That stops her. “You… haven’t?”
I shrug.
The truth is, I’ve spent most of my adult life in hospital corridors. I measure time by shifts, traumacodes, and how many hours I can go without sleep before I start making mistakes.
Kids were never a no.
They were just never a now.
“I’m an only child,” I tell her. “So I suppose it was always assumed I’d be the one to bring a football team into the family, or at least a respectable five.”
She huffs out a weak laugh.
“But I’m married to my work,” I continue. “And some people might say the selfish thing would be not to have children.” I choose my next words carefully because I don’t want her to hear coldness where there isn’t any. “I think the opposite,” I go on. “I think it would be selfish of me to have them if I couldn’t give them the time they deserve. Kids don’t need a father who loves them in theory. They need one who’s there.”
There’s a flicker in her expression.
“I know what it’s like,” I add, more gently, “to grow up with expectations attached to you. I wouldn’t want a child to feel as if they were brought into the world because it was the logical next step.”
Her shoulders lose their tension.
“Me too,” she confesses, barely above a whisper.
And that… that feels a little like trust coming from her.
We stand there in it for a moment before I tilt my head. “The dog, though?”
Her brows lift.
“I like the idea of a dog.”
A reluctant smile pulls at her mouth. “Of course you do.”
“Golden retriever. Commit to the cliché.”
She exhales a small laugh, tension bleeding from her posture. “They’re high maintenance.”
“I’d walk it. I run at unreasonable hours anyway.”
She studies me like she’s trying to decide whether I’m serious.
The thing is, I don’t know what my future looks like. I never have. Medicine teaches you that plans are fragile and life pivots in seconds.
But standing here in 3B with a copper-haired woman in ridiculous slippers and too much bravery tucked behind her ribs, I know this: Whatever shape my life takes, I don’t want it dictated by expectations.
And if that shape includes her arguing with me over dog names at midnight?
I think I could live with that.
Which sounds fucking crazy. I know it.
I’ve spent one night with this woman, and suddenly a white picket fence flickers at the edge of my mind.
This isn’t me.
I deal in data. In lab results and scans and outcomes you can measure. I trust science. Not the vast, uncharted territory of whatever the hell we’re standing in the middle of right now.
Is this what she does to people? Slips under their skin and rearranges the furniture from the inside out?
