“Don’t you have work to do? Things to ‘prepare’.” She put emphasis on ‘prepare’ and wiggled her eyebrows.
“Pervert.” I grinned at her, walking away. I stopped myself and turned suddenly, popping my head back into the room. “By the way – do you want to go out for lunch today, or stay in?”
“Let’s just stay in. It’s too cold and I brought my own lunch,” she replied, not looking away from the computer screen. I nodded.
“Okay, cool.” I darted back out into the corridor and began searching my pockets for the keys to Rowan’s door. Before I managed to locate them, however, I heard the sickening sound of the front door to the building being opened.
Naturally, it was who I was hoping it wasn’t going to be. Despite desperately wanting to spend more time with Rowan, I was suddenly nervous to see him. We locked eyes and he smiled at me, taking his coat off. Just as Rowan opened his mouth as if to say something, Becca appeared.
“Good morning,” she said cheerfully.
“Hello,” he replied, his eyes flickering to me once more. “Morning, Max.”
“Hey,” I muttered feebly, before hurriedly turning and climbing the stairs, taking two at a time. Rowan followed close behind me. I unlocked the door to the dental room, trying not to fumble with the keys.
“You’re early,” I said, feigning innocence.
“Yeah, couldn’t sleep,” he replied, mimicking my casual tone.
“Me either.”
The silence that followed suggested Rowan was also being bombarded with memories from the weekend. We busied ourselves with setting up for the day ahead. Catching a glimpse of the clock, I knew we’d run out of things to do before the first patient was due to arrive and would undoubtedly have to undertake some more forced small talk. I somehow didn’t feel as worried about that as I had been.
Rowan was clearly back to being his usual coy self, now he wasn’t hidden behind his phone. I filed the last stack of paperwork away, laying out the appointment list I had taken from Becca. When I turned, Rowan was sitting on his stool, trying to put the lead back into a pencil he’d broken before the Christmas break. It was almost funny, comparing how confident he had been the night before with how he was behaving now. Looking at his hands fumbling nervously with the pencil, I would have never guessed he was willing to have phone sex with me.
“I’m tired,” I sighed heavily, sitting down on the stool for the computer and leaning back against the counters. “How did your self-assessment thing go?” I asked him.
“It was rubbish,” Rowan replied, finally looking up at me. “I couldn’t focus at all.”
I found a small smile working its way onto my face, knowing I was the reason for that. “Sorry. You started it, though.” I heard Rowan laugh softly.
“I know,” he admitted. There was a small pause before he cleared his throat. “Did you have a good time at New Years?”
“Nah, it was awful,” I joked. He smirked at me, before throwing the pencil across the room in my direction. It missed me completely, so I poked my tongue out at him before turning to log into the computer.
Rowan walked across the room, picking up the appointment list and scanning through it. It was only when I turned to ask him who our first patient was, that I realised how close he was to me. My shoulder collided softly with his thigh. Rowan seemed oblivious to this however, as he frowned a little reading the names. He was surely aware of the proximity at least, as my shoulder rested comfortably against his leg – but if he were to glance down, I was certain he’d get some wonderful visual cues from the events that occurred in my bedroom.
Thankfully, he moved away from me to the narrow corridor leading to his office, patient sheet still in hand and began searching through one of the filing cabinets. He looked thoughtful as he pulled a rather thick file out and opened it up.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, getting to my feet and wandering over to Rowan.
“There’s a patient on here that I haven’t seen for, I don’t know – maybe five years. She’s had a lot of work done. She was in here every other week for a while. I was curious as to why she was back,” he muttered.
“What sort of work?” I asked curiously, leaning in to get a glimpse at the file.
“You name it, she’s had it. She was in a car accident a few years ago and the surgeons did a pretty poor job of reconstructing her jaw. She’s had terrible trouble with all the teeth on the right-hand side. Those teeth she still has, anyway.” He rubbed the back of his neck.
“That’s sad,” I sighed. It was people like this patient that really deserved Rowan. Bimbos and idiots who just wanted to waste his time made the queue to see him even longer for the people who really needed his help. I glanced at the patient’s name: Charlotte Perry. She was the last patient of the day.
Lunchtime rolled around quicker than I thought it would have. The extensive list of people booked in to see Rowan was whittled down, bit by bit. I tidied away the patient files I had gathered in a neat pile next to the computer, whilst Rowan quickly cleaned his equipment.
“Are you going out to lunch today?” he asked me, not looking up from what he was doing. I glanced across at him briefly.
“No. Becca and I are staying in today. It’s too cold to go out,” I replied.
“Good, that means I’ll get to see you,” Rowan answered simply. It took all my energy to keep my mouth closed. I knew he liked me now, but it still blew me away when he said things like that. I finished filing and headed for the door. Before I disappeared through it, I turned.
“I’ll see you there then?” Rowan didn’t reply, just looked up, nodded and smiled. I returned it, leaving and heading to the staff break room.
