Page 24 of Doctor Charmer

She steps closer, placing her hand on my shoulder. A tender touch of familiarity and history. “If you could see the poor look on your face. You got it bad.” She laughs. “I never recall you looking so pathetic when you were hung up on me.”

My eyelashes flutter as I process her words. Angie has seen me in every state, from my highest to my lowest. Her words mean a lot. “I’m too old for games.” I lay out my concern. It’s the reason I stopped dating some time ago.

“Don’t tell me. Tell her.” She makes it sound so simple. And maybe it should be. She pushes a stray tendril of hair from her face. “You knew me for how many years before you came clean and told me you had feelings for me?”

I lower my head, a period of time I don’t like to revisit. To be honest with myself, I carried a torch for Angie for nearly a decade. From the days she started medical school and began dropping by the hospital to visit my mentor, who just so happened to be her father. I thought I’d grow out of it, but when she began her residency at Eastport, all it did was kick up to another level. I justified keeping my feelings hidden from her out of some sort of twisted show of respect for her father. But secretly, I feared she never shared the same feelings.

“So, are you advising me to fail fast?” I’m only half-joking. It wasn’t until Angie met Brayton, and I realized how quickly things were moving that I told her about my feelings. I still remember holding my heart in my hand, having never felt so exposed in my life.

She’s a kind soul. To this day, I’m appreciative of how she handled such a delicate situation. She could teach a master class on how to let a guy down gently. But at the end of the day, I failed. Hence my comment.

“Actually, yes,” she snaps back. “Don’t beat around the bush. You’re not getting any younger.” She snickers to soften the blow. I’ll be forty-three in April. Friends my age now have kids entering middle school. “Do you need me to walk with you?”

“Nah, I think I’m capable enough to walk up to a woman and talk to her.”

“Even if it’s a woman you have potent feelings for?”

I pause, not believing I’m having this conversation. I interact and meet with women every single day. I am comfortable, attentive, charming even. Why has this one felt different from the beginning?

“Be honest with yourself too,” Angie continues to probe. “And I say this from a place of love and respect.” Her gaze captures mine and doesn’t let go. She wants to have my complete attention, and she does.

“Make sure your interest in her is about her.” She pauses and must read the confusion on my face. “Okay, you’re going to make me state the obvious.” Angie takes a deep inhale. “Reggie, you have a type.”

“A type?” I rub my chin and try to decipher her words. “Is this a Black thing?”

Her lips curl up into a bright smile. “You tell me,” she says. And I realize Angie thinks my interest in Ivy might be because of the color of her skin. The fact that she and Angie are both African American hadn’t crossed my mind until just now. “I didn’t say that you did.” She places one hand in the other in front of her. “What I meant is she’s younger than you. She’s smart. She’s beautiful. She’s an extrovert. Do I need to continue to list all the Reggie Morgan triggers?”

I shake my head. “I still don’t see the concern. I like smart, outgoing, beautiful women. When did that become a crime?”

“It’s not.”

“What am I missing, Angie?”

“All I’m saying is choose the woman in front of you and not the vision of the woman in your head. We are more than a two-dimensional image. It’s not science or math. Love is chemistry.”

She connects the pieces that I had been unable to see. “Only one way to find out which it is.”

“Only one way,” Angie repeats like a good hype man. “Go. Spend time with her. Find out which it is.” She points behind her to the door.

I hook my arm around her shoulder and pull her toward the door. “I think I liked you better when you used to hold your tongue.”

“Just spreading the joy and giving you a nudge. Women that shake up your world don’t come along every day. Go see if there’s something there.”

We laugh, and I close the door behind us before striding toward the elevator. I bounce on my toes as I watch the elevator eight floors away begin a slow descent down to us. When it stops for the second time, Angie snickers next to me.

“Go take the steps. I won’t be offended,” she offers, and I don’t fight the feeling. I mouth the wordthanksover my shoulder as I race to the stairwell with a smile on my face and a happy beat in my chest.

Chapter Thirteen

Ivy

They’re adorable. I adjust the earplugs in my ear, my music so low I forgot I have it streaming. I eavesdrop on the conversation taking place four feet in front of me, but to them, I could be on the moon.

Griffin is sitting on Chelsea’s bed, their hips practically touching as she taunts him with the card in her hand.

“Ace of hearts,” she repeats between giggles. “You have to tell me the one thing you love the absolute mostest in the whole wide world.” She’s beaming. Outside of the fact that her leg hangs in a sling, this conversation could take place back on campus, on the quad, or in the dorm. Well, maybe not the dorm, not with the way she’s looking at him right now.

“Hmmm, let’s see.” He milks the moment, a playful tap of his finger on the tip of his chin.

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