Page 17 of The Grumpy Doc's Surprise Delivery

And it’s too late to apologize now for the person I was, but hopefully I can be someone else to her too, from now on.

Then we’re standing outside her door, and I realize I don’t want this moment to end. “Oh, well,” I say, needing something to fill the time. “Back to it tomorrow for more fun and games.”

Emma chuckles. “Oh, I can’t wait. Truly, I’ve never felt like more of a doctor than sitting in that room.”

I chuckle in return. “Finally, something we can agree on.”

“I think we might agree on more than you think,” she says. I cock my head slightly, my eyebrows furrowing as I try to understand what she’s talking about.

Maybe I’m reading into it too much, but there seems to be a subtext that I can’t decode underneath her words. Suddenly, the silence, the stillness around us is suffocating, like the whole world has shrunk in this moment to just her and me and this corridor that smells way too much of cleaning products and artificial flowers.

Suddenly, I’m getting the urge to make a horrible mistake.

“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, then, I guess,” Emma says, starting to turn away from me.

“Here, let me,” I say, leaning over her to open her door.

As I do, our hands brush against each other, and the way I’m looming over her hits me. I’m leaning in as if we’re more intimately acquainted than we really are, as if I have any right to be in her personal space.

And yet I don’t pull away, like there’s some strange magnetism attracting me to her. I’m being pulled in, captured, like I’m not allowed to move away. I’m caught in a web — or a trap.

If it’s a trap, I don’t know that I want to escape.

Emma tilts her chin up towards me like it’s a challenge or a concession, and the worst part of my mind hesitates, letting a fantasy of her lips bloom into my mind for a second before I can shut it down. But a second is all I need for the idea to take root, for her to stop being an annoyance to me and start being a real person.

A real woman.

One who I might even really like.

Then she pushes open the door and the moment shatters, splintering into a million pieces like glass.

I take a sharp breath and draw up to my full height, backing away from her. If she noticed my momentary weakness at all, she doesn’t comment. She doesn’t even seem fazed in the slightest.

In one fell swoop, she’s destroyed any remote hope I might have had of these feelings being reciprocated.

“Well, good night, then,” she says with a smile, her hand on the door handle.

“Good night, Emma.”

With that, she vanishes into her room, and I breathe out a sigh. What just happened to me?

For a second, I was possessed by something I don’t understand, captured by a feeling that I haven’t felt in a very long time.

In my head, the plan had been to say goodnight to Emma, then head down to the dining hall to take full advantage of the buffet and forget all about how stupid today has been. But I don’t feel like doing anything at all anymore.

Instead, I go into my own room and flop down on the bed. It’s been a long day.

I am kind of hungry, but I can’t summon the will to move. I just lie and stare at the ceiling for a long while, all the events of the day rushing around my head like a whirlpool, swimming until I can’t think straight.

That night, when I fall asleep, I dream of Emma.

CHAPTER 10

EMMA

Yesterday with Liam was really weird. Not in a bad way, but definitely weird. He was acting weird from the second we met up in the conference room, like he had slept on his personality funny. Maybe too much fresh air in the forest the day before went right to his head.

We had to sit through some more lectures and team-building exercises, but Liam and I made the best of it. We challenged each other to find one good takeaway from each set of PowerPoints.

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