When we reached my doorstep, Henry indulged my need to get the pumpkins just right on the stoop. I’d never decorated for Halloween before so I didn’t know what qualified asjust right, but we debated every possible arrangement until after the sun went down.
Again, I was struck by the sense that we’d done this for years and years. That he’d always lugged our pumpkins home and then watched while I fussed over them forever. That we’d stood in the inky evening darkness, staring at the stoop from across the street with our arms locked around each other, admiring our handiwork.
And yet, when we went inside, I didn’t know what to do with Henry—or myself. I didn’t know if I was supposed to drag him into the bedroom or cook some miraculous meal from the cheese and apples we’d bought or do some other amazing thing that I didn’t know about because I hadn’t dated in ages.
In the end, I leaned into the best and worst thing we had in common. “Do you like doctor games?”
He arched a brow as he failed to fight off a dirty grin. “Do they involve you getting naked and waiting for me to come into your bedroom to check you out? Because yes. Definitely yes.”
I tossed a dishtowel at him. “Not that kind of game.”
He rounded the kitchen island, his hands open like this was an idea fit for juggling. “Then I get naked and wait for you?”
I yelped as he pulled me into his arms and off my feet. “No, no one gets naked.”
“Tell me about this game,” he said against my neck. I loved it when he talked to my skin. And that beard?Gahhh.Goose bumps forever. “I’ll decide if it would be better naked.”
Laughing, I said, “It’s a game Meri and I play where we watch movies and diagnose the injuries.”
“Is the objective to diagnose quickly? Or diagnose the most injuries?”
“Both,” I said, “although we usually play this while drinking wine and we forget about the rules after the first hour.”
Henry set me down and backed me against the island, his arms caging me in. There weren’t many times when I felt small. Short, yes, but rarely small. Though being here with him looming over me, hips pinning me in place and those tree-branch biceps at eye level, I got a taste of it. There was a primitive appeal to his size, his strength. If I closed my eyes right now, I could let myself believe that everything would be all right as long as I had my big, strong mountain man to protect me from—from everything.
Naturally, he said, “Even more reason to do this naked.”
“We’ll start fully dressed,” I said, “and see where it goes from there.”
“Ahhh. Now that’s the kind of challenge I can get my hands around.”
“Don’t be so sure of yourself. I have quite the win record.”
He shoved his hands into my back pockets and gave my ass the kind of squeeze that said he intended to win by any means necessary. “Does Meri usually do this while you’re playing?”
I slipped a hand between us, cupping his shaft over his jeans. “No, but I don’t usually do this either.”
He grinned down at me, his eyes dark and filled with promises I really wanted him to keep. “Such a scrappy little fighter you are. Love that about you.”
All over again, I was inside a memory.
“Eardrum!”Henry shot to his feet, jabbing a finger at the screen. “Ruptured eardrum. Bilateral. Concussion and—and clavicle fracture!”
“Are you kidding me?” I muted the movie as the battle scene faded to black. The good guys won. “I’ll give you the eardrums but that clavicle is fine.”
“He slammed into a boulder.” He jabbed that finger at the screen again. “The dude was thrown into a giant fucking rock, Whitney. It’s either a busted clavicle or many cracked ribs. Or both! And then there’s the possibility of a collapsed lung.”
I tipped my chin up as the final scene started. “And yet here he is, walking around with nothing more than a few appropriately masculine scratches on his cheek. Breathing, too.”
Henry stared down at me where I’d cozied into the corner of the sofa. With his hands on his hips and looking fully perturbed with my comments, he said, “Just because you can’t see the vestibular injuries doesn’t mean they’re not real.”
He took this game far more seriously than Meri and I did and it was adorable. Thoroughly charming. Especially the part where he took all of my responses seriously. I’d realized early on that he intended to diagnose every single injury he could. The only thing to do was argue with him about all of them. There was absolutely no fun in letting him be right. What kind of game was that?
Henry pressed a hand to his chest. “It’s a good thing you found your way to transplant surgery but—and I say this with love—you’d lose more than a few trauma patients.”
“Would I?” I took a sip of wine, feigning a whole lot of shock. “Because I’m pretty sure I spotted a cracked pelvis, two liver lacerations, and multiple catastrophic knee and ankle injuries that you didn’t mention.”
“I…what?” He glanced to the screen as the credits rolled. “Have you—for fuck’s sake, Whit, you’ve been playing me this whole time?”
