Page 57 of Doctor Enemy

Lori finally says, “Then ask me.”

I frown at her. “What?”

“Ask me to be your girlfriend,” Lori insists.

My heart skips a beat.

Her cheeks are bright pink.

My whole body feels lighter when I put more weight into my arms, leaning even further forward to ask her, “Lori, will you be my girlfriend?”

“Yes,” she says. “I will.”

There’s a pause, the barest hint of a smile on her face under that blush. Her tone turns teasing when she adds on, “And I suppose you can pamper meonce in a whileif you really want to.”

Chapter twenty

Lori

Itfeelslikethenext four months happen in a whirlwind of emotions.

Whenever we’re not at work, Kurt is taking me somewhere. Out for dinner, to the theater for a play, to the museum to look at a new art exhibit. His hands are always curled around mine, like he can’t bear letting go lest I slip away.

And when he looks at me from the opposite side of the hospital halls as we pass each other during busy workdays, the expression that he wears makes me certain that I’ve made the right choice.

I’ve been trying to come to terms with life after my accident. I haven’t said it out loud yet—the same way that I haven’t driven a car again yet—but the fact of the matter is… I almost died. And I almost died, not anywhere close to where I wanted to be in life.

My whole world had been about working and trying to impress the people I worked with.

Now, I’m more focused on just trying to enjoy the world around me and trying to be a little happier. And you know what?

Kurt Lockwood makes me happy.

It doesn’t matter if other people don’t understand it. He makes me feel seen and wanted.

But what's got me the most excited right now, he wants to buy a house with me.

“Somewhere a smidge bigger than the studio,” Kurt had joked, just this morning over coffee. “More space for the both of us. And you won’t have to go home when the weekend is up just because you’ve run out of clean clothes.”

The idea has been in my mind all day, leaving me giddy and light during rounds. When I get into the doctors’ lounge and spot Cara on the couch, I make a beeline toward her.

“Care Bear!”

Cara tilts her head back, looking at me almost upside down. “Come on, Lori. I told you that I hate that nickname.”

“Better than Olive,” says Olivia, from where she’s waiting for the coffee pot to finish brewing. “You know, after Popeye’s girl.”

“They’re both cute and fitting,” I say, brushing their concerns off with a wave of my hand. “Hey, Olivia.”

Cara nods at me, her eyebrows raised in question. She’s been trying to get the dirty details about why I’ve been drifting away from Olivia lately.

We haven’t spoken very much in the last four months. Not since she cut me off during our video call.

Olivia seems determined to have put down the line ofhe’s too old for youand doesn’t want anything to do with me now that I’ve decided not to listen.

A part of me will always mourn the loss of our friendship, but that grief is drowned out by the glee of sharing my super exciting news with Cara.

I perch on the arm of the couch, legs hanging over the edge. Pulling out my phone, I pull up the listing of the hilltop house that we’re looking at. It’s all glass walls and excellent views, close enough to the park that you could walk there. “Look at this.”

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