We stood up, our hands clasped, and made our way up the steps. Her words rolled around in my head. Spending time together sounded great to me. I didn’t even have to think hard about what I wanted to do next. “So next weekend a good friend of mine is coming into town. I was wondering if you would like to be my date for dinner? We’ll double.”
Emma grinned and poked me in the chest. “I thought you didn’t have friends, Mr. Independent.”
I laughed and raised my hands in defeat. “Okay, I have one friend … To be honest, that is probably a very literal statement.”
Emma chuckled. “Absolutely. I would love it.” She tucked herself into my side, and I couldn’t help but notice how perfectly she fit there. “Thanks for making me a part of your world too.”
The amazing thing about Emma was that it wasn’t even hard to do.
Chapter Twenty
Emma
I’d never thought of myself as the kind of person who would live for the weekends, but these last two weeks at work, all I could do was watch the clock tick slowly toward Friday.
I still loved my job. The challenge of it, helping people—I was genuinely happy during the day. But there was always a part of me that yearned to be close to Alex. I couldn’t get enough of him.
Wekept things professional while we were at the hospital. For the most part. We stole longing looks, and he’d wink at me in passing. Each time, my heart soared. He had this uncanny way of making my heart feel … lighter.
Lighter was good. For so long, I’d been weighed down by Eric’s choices and the feeling that I wasn’t good enough, beautiful enough, desirable. I’d worked on feeling those things about myself without the help of a man and made great strides in my self-confidence. But there was something about having a hot doctor’s blue eyes warm at the very sight of me that did great things for me.
On top of knowing that I was going spend a whole evening with Alex—and there weren’t professional boundaries to keep—I was curious about this friend. He hadn’t said much about his past, and I couldn’t help but wonder, and feel a little bit anxious, about how I would fit in with these people. Would they be brash New Yorkers from his residency, or more West Coast chill from his undergrad program? Though I could never imagine Alex as West Coast chill. Suddenly, a picture of him trying to relax on a beach popped into my head, and I laughed out loud.
Becca popped her head into the bathroom where I was doing my hair. “What is so funny?”
My great friend was all sorts of supportive of Alex and me becoming a thing. She teased me about how handsome he was and how I’d stopped denying that I’d noticed. Oh, I’d noticed, all right. I noticed that his smooth jaw was totally kissable and his scruffy jaw tickled when it rubbed against my neck. Let’s just say it took us a while to say good night on my doorstep after the ball game.
“Nothing. I was just imagining Alex trying to relax on a beach, and it didn’t seem right.”
Becca folded her arms and leaned against the doorframe. “You’ve got it bad, you know.”
I shot her a scowl. “We just started dating. Literally—second date tonight.”
“You’re giddy,” she countered.
I bit my lip and focused on pinning up the curls on the right side of my head. Getting to this point had been a huge leap for me, and I was happy here. I didn’t want to rush into something and regret that jump.
Becca sighed. “That isn’t a bad thing, Emma. I’m happy for you. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you excited about something in your life. It’s nice to see you take care of yourself for once.”
She implied that I wasn’t excited about life. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, except that I’d spent a lot of time focusing on other things than my social life. “Thanks. I think?” I grinned back at her.
She gave me a quick hug. “Tell Dr. Mitchell if he breaks your heart, I’ll break his legs.”
I shoved her away. “You’ll have to beat Chad to it.”
She laughed and punched her fist into her other hand. “We’ll team up.”
I threw a bobby pin at her. She ducked like a ninja and took off down the hallway. I was grateful to have such a good friend looking out for me, but sometimes she was a little overprotective. I’d started this whole thing with Alex. It was my choice to ask him out, and I didn’t have any regrets about it at all.
Alex picked me up at five, and we made our way to a pizza shop on Michigan Avenue. He held my hand as we drove. His car had leather seats that enveloped me in luxury. It still had that new car smell, and there wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere.
“Okay, tell me who we are meeting. I’m curious,” I ventured.
Alex chuckled. “It isn’t a secret; you could have asked if you wanted to know.”
“I know. I just didn’t want you to feel like I was prying.”
“Emma, for you, I’m an open book. You can ask me anything you’d like to know. Nothing is off limits.”
