Page 16 of Stuck with Doctor Grump

“No,” he said, the teasing slipping into something gentler. “Some things are wake-up calls. Like finding a woman who somehow gets under your skin without you noticing.”

“I didn’t say she got under my skin.”

“Right. You just kissed her. Opened up about your existential crisis. Spent the night with her in a candlelit inn. But sure, let’s pretend she was just a temporary glitch in your well-oiled schedule.”

I rubbed a hand over my jaw, exhaustion settling into the spaces my logic couldn’t patch over.

“She hasn’t reached out.”

“And you haven’t either, have you?”

I didn’t answer.

“Damien,” Brandon said, softer now, “you keep running from things that scare you, Doc, and you’ll end up alone. Just you and your surgical trophies and a house full of silence.”

The words landed with more weight than I expected.

Because the truth was, the silence didn’t feel like safety anymore.

It felt like punishment.

Later that night, after a dinner I didn’t taste and a hot shower that didn’t help, I pulled on the same coat I’d worn during the storm and shoved my hands into the pockets.

And there it was.

A crumpled flyer.

Bright pink cardstock. Slightly water-stained. Ink smudged near the corners.Ruby Bloom’s Annual Spring Awakening Workshop—complete with doodled flowers, a little bumblebee, and a quote that read:“Grow wildly, love freely.”

I held it in my hands longer than I should’ve.

My thumb traced the edges. My eyes landed on the scribbled RSVP deadline—long past. But it didn’t matter.

It wasn’t about the workshop.

It was abouther.

About the way she left pieces of herself everywhere—on menus, on flower tags, in warm laughter and the space beside me that still smelled faintly of vanilla and rain.

I looked at the trash can beside my desk.

Then at the flyer again.

And I folded it carefully, tucked it back into my coat pocket, and walked away.

Because maybe I wasn’t ready to say it out loud yet.

But I wasn’t ready to throw her away either.

Chapter five

Ruby

I stabbed a daisy into a floral foam block with more aggression than any daisy had ever deserved.

The poor thing flopped over sideways, its delicate petals wilting like they, too, couldn’t handle the emotional whiplash of the last seventy-two hours.

Hazel leaned against the counter, sipping a chai latte and giving me the kind of side-eye usually reserved for soap opera plot twists and stolen cookies.

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