“I’m fine.” My gaze lands on his wedding ring. If I remember correctly, he and his wife have an age gap.
His eyes follow to where I’m staring and he lifts a brow along with his hand. “Are you getting married? Are you nervous? You don’t strike me as the nervous type, Dr. Carrington.”
“I have a question, but it isn’t appropriate for work.”
He frowns. “Listen, you’re a nice guy. A great doctor, but I’m married and I’m not?—”
“No! No, what? No, that’s not what I’m getting at. Never mind. I’m sorry I said anything. It’s been an odd few days for me. That’s all. Is there anything I can help you with, Dr. Warrick?”
“Elias.”
I’m a little shocked he’d use my first name.
“We’ll be working together for a while. I’d like to say we can be friends. If you have a personal question, ask it. I’m an open book.”
“You and your wife, Dove. There’s an age gap?”
“Around twenty years,” he answers honestly.
My eyes almost fall out of my head. I knew it was a big difference, but I wasn’t expecting twenty years. “It doesn’t bother you?”
“It did. In the beginning. She was so young in my eyes, just starting her life. I felt like I couldn’t take that from her—you know—her youth.”
I nod because that’s the exact way I feel, even though I don’t even know my mystery woman’s name. I’m acting as if she and I are going to get married.
“And now…” Dr. Warrick smiles, his gaze drifting into space. “Now, I realize I saved my best years for her. I have a beautiful child and one on the way. My life is better. Brighter. And I feel younger. I’m happy. I thought I was happy before, pouring myself into work, focusing on the job, and not making time for anything else.”
He eyes me warily. “But she made me realize there was more. There’s so much more than this.” He waves a hand in the air, gesturing to the hospital around us. “There’s so much more to life.” He cocks his head, analyzing me as he begins to piece things together. “You met someone? She’s younger?”
“By seventeen years. I don’t know if I can go down that road.”
“Why? Does she want to?”
I furrow my brows. “I think so.” I know she’d at least like to talk more. “She said the age gap doesn’t bother her. I didn’t message her back. I thought it was better that way.”
He folds his hands together. “Mmm,” he hums, not adding anything, but it sounds like he doesn’t agree with me at all. “Well, I can’t tell you what you should and shouldn’t be comfortable with. If you’re bothered by it that much, then I agree, walk away, but you could be walking away from the one person who could change your life for the better if you allowed it.”
“It isn’t serious. We’re barely even speaking, but she said her age, and my brain malfunctioned.”
He chuckles. “It’s a good thing you aren’t a brain surgeon,” he teases.
“Funny.” I narrow my eyes, laugh, then lace my fingers behind my head and lean back in my chair. “She brought fresh air into my life so quickly, and I want to feel it again. I forgot how good it felt to…” I trail off.
“To?” he pushes.
“Hope,” I answer with a tinge of sadness.
I’m not the hopeful type. I decided to be a doctor after my mom died when I was thirteen. She had a brain aneurysm, and she would have survived, if the doctor hadn’t made a mistake. I knew right then what I wanted to be when I grew up. I never wanted another family to lose what I’d lost due to a doctor’s inability to do his job.
I didn’t just lose my mom that night. I lost my dad too. He didn’t die, but grief consumed him. He’s an alcoholic, and I haven’tseen or talked to him in years. I don’t know how he is or if he’s alive. The last time I saw him, he was stealing from me to pay for a bottle of whatever he could get his hands on. I told him if he didn’t go to rehab, we were done.
So. We were done.
Yet this fucking woman breezes into my life in one night by mistake and infects me with her joy, and I want more of it.
I need more of it.
I only like to depend on myself. It’s better than way, easier, more efficient. I know the one person I can count on is myself.
