Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
rowan
“Well, that was quick,” Claire declares when I return, and my cheeks heat.
“Thanks, I guess.”
Lucky for me, it was a single-user restroom, and my stomach was only crying wolf. Still, I’d turned on the faucet to muffle the sound as I conducted my business, just in case.
“I kind of expected you to camp out for a while. Did you just go in there to fart or something?”
I shrug and glance around the waiting room, grateful to find it empty. “I figured I’d spare you, since this is our first date.”
“And they say chivalry is dead,” she replies, miming a swoon, and my awkward smile grows more genuine.
The door swings open then, and a middle-aged woman in scrubs squints down at a chart. “Atha—Atta—”
“Athanasius?” I offer, raising my hand and smiling apologetically.
“If you say so, shug,” she replies.
“I thought your name was Rowan?” Claire whispers harshly.
“My parents named some of their kids after the more obscure saints, so it’s easier to go by my middle name,” I explain quickly.
The nurse keeps her feet planted when we reach the door. “I’m sorry, baby, but only family is allowed past this point.”
“Oh, but she’s my …” I glance back at Claire, debating whether it’s worth lying to keep her at my side. Maybe it’s best if she doesn’t bear witness to the rest of this, anyway.
Claire clears her throat. “Fiancée. He proposed at Christmas, but my rock’s getting resized,” she says, waving her ringless left hand as she clasps mine with the other.
“Congratulations, then,” the nurse says with a conspiratorial wink and ushers us through the next set of doors.
Guilt settles in my stomach as I force a smile in return, but the warmth from Claire’s fingers intertwining with mine is a nice distraction. And I’m suddenly glad she’s insisted on accompanying me.
“I’m Mrs. Ethel, and I’ll be taking care of you this evening,” the nurse tells me as she leads us back to a curtained partition. She pats a narrow cot. “Have a seat right here, cher, and tell me what’s been goin’ on.”
“I think I ate something that triggered my peanut allergy. Luckily, I found a beautiful woman willing to administer my EpiPen just before my throat closed up,” I explain, careful to avoid lying.
“And I told her I was fine, but she insisted I come in to get checked out. She’s such a worrier, that one.
” I whisper the last part as an aside to Mrs. Ethel, who chuckles as she clamps a pulsometer over my fingertip, and Claire clicks her tongue in annoyance.
“Sooner you learn she’s always right, the better,” Mrs. Ethel remarks and straps a cuff around my arm next. “Ooh, chile!” she exclaims, making me flinch. “Your pulse is through the roof.”
I sigh. “I’ve noticed.”
“That epinephrine will do it to you every time,” she muses as she slips on a pair of reading glasses and begins jotting down my vitals.
I lift one shoulder in a shrug. “EpiPen aside, I’m afraid my heart rate hasn’t been right since I met her,” I admit, tilting my head in Claire’s direction and making the nurse laugh again.
“Cher pitié. You better watch this one, shug,” Mrs. Ethel tells Claire, her voice filled with amusement.
“Yeah. I’ve got my work cut out for me,” Claire replies, shooting me a sultry look and making my heart quicken again.
“Pretty sure I’m the one in trouble,” I mumble to myself.
Mrs. Ethel hums in approval. “All right, I just need to update your medical history, baby. Full address, phone number, and date of birth?” I confirm the details for her while Claire sits silently.
“Marital status, single, but not for long. Religion?”
“Roman Catholic,” I reply quickly.
“Occupation?”
“Medical doctor.” That one earns me another appreciative hum.
“Any other allergies besides peanuts?”
“No, ma’am.” I shake my head as I continue answering her follow-up questions.
“Do you drink alcohol? Smoke?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Are you sexually active?”
An audible gulp is the only sound I’m able to make.
The nurse pauses to glance up over her glasses when I don’t answer immediately, her eyes darting back and forth between Claire and me while I reach up to scratch the back of my neck.
“Should we run an STI panel while you’re here?”
“No need—I mean, no, thank you,” I choke out after the silence stretches too long. Mrs. Ethel cocks an eyebrow and scribbles over her clipboard, and I stifle a whimper.
“I assume you’re wanting to change your emergency contact. You have a Dr. Reed listed here, but we can replace his info with your fiancée’s.”
I cough lightly. “Oh, actually, you can just leave my, um, my brother-in-law’s number on there.” I can’t help but cringe inwardly at Landry’s new title.
Mrs. Ethel furrows her brow at me. “You sure?”
“I’m a teacher. I’m not always allowed to have my phone on me during class,” Claire chimes in, to my relief. “Dr. Reed knows how to get in touch with me in case of an emergency.”
“All right, then,” Mrs. Ethel confirms, removing her reading glasses. “Lucky for you, it’s been a quiet evening, and our best attending physician just started his shift. So he’ll be coming through any minute now.”
“Thank you,” I mumble before Claire and I are left alone in our curtained quarters.
“Well, this is turning out to be pretty efficient,” Claire muses. “I don’t think I’ve ever gotten to know someone so quickly. I might take all of my dates here from now on.”
“Feels a little one-sided, though. I shouldn’t be the only one having to answer all the questions,” I grumble after she mentions other dates.
“You know what I do for a living now, don’t you?”
The corners of my lips turn up at that. “So you really are a teacher?”
She nods.
“You must like kids,” I venture.
“I do,” she says with a wistful sigh. “You?”
“Yeah,” I agree. “I’m definitely looking forward to having a family one day.”
“I could see that for you,” she agrees, and I detect a hint of sadness in her tone.
“Do you … want a family?”
She lifts a shoulder. “I used to. But things didn’t pan out,” she says quietly. “My ex and I never had any kids,” she adds when she notices my curious stare.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
She shrugs again. “It is what it is, you know.”
“How long were you together?” I ask carefully.
She sucks in a deep breath. “Just over ten years, but we were only married for the last few.”
My heart skips a beat when she mentions being married. “And you split up … recently?”
“It’s been a while. We had to be separated for at least six months before we could get a divorce,” she explains, her voice sounding smaller than it has all night.
And even though my brain automatically counts her being divorced as another point against our compatibility, I’m more consumed by an unexpected surge of possessiveness and the need to protect her from anyone or anything that could hurt her again.
The monitor beeps when my pulse spikes, but I’m grateful when she ignores it and forces a more cheerful tone. “Have you ever been married?”
“No, but I’d like to be,” I tell her with a smile.
“Earlier, you said you’d been feeling sorry for yourself because you were alone. Is it because you’ve gone through a recent breakup, too?”
I scrunch up my nose in embarrassment when I realize how pathetic I must sound. “No, not really. Actually, it’s kind of a long story.”
“I’ve got time,” she assures me, tucking her legs beneath her.
“I honestly don’t even know where to start,” I say with a soft laugh. I hand her the thin blanket from the foot of the bed when I notice her arms are lined with goosebumps again. She accepts it gratefully, and I’m also thankful for a temporary reprieve from the temptation to check her out.
“The guy on your emergency contact list, your brother-in-law, is he the doctor-brother you mentioned before?” she prompts me.
“Ah, no. But he’s kind of the main character, ironically enough.”
She glares at me. “Go on.”
I hesitate for another second before deciding I might as well trust her with this, too. “He was my college roommate and my closest friend, and I recently found out that he and my baby sister kind of eloped in secret.”
Her brow shoots up. “The plot thickens.”
“Yeah. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really happy for them. But it feels pretty crappy knowing that my two favorite people hid their marriage from me, especially since they weren’t even supposed to be romantically involved.”
“Oh, wow,” she breathes. “That is shitty.”
I sigh. “I come from a large family, and even though there’s a pretty decent age gap between my youngest sister and me, we were particularly close. And my friend, well, he’s a great guy, but he’s not always the easiest to get along with. He’s also been adamantly anti-marriage until this.”
“And since you’ve had to be responsible for each of them in a way, it felt like a betrayal when they went behind your back,” she says for me.
“Yeah, a little,” I reply, the weight of that guilt and resentment I’ve been carrying around for the past month or so dissipating. “I know they both still care about me and that they didn’t mean to hurt me, but …”
“They did,” she confirms.
I nod and reach up to scratch my neck again. “It doesn’t help that I’m officially the last of my nine siblings left unmarried.”
She blanches. “And it’s no fun riding solo over the holidays, especially when everyone else is paired up.”
“Right. I’d actually just gotten a text from him about the big church ceremony they’re planning when I sat down for that dinner tonight. He wants me to be his best man, of course.”
“So you were already in your feelings when that allergic reaction knocked you on your ass? Oh, Rowan,” she laments.
“There’s more,” I say on another long exhale.
“More?” she asks, her eyes wide.
I cringe. I’m probably not doing myself any favors by admitting the rest of this, but I’m too far in to stop now.