“I didn’t realize Liv had a boyfriend.” Adam looks at me and then at Liv. He must see the murderous look on my face because it’s only then that his face pales.
“Oh, you forgot me from yesterday, huh?”
Adam looks anywhere but at us and quickly grabs for the door handle leading out of the stairwell. “Bye, Liv. Sorry, if I misread the signals.” The words leave him in a rush, “I’ll see you in class.”
The door slams shut, and the sounds of my exhale fill the stairwell.
Liv looks at me with her big doe eyes. “Signals?” She shakes her head back and forth. “No way.”
I bring my hand up and run the pad of my thumb over her lips as I step closer. “Was he trying to kiss you?”
She answers my question with a question. “What if he was?”
I move closer to her. My lips ghost over her neck, inching toward her ear. “That would not be a good idea.”
I hear the uptake of her breath as the hair on her neck rises beneath my lips, grazing up and down her neck. I make my way to her mouth, kiss her gently and step away. “I have a problem with guys hitting on my girlfriend.”
She raises her hand to my cheek. “I have a problem with girls hitting on my boyfriend,” she counters.
“You don’t have to worry about me wanting another woman, Liv. I only want you. Since that day at the beach, you are the only thing I have wanted. Come on, I have surgery to get to, and I think you have clinical, right?”
She nods. I open the door to the stairwell, and we walk hand in hand down the hall eliciting a stare or two from hospital staff, wondering who this woman I have on my arm is. We get to the elevators, and I hand her bag back to her and place a chaste kiss on her lips.
“I’ll call you later.”
I walk away and turn before heading toward the operating room as she steps into the elevator. I throw her a wink, and she rolls her eyes and smiles as she hits the button for her floor.
The days are long. The traumas never cease, but I get through my surgeries and walk across the parking lot to our office suites. It makes it convenient to have our offices next to the hospital. In a few months, we will open our own surgery center to do elective cases instead of going to the main OR for elective cases. This won’t affect me much because I do mostly trauma, and those are more acute care patients needing a hospital stay. My fellowship in trauma is going great, and I love my job. I’m glad I branched out and decided not to follow in my father’s footsteps with sports medicine. This field is much more exciting than repairing ACL injuries on athletes and the not-so-athletic. I enter the building and am greeted by the receptionist as I make my way through the employee door.
As I’m making my way to my soon-to-be office, I pass my father’s door, and he calls out to me. “Hey, Dax. Can you come into my office for a minute? I need to talk to you.”
I head in, and he closes the door after me, extending his arm toward a seat. “What’s up, Dad? I just got out of surgery and have a few things I need to catch up on.”
He sits and steeples his hands together. “Your mom and I wanted to remind you about her fundraiser for the hospital. As you know, she works very hard with her committee to make the Ride the Waves fundraiser a success for our hospital. Being the committee chair, she wants to ensure you are in attendance…” he trails off.
My mom does this every fall. She considers it her baby. Raising money for various hospital departments to ensure they get something they need that isn’t in the capital budget. Last year it went to the labor and delivery unit to provide new ultrasound machines for the gynecologists and fetal heart tone monitors at the bedside.
“As you also know, the money will be going to our department this year.”
He moves toward the back of his office, staring out the window—no doubt contemplating all the things he’d like to get with that money. I am sure it is some million-dollar piece of equipment. He turns abruptly back to me, pinning me in my seat.
“Your mom wants you to bring a suitable date. I thought I would give you ample time.”
I laugh. “Suitable date? What does that even mean?”
He quirks his lip and says, “Yeah, you know, someone that isn’t going to embarrass your mom.”
I sit up straighter and level my dad for the shock of his lifetime. “Well, I thought I might bring my girlfriend to it this year.”
His jaw practically hits the floor.
He blinks a few times and shakes his head as if he misheard me. “You have a girlfriend?”
I can understand his shock. I’ve really never had a girlfriend. I’ve played the field since high school and fucked a lot of women. With a singular goal of my career at the forefront, I was only afforded the potential for random hookups and one-night stands. That was my go-to, and he knows it. Although I try to keep it from getting around, the rumor mill here is something else always making it far worse than it is. I never saw myself in a relationship, but I have also never met the right person.
“Her name is Liv.”
With that introduction, I began to tell my dad when and how I met Liv. He listens with interest, but I can tell from his eyes he isn’t sure how serious I am. Like he’s waiting for me to say, “gotcha!” and come clean that it was a joke. That, of course, doesn’t happen.
