Page 30 of French Kiss

Maddox looked as wiped out as I felt, but it was par for the course for us. This was our reality, and as grueling as it had been, I’d gotten used to the pace. I had no idea what was in store for me when I started in private practice, so there was comfort in familiarity.

We drank our beers in silence. I thought back on the tough surgical case from that morning and started to let go. “I still can’t believe that case went on so long. Can you believe the size of that mass?”

Maddox shook his head. “That was something I hope I’ll never see again.”

“So… do you have any idea where you want to travel this summer?”

He shook his head again, gazing at me, his lazy eyes sweet and focused. I couldn’t look away from the blue.

“I just want to get away,” he said.

“I’ve always wanted to hike an Alp in Switzerland. And see Michelangelo’s David.” Because I had a thing for hard bodies.

“Sounds nice.” He leaned in a little closer. I tried not to read anything into it. The bar was packed and it was a little hard to hear in there. But something was different that night, because Maddox wasn’t joking around like he usually did. He was spending more time looking at me while I talked, nodding like he wanted me to keep going. I was starting to get mesmerized by his stare.

“You know, Rea and I broke up,” he cut in abruptly, watching my face to see how I’d react.

“Yeah, I heard. You okay with it?” I asked.

Maddox shrugged. “I guess. It was time. I don’t honestly know what happened?”

“Really? So one day you were dating, and the next you weren’t? You had nothing to do with any of it?”

“Very funny. I don’t mean it like that.” He leaned back on his barstool and looked up like he was trying to divine information from the ceiling tiles. I waited, not about to give him an easy out by telling him what I thought. I wanted him to come to terms with his issues himself. “I guess things got real. She wanted to be part of my life after residency, and I didn’t know how to do that.”

“Didn’t know because you couldn’t come up with an idea for how to have a long-distance relationship? Or because you wanted things to end?”

He looked annoyed, like I wasn’t getting it or was just being difficult so he’d be forced to say things out loud that he didn’t feel like admitting. I didn’t care. I was tired of being his armchair psychologist and watching him go through relationships with every woman in the world but me.

“I don’t know how to get to the next step. The early part of a relationship is easy. It’s all romantic, first kisses and great sex…”

“Yes. I’m familiar,” I said. I didn’t need to hear about the sex.

“Then the questions start, and even if she’s not asking where things are going, I’m waiting for her to ask until eventually she does, and I can’t answer, and then it ends.”

“So one of these days you need to figure out what it looks like. After the beginning.”

“I guess what I’m realizing… and please don’t get freaked out by this… but when I’m with these other women, eventually, I start comparing them to you.”

I wasn’t expecting that.

My heart started racing and I struggled to keep the heat from rising in my cheeks. And the surge of feeling between my inner thighs.

That was not what I was expecting him to say. In all the time we’d known each other, I’d never gotten the impression he thought of me at all other than as a voice on the other end of the phone, walking him through his intellectual needs, or a willing object of flirtation that went nowhere.

“What do you mean by that, exactly?” I asked.

I needed him to make good on his overblown statements about me. About us. For once.

He exhaled like he’d been holding in this secret for months and was finally relieved of its burden. “Wow, it felt good to say it.”

But it didn’t feel good to me, not yet. “Maddox, I’m confused.” He could have dated me if he’d wanted to, but he’d always laughed the concept off, like it was just part of our banter.

“Okay, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve always held you up as this unattainable woman, someone who I could only aspire to date—”

“But—”

He held up a hand to cut me off. “I know, I know. Why did I never ask you out? Because what if it didn’t work out?”

---