Page 29 of French Kiss

12

The End, With a Twist

Later that Night

San Francisco

It was onlytwo weeks until I was set to fly to Amsterdam to start my vacation. I’d made no secret of my intention to spend a month in Europe after we finished residency. I didn’t know when I’d have that kind of time again, and the job I’d lined up didn’t start until August. I’d been planning my vacation for months, even before I knew Shelby and Amrita would be able to come along.

“Wait, you’ll be in Europe this summer too?” Maddox asked, elated by the news. He seemed as surprised to learn I’d be there as I was to hear his plans, even though he had to have known about my trip.

“Yes, we talked about this. I’ve been telling people nonstop ever since I bought the ticket. You really don’t remember any of this?”

“Nope. Maybe you talked about it but not to me. I’d remember. Anyhow, I’m going to visit Josh and his family, and then I have no plans. I figured I’d travel. And now that I know you’ll be there, we for sure have to meet up.”

Josh had been born and raised in Berlin until he was ten, at which time his parents moved to Washington, DC, where his mother worked for the embassy. Josh lived in DC until he moved to Boston for college. A few years later, his parents moved back to Berlin because the rest of his family still lived there. He’d been planning to spend part of the summer with his parents before starting his job in San Francisco. He was one of the only ones from our program who’d be joining a practice there. I’d figured at some point in my month of travel, I’d make my way to Berlin for a visit, but since I wanted to keep my itinerary loose, I hadn’t committed to anything yet.

“So you’re going to Berlin?” I asked, still thinking I hadn’t heard him right.

“I’m going there, but I don’t know where I’m going after that. Except now I do. I’m meeting up with you. Location TBD.”

My heart started beating faster and I wished it would calm down. But the fantasies were already forming in my head and I did my best to ignore them. It’s just friends meeting up like we’d do here.

“Sure. We’ll see.” Maybe it would be nice to meet up with a familiar face somewhere along the way. I treated it casually because he’d said it casually. And because… Maddox. He was all talk.

“No. I mean it,” he said, pulling me aside after dinner to talk about it in more detail. “We should really meet. I’d love to see you in Europe. Can you imagine? Just us, with unlimited time to talk and drink wine and watch sunsets?”

“You know we can do that here, right?” I needed to keep it light, still unsure if he was implying anything more than two friends meeting for a beer. I steeled myself in advance, telling myself of course that’s all he was implying.

“But it’ll be Europe. We can stay up all night by the banks of some river and watch the boats go by without worrying about missing call the next day. And we’ll be there together.” His eyes never left mine, and it got harder to believe he wasn’t suggesting that we were going to hook up. He’d broken up with his most recent girlfriend, the one from the poke place, and for once, he and I were both single.

I didn’t know how seriously to take Maddox’s fantastical pronouncements about our meetup. I lived in a concrete, scientific world where people came up with ideas or hypotheses and carried out the plans and experiments to bring those ideas to fruition. That was the point.

And after all the innuendo and mixed messages, I wanted a concrete result. I wanted to know, one way or the other, if my fantasy of his soft lips crashing into mine would ever happen .

As we all peeled off in different directions for home, Maddox suggested he and I stop off at a pub around the corner from the hospital for a beer. Josh had met up with some residents from a different department who were having a party, and a few of our friends went with him. I was focused on Maddox and on getting an answer to the questions that had been bugging me for months: Would he ever make good on his suggestion that if only…? And how would it feel to kiss him?

“Sure. I’m not ready to go home yet,” I said.

The pub was half-empty when we walked in, but the small tables at the back were all taken, so we grabbed two seats at the bar and ordered. The bartender poured our beers and slipped them onto cardboard coasters emblazoned with an ad for a dance club down the block. We clinked glasses. One sip in, I felt a wave of exhaustion pass over me. The complicated case, the graduation, the anticipation of residency ending—it was all behind me. My day was finally winding down after what felt like an eternity.

“I have no idea what time it even is,” I said. I hadn’t looked at my phone or checked for messages. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t in the mood to communicate with anyone else.

“I think it’s after eleven, though you wouldn’t know it from here. This place always has people in it,” Maddox said.

“I’m almost comatose. I hope you weren’t counting on scintillating conversation from me.”

“Ha. Even at your most comatose, you’re a more interesting date than most.” The word date hung in the air, undefined.

I looked around the bar, which had neon beer lights and old license plates for decor. “If this counts as a date for you, maybe I’m not so sad we’ve never dated.”

He laughed. “Oh, come on, this place? It’s quality. Besides, it’s about the couple, not the location. And we’re loads of fun.”

“We are. Two residents who can barely stand up and just need to eat some fat and carbs because we’re counting up our US recommended daily allowance.”

“Exactly. We’re a party. And by the way, as of this morning, we’re no longer residents.”

“True. A toast to that,” I said, holding up my pint glass. He clinked his glass with mine and drank about half its contents.

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