Chapter 13
thirteen
Dani
I hated waiting alone at fancy tables. The fork made a small, useless sound every time I tapped it against my napkin.
Tap, tap, tap.
The waiter had already come by twice to ask if I wanted more water, which was code for are you actually meeting someone, or should we start thinking about giving the table to someone else?
I'll be fifteen minutes late. I'm sorry, Dani. I promise to make it up to you.
I smoothed the front of my dress for the third time and told myself it didn't matter. That I wasn't the kind of woman who sat in a restaurant feeling exposed just because she was alone at a table for two.
I'd raised a daughter by myself for five years. I'd worked triage in three different states. I could sit at a table.
But the fear crept in anyway.
This is how it started. The wait that got a little longer each time. The explanations that got a little thinner. Right up until the night he just didn’t show up at all.
I was halfway through building my exit strategy—thank the waiter, pay for my own water, drive home, and pretend this never happened—when I heard footsteps moving fast across the restaurant floor.
Luke.
Hair still damp from the shower, dress shirt only half-tucked, out of breath like he'd sprinted from the parking garage.
He stopped at the edge of the table and just looked at me while I took him in.
His mouth was slightly open. Whatever he'd been planning to say seemed to have evaporated.
"You're staring," I said, feeling my face heat.
"I'm aware." He didn't sit down. "Give me a second. I had a whole thing planned to say and it's just…gone."
"Luke."
He finally dropped into the chair across from me, his eyes still on me. "You look…Dani, you look incredible."
"You're going to make this weird if you keep going."
"I'm allowed to say my girlfriend looks incredible."
The word landed between us before either of us seemed ready for it.
He blinked, like he'd surprised himself.
I swallowed, unsure of what to say to him calling me his girlfriend before our first date.
"You're sweaty," I said instead, just to take our minds off that slip because that was what it was. A slip.
"Did you run here?"
"I may have underestimated how long the shower would take. And the drive. And parking."
He reached for the water glass, drank half of it in one go.
"Sorry. I didn't want to be late."
"Can you just admit you were late?"
"Yes, I was late. I really am sorry. I promise this won't happen again."
He gave a mock bow, and I bit back a smile and let him have it.
The waiter set our water down first. Then he came back with menus.
I got the scallops.
Luke got the steak.
He poured an organic wine for us. He filled my glass halfway, his a little higher, and left the bottle between us.
A candle burned in the middle of the table. Golden light danced across the white tablecloth. Behind us, a quartet was playing something I couldn't name. Soft. Low enough that we could talk, and loud enough to fit the ambience.
It was all so intentional.
"This is a lot."
I looked around, appreciating the atmosphere far more than I had before he'd arrived, when I'd been on edge.
"You put in a lot of effort."
"I wanted to do it right."
He shrugged without breaking my gaze.
"You've seen me sweating. Arguing about trash. Choking on pool water."
He smiled at the last part, and my cheeks warmed because thinking about the pool made me think about the kiss.
"I wanted you to see this version."
Something in my chest let go.
I picked up my glass, took a sip, then set it back down.
"Do you want to know why I was speechless when I first walked in?"
"No."
He smiled.
"Are you going to make me drag it out of you?"
"This dress..." he said. "You were walking toward me in this same dress."
I laughed.
"That can't be true."
"I'm serious."
He reached across the table and touched the sleeve of my dress with two fingers.
"It was exactly what I saw. The only difference is you look even more beautiful than you did in my dream."
He pulled his hand back.
"I woke up, and I was pissed," he said. "I didn't want to leave it."
The quartet dipped low behind us.
"That's either the sweetest thing you've ever said to me," I said, "or the most unsettling."
"Both," he said. "Definitely both."
The food came.
We ate slowly, or tried to, because every few minutes one of us found some reason to stop and just talk instead.
He asked about my rotations, about what it was like walking into a new ER every few months, learning a whole new set of faces and protocols, then leaving before I'd really gotten to know them.
I asked about his first year in the league, about the loneliness of being twenty-two and a thousand miles from home.
By the time dessert arrived, we'd talked about almost everything.
"I need to tell you something," he said, setting down his fork.
"Okay."
"I want you to know that I'm not doing this for the—" he gestured vaguely, encompassing the candle, the wine, the whole performance of the evening, "—thrill of it. I know that's probably what it looks like from the outside."
"I wasn't thinking that."
"Maybe not. But I need to say it anyway."
He took a breath.
"I want you. All of you, Dani. Your strength.
The way you handle Lily like nothing in the world could rattle you, even though I know it's just you trying to be strong.
The way you see straight through my bullshit and call it out, and somehow still look at me like you believe I can be better than that. "
My throat tightened.
"I've never said this to anyone," he continued, quieter now. "Not since my dad died. I stopped letting myself feel things this deeply because it felt like... like if I let myself want something that much, I'd lose it. Same as I lost him."
He looked down at his hands, then back up at me.
"But I want this. I want you and Lily. I'm terrified of saying that out loud, but I want it anyway."
I sat there for a long moment, feeling the whole restaurant fall away around us.
"I feel it too," I said. My voice came out shaky. "That's the problem, Luke. I feel it, and it terrifies me."
"Why?"
"Because Lily's father said things like this."
The words came out before I could stop them.
"I mean, not exactly like this, but close enough. He promised everything. Told me he wanted us, wanted a family, wanted forever. And then I got pregnant, and he was gone before Lily could walk."
I gripped the stem of my wine glass, needing somewhere to put my hands.
"You're standing at the exact edge of your career right now.
You could be a permanent starter next year.
You could get traded somewhere across the country.
And this whole window just... closes. How am I supposed to hand you my daughter's heart when I don't know which version of your life is about to happen? "
"I don't know the answer to that. I wish I did. I can't promise you my career's going to stay safe and predictable. I just can't. I might get exactly what I've wanted my whole life starting this week, and I don't know what that will do to us."
He reached across the table and laid his hand over mine, gently.
"But I know I'm not him. I know I'm going to keep showing up until you believe this. Until you believe us."
I didn't know what to say to that.
His scorching gaze felt like he was seeing straight into my soul, like he was laying it all out for me.
I turned my hand over beneath his, laced our fingers together, and let that be my answer for now.
But something had shifted between us at that moment.
"Come back to my place," he said quietly as the waiter cleared the last plates. "Please."
I didn't hesitate this time.
I followed his car through the city, my headlights catching his taillights at every turn, and by the time I pulled into the spot beside him at his building, my hands were unsteady on the wheel.
He helped me out of my car and led me to his apartment.
His apartment was cleaner than I'd expected, all dark wood and low lighting, with a few framed photos on a shelf that I made a mental note to ask about later.
We stood in his apartment, holding each other's gaze.
"I've been thinking about that dress all night," he finally admitted, his voice rough. "Since the second I saw you."
"I mean, it's a problem."
He stepped closer.
"I can't concentrate. You've been killing me with it for three hours straight."
"Is that so?"
"Completely unfair advantage."
His hand found my waist, his thumb tracing slowly along the fabric.
"I don't know how I'm supposed to be a functioning adult right now."
"How does the dream end?" I asked, my breath already catching. "The one with the red dress."
"I don't know."
He leaned down, his mouth close to my ear.
"It hadn't gotten that far.”
A beat.
"Guess we'll have to find out together."
The kiss started sweet and slow, both of us still tasting the wine from dinner. Then his hand slid into my hair and mine found the solid warmth of his chest.
“Tell me if I should stop,” he said against my mouth, voice gone rough.
“Don’t stop,” I breathed, and felt him exhale like I’d given him permission he’d been waiting for all night.
His lips moved against mine with a gentleness that still surprised me. I felt the slight tremor in the hand that cradled the back of my neck. The heat of his skin through the thin fabric of his shirt. The way his breath hitched when I kissed him deeper.
Something inside me cracked open.
I walked him backward further into the living room, never breaking the kiss. We bumped into the edge of the couch. Laughed against each other’s mouths. He turned us so I was the one sinking down onto the cushions, the red dress riding up my thighs as he followed me down.
His hands mapped the curve of my spine, the dip of my waist, the soft fabric of the dress. He kissed my jaw, my throat, the hollow beneath my ear. I tilted my head back with a soft sound that made him groan.
“I can't think straight with you in that dress,” he whispered against my skin. “All night. Every time you smiled at me across the table I forgot how to breathe.”