Page 88 of Last Chance Love

“My place it is.”

Alright, I had my answer, which left a warm blossom in my chest as I let the strength come back to my body. It was a sign that we had both meant it when we said we wanted this to go somewhere serious. That was all the proof I needed as I prepared myself to get up and get ready to return to work.

I frowned. “Great, I wasn’t thinking about the mess.”

“Mess?” he asked, looking down at his torso and snorting. “A towel will do the job just fine.”

“And when I stand up?”

“When you…oh. Oh. Well, same towel, I guess.”

“You practical man, you,” I said with a snort.

“That’s me, now let’s get moving before someone starts looking for us.”

* * *

“Reed. Mona is looking for you.”

It took me a moment, hearing my first name come out in such a smokey, thin voice before I responded. Surprised, I turned around to find Dr. Gideon standing in the doorway to the exam room I had been cleaning while I waited for something else to do. It had been pretty slow in the clinic for the past few days, and I’d started to run out of things to do. It was usually better when Leon was on shift with me because then I could entertain myself with him, but our schedules were diverging again…for some reason.

I tried my best not to let that fact get to me. Overthinking was supposed to be Leon’s territory. One thing I’d learned from being put on Mona’s little ‘secret mission,’ was that keeping secrets had a way of getting into your head. As much as I ignored what she’d put me up to because Leon was already making progress without needing much of a push from me, it still sat in my head. It lived in my thoughts and had a sneaky way of increasing my paranoia and my worry.

I would have been a terrible spy if that route had been open to me.

“Sure, thanks, Dr. Gideon,” I said politely. I still didn’t like how he squinted at me like he was waiting for me to, I don’t know, steal something? Throw something at his face? Accidentally murder someone with a bad call?

Despite my polite overture, he grunted and walked off, heading toward the back where he usually lurked unless forced to do his job. Honestly, I was surprised he’d even been up front to run into Mona. Hell, the idea that Mona was looking for me probably had him tingling at the thought of what kind of trouble I might be in, especially if it meant I could be removed from the clinic.

That particularly unpleasant thought got shunted away as I dropped the brush I’d been using on the floor. I left it behind with the bucket and walked into the hallway, making my way toward the front. My brow rose as I spotted her sitting in the chair behind the main desk, one leg thrown over her other knee as she browsed one of the clinic’s tablets.

“Find anything good?” I asked her dryly, itching to take the tablet from her. “I wasn’t even aware you had access to our systems.”

“Nothing that would violate HIPAA, that’s for sure,” she said as she flicked through another screen, and this time, I could see she was looking over incoming orders. As far as things to occupy herself while she waited, she would have been better off watching the freshly mopped floors dry. “I never get access to the fun stuff.”

That made me raise my brow. “Right, because the medical files of personnel and program members are fun, that’s one way to describe it.”

“I’m almost tempted to point out that being touchy isn’t normally your thing,” she said with a raised brow, locking the screen and carefully setting the device to the side. “But youhavebeen spending more time with our more prickly residents.”

“Barely anyone I deal with is what I’d call prickly, save for Reno perhaps, and he has most assuredly lost a few of his thorns.”

“Not who I was thinking of first, but I take your point.”

“Really, Leon?”

“That was who I was thinking of.”

“Funny, you’d be the only person to call him prickly.”

“Would I?”

“Yes, and I think it’s only fair to let you work that quick mind over why that might be.”

“Well, well,” she said with a chuckle, leaning up in the seat and smiling. “Is this where Leon has been getting his attitude from?”

“If you think Leon’s attitude is new, then you’ve never understood him,” I said, raising a brow. “Which seems like a pretty important thing to do when you’re so intent on trying to tutor him from a distance. Maybe you could get better results if you tried something new, something novel.”

“And that would be?”

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