Page 15 of Fix Me Up

“Nothing else making your life amazing these days?” Ruby asks, cutting her eyes in Owen’s direction.

“Nope. Not a thing,” I say with a smile, squirting a large pool of ketchup on my plate and then dipping a fry into it.

She rolls her eyes, defeated in her attempt to gain some gossip. “Well, when you think of anything else, you let me know.”

Owen and I chuckle over this as she walks away, and we turn our attention to our burgers and fries.

“How’d someone with all that fancy schooling end up in our tiny town anyway?” He then picks up two fries at a time with those big hands and dips them both into the puddle of ketchup on his plate.

“I’ve known Rebel for years,” I tell him. “We were online friends through gaming interactions, and then we started going to cons together.”

“Cons?” Owen asks, tearing off a piece of fry for Graham and letting him gnaw on it.

“Conventions.”

“What kind of conventions?”

I smile. “If I tell you, do you promise not to hold it against me?”

Owen squints, takes a long sip of his strawberry milkshake, and then says, “Daisy, I wake up every morning thinking about ways to win you over. I’m not judging a single thing about you.”

Well, when you put it that way.

“It’s super nerdy stuff. Love Games kind of stuff. We became really close friends. Her story is not mine to tell, but she met her now-husband Rhys at one of those conventions and moved to Fate to be with him.

“One day, she called me and said this town needs a real doctor because the old one was one degree away from prescribing his patients leeches to cure rheumatoid arthritis. I knew about the town, but I’d never been here before. I came for a visit, and fell in love. And that was that.”

It’s not until we’ve eaten our burgers and fries and moved on to our giant slices of cherry pie that I notice other townsfolk watching us.

I guess the conversation has been that engaging that I haven’t been worrying about anyone else paying attention.

Unfortunately, Graham has had enough of the high chair, so we take our cherry pies to go.

Despite my protests, Owen pays for us both.

Outside, I help him buckle the cranky Graham into his stroller.

“Thanks for going on a date with me,” he says.

“It’s not a date if you have your kid with you,” I say.

Owen laughs. “Fair.”

“Was that your plan all along? Saving me from being crushed and then easing me into a date with you and Graham?”

“Not exactly, but did it work?”

I consider this as we walk back to the square where our cars are parked.

“Maybe. But we’re still friends, right?”

“Right. But I’m still not your patient.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“Unlock your phone and give it to me, Doc,” he says.

As a rule, I do not care for bossy men. But I do it anyway because it’s not just any man. It’s Owen, and he’s my friend. I watch as he adds his contact info to my virtual address book. When he hands my phone back to me, the brief touch of his index finger against the inside of my wrist is a zing I’m not ready for.

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