected — and after a moment of careful consideration, pulled out a lavender dress, simple and soft, with a delicate neckline. “Try this.”
She stepped out of the fitting room a few minutes later, and Lin Xing, seated in the chair by the mirrors, looked up — and stopped.
Not the polite, cursory glance he usually gave.
Something longer. Something that made Jennie’s pulse spike in a way she felt embarrassingly certain was visible from across the store.
“Well?” she asked, when he didn’t say anything.
“It suits you,” he said finally, and his voice had gone quieter than usual.
“Just suits me?” “It’s exceptional,” he corrected.
Then, after a pause that seemed to cost him something: “You look beautiful, Jennie.” The words hung in the air between them, plain and unguarded, entirely unlike him — no careful hedge, no clinical framing, nothing efficient about it at all.
Jennie felt her face go warm. “Oh.” “Was that too much?” A flicker of uncertainty crossed his face, rare enough that she almost laughed.
“No,” she managed. “That was exactly the right amount.”
They bought the dress — she insisted on paying, he insisted on carrying the bag, and they settled the standoff by agreeing he could carry it exactly as far as the car — and afterward found a small café for coffee, both of them a little quieter than usual, both of them aware something had shifted in that fitting room that neither knew quite how to name yet.
“Thank you,” Jennie said, wrapping her hands around her cup. “For coming. For the honest opinions.
Even the dermatology-based ones.” “Anytime.” He hesitated, turning his own cup slowly on the table. “Jennie — the dress.
It’s for the video call with your family?” “Mostly.” “Is there a reason you needed something new? Specifically?”
She could have told him then. The words were right there, sitting easy on her tongue — it’s my birthday next Sunday, and I didn’t want to tell you, because I wanted to see if you’d figure it out on your own — and for one long moment, she almost did.
“No particular reason,” she said instead. “Just felt like a change.”
Something in his expression suggested he didn’t entirely believe her — a small, careful furrow between his brows, the look of a man filing away a detail he intended to return to later. But he let it go.
Walking home that evening, the shopping bag swinging gently between them, Jennie glanced sideways at him. “Lin.”
“Hm?” “Thank you for today. Genuinely. I had a really good time.”
“So did I.” He glanced at her, something warm and unguarded in his expression. “I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed shopping before today.” “High praise.”
“The highest I’m capable of giving, apparently.
” They reached Maple Heights, rode the elevator up in comfortable silence, and at their doors, he paused — the small ritual neither of them had ever named, still faithfully observed.
For a moment neither of them said good night.
His hand found hers instead, unhurried, thumb brushing once over her knuckles in a way that felt like the beginning of a sentence neither of them had spoken yet.
Jennie’s breath caught. She watched him lean in, just slightly, the space between them narrowing to something that felt suddenly, dangerously small — A door down the hall banged open.
Their elderly neighbor from 1204 emerged with her small, extremely opinionated terrier, who immediately began barking at both of them with the outrage of a dog personally offended by romance.
They sprang apart, laughing, the moment gone as quickly as it had arrived.
“Good evening, Mrs. Fenwick,” Lin Xing said, with the strained composure of a man who had very nearly done something he had absolutely no intention of explaining to his neighbor.
“Doctors,” Mrs. Fenwick said, eyeing them both with open suspicion, and towed her still-barking terrier toward the elevator.
Jennie pressed a hand over her mouth, shaking with silent laughter, as Mrs. Fenwick’s footsteps faded down the hall. “Well,” she managed.
“That happened.” “Indeed.” He cleared his throat, visibly working to recover his usual composure. “Good night, Jennie.”
“Good night, Lin.” She let herself into her apartment, hung the lavender dress carefully in her closet, and sat on the edge of her bed for a long moment, smiling at nothing.
She had no way of knowing that the man on the other side of her wall — sensible, careful, endlessly precise Dr. Lin Xing — had already noted a certain date circled quietly in his own calendar, the one he’d found buried in the HR spreadsheet three days earlier, and was, at that very moment, standing in his kitchen with his laptop open, searching for something he had absolutely no practice buying for anyone.
Gift ideas for someone who means more than I know how to say yet. The search returned nothing useful.
He closed the laptop, and started thinking instead.