Page 24 of The Doctor's Simple Life

Curse Gramma for finding out we had a day off today. Curse her for wanting to push us together in the weird hope that something might happen.

Curse me for agreeing to it.

“Oh,” he says. “You’re earlier than I thought you were going to be.”

“Then clearly, you don’t think very hard, do you?”

His mouth opens and closes again, and he chooses not to say anything else. He’s clearly not used to being talked to this way, but as I’ve been proving to him for the last two weeks, I’m not going to roll over and be nice to him just because he’s a hotshot and I’m not. Never mind the weird flirting he’s been doing over the last few days. That was probably his way of entertaining himself.

The fact is, I’m loved within my own community, which is enough for me. Whatever personal issues he’s got going on are his own problem.

“Okay, well. Let’s go.” I turn around and don’t bother waiting for him. He can catch up.

He jogs up to match my pace, then says, “Where are we going today?”

“I’d have brought you out earlier,” I say, “but nothing’s really open on Main Street until ten, and I wanted to take you shopping.”

“Shopping?” He groans, his whole face falling in disappointment. Good. Maybe if he hates this enough, he’ll backtrack his agreement to see the other sights with me.

“More window shopping than anything,” I say. “There’s a bunch of unique buildings downtown that you’ll enjoy. Just trust me, okay? I know what I’m doing.”

He sets his face in a hard line to prove his disagreement, but I ignore him. The Silverbell downtown is lovely. It’s old and historic and beautiful, and even if he doesn’t like it, I do. And that’s all that matters to me.

I lead us down into the town, Reece lagging behind. He’s clearly not used to this level of activity. I love that I can walk to places in downtown Silverbell. When I went to college, I lived in a bigger city and hated how I had to drive everywhere.

Of course, there are plenty of places I have to drive to in Silverbell. I can’t walk to the grocery store, and the hospital is slightly further away than I might like, but I made sure to buy a house near to Gramma. Gramma has lived near the center of town for as long as I have been alive.

Heck, she must have lived in that house forever.

As we approach Main Street, I clench my fist to stop myself from taking his hand. It’s a stupid impulse, really. I don’t know where it’s coming from.

It’s been a year and a half since I broke up with my last boyfriend. My first boyfriend. I had loved James since we were in high school together. He became a vet, and I became a nurse, and when we got back from college, we decided to make a go of things. I told him how I felt, and I’d been expecting a rejection. I’d almost had a heart attack when he agreed.

But I guess he hadn’t felt the same way after all. Things were good for a long time, great even. And then, one day, I told him I’d been thinking about buying houses together, and he told me that he’d been thinking about ending things.

I guess I miss holding someone’s hand. It’s been a while since I accompanied a handsome guy out.

If I thought I’d had no chance with James, though, Reece is a whole other kettle of fish.

And anyway, I’m not attracted to Reece, so I don’t even know why I’m thinking about this. Gramma thinks I’m lonely, but I’m thriving. I don’t need a man to make me feel like a real person. I’m better than that.

Reece, however, strikes me as the kind of person who thrives being in a relationship. He seems like the kind of person who needs that affection to live, to feel wanted, to feel like he’s being useful. I almost want to ask him about it, but that feels like opening up a door that I don’t want to step through. It invites questions that I don’t want to answer.

It makes the implications of things that simply aren’t there.

“This is one of the oldest bookstores in Florida,” I say as we pass The Silver Pages. “It was founded by the very first mayor of the town because he wanted to promote youth reading and literacy.”

“Huh,” is all Reece says about the bookstore, but as I take him past some of the monuments and old buildings, he hums like he’s actually listening and cares. For a guy from the city, he’s doing a weirdly good job of pretending that he doesn’t hate our small town, something I know for a fact isn’t true.

After all, he’s spent the last two weeks telling me just how much he hates small towns and small people and small hospitals.

Every single day, he’s come to work and complained about having to be in the middle of nowhere. And every single day, I’ve said to him,Well, if you didn’t want to come, you didn’t have to,and I still believe that.

I don’t care about his sporting honor or this bet that he’s supposed to have lost. He didn’t have to come here and take it out on all of us.

It was bad enough when I was just supposed to be babysitting him at the hospital.

At least babysitting him around town isn’t going quite as badly as I thought it would. I thought he’d be bored out of his mind by history, but to my total surprise, he’s asking questions like he’s paying attention.

---