Page 21 of First Love, Second Draft

Matt recovered first. “What is wrong with you?”

Rachel dropped the baseball bat and collapsed against the wall, clutching her heart. “Me? What is wrong withyou?”

“I thought you were dead.”

“What’s with you always thinking I’m dead?”

“You didn’t answer the door.”

“I overslept.”

“Overslept? Rachel—” Matt yanked his phone from his back pocket and held it right in front of her face. “Do you see what time it is?”

“Not when you hold it that close.”

“It’s the middle of the afternoon,” he said, sliding the phone back into his pocket. “That’s what time it is.”

“I haven’t been sleeping that well at night. I thought I’d take a little nap. Guess I fell asleep harder than I expected.” She picked up the baseball bat from where it’d rolled next to Matt’s feet.

“Guess you did. It’s almost two-thirty. Don’t you have to be to work by quarter to three?” The hospital was on the other side of Alda.

She must’ve done the math. Her eyes widened. She spun away from him, only to spin back and give another jab with the bat. “Did you break my kitchen door? I heard lots of noise.”

“Just get dressed.”Please.She was wearing tiny little gray drawstring sweat shorts and a form-fitting pink tank top. He was fairly certain that wasn’t Florence Nightingale-approved nursing wear. Plus, he didn’t know how much longer he could keep his gaze focused above her neck. The sooner she got dressed, the better for both of them.

“I’ll wait for you downstairs. And yes, I completely demolished your kitchen door. Sorry about that. Get dressed,” he said again when it looked like she was going to start arguing about the kitchen door.

The wooden floorboards groaned beneath his weight with each step he took down the stairs. “Overslept,” he muttered.

“I heard that.”

“You hear that, but you don’t hear me pounding down the door and screaming your name,” Matt muttered as he entered the kitchen and set about fixing the door.

“Yes,” she called down to him.

He lowered his voice to a whisper. “What about this? You hear this? Yeah, didn’t think so.”

“Are you still saying something?”

“Just get dressed,” he shouted.

After getting her door back on the hinges best he could—he’dswing back and fix it better later—he retrieved their coffees from the hood of his truck and returned to the kitchen.

Her creaky steps bounded down the stairs. “Kind of grumpy early in the afternoon, aren’t you? Ready to go?” Rachel entered the kitchen in a pair of dark blue scrub pants and a white sweatshirt with a pink stethoscope in the shape of a heart on the front. Her gaze dropped to the coffee he was holding as she tightened her mass of dark curls in a ponytail.

“For me? Thanks.” She grabbed it before he had time to respond and took a sip. “Ooh.” She wrinkled her nose. “I take mine with extra sugar for future reference.”

“And I don’t typically share mine for future reference.” Matt took the cup back from her hand and switched it out with the other cup in the carrier.

“Oh. Sorry.” She giggle-snorted. Between that and her ponytail, she was just as adorable as she’d always been in high school. And apparently just as scatterbrained. Because when he asked if she was ready, she merely took a sip of her coffee and said, “For what?”

“Work.”

“Ah! Why haven’t we left yet?” She started opening cupboard doors and banging them shut.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting more sugar for my coffee. They never put in enough. This’ll only take a second.” Another bang. “Where’d I put the sugar?”

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