Page 101 of Stuck with Doctor Grump

But inside, it always felt like coming home.

I parked and walked in without knocking. Brandon never kept his door closed—not to patients, and certainly not to me.

He looked up from his desk, wearing that same beat-up blue cardigan he swore gave him “clinical wisdom.” His glasses hung low on his nose, and a half-eaten granola bar perched on top of a folder labeled Smith, L. in thick black ink.

He didn’t smile right away.

Just studied me.

Then, with a slow nod, he said, “Took you long enough.”

I barked a laugh and dropped into the chair across from him, the familiar creak of worn vinyl beneath me.

“I needed time,” I said. “And a few mistakes.”

He leaned back, folding his hands behind his head. “You always were the kind who learned best by falling hard.”

“I fell, all right.” I let out a breath, hands resting on my knees. “But I didn’t break.”

Brandon nodded again, slower this time. “Good. Because the Damien Cole I knew didn’t need to be flawless. He just needed to remember why he started.”

I stared at the framed photo on his wall—an old one, us at some charity gala a decade ago, both in tuxes and pretending we knew how to smile for cameras. We were younger then. Hungrier. A little lost in all the right ways.

“I thought success meant never needing anyone,” I said after a long pause. “That if I worked hard enough, gave enough, fixed enough… I’d never have to ask for anything.”

Brandon tilted his head. “And how’d that turn out for you?”

I chuckled softly. “Lonely. Exhausting.”

“Predictable,” he corrected gently. “You were always chasing excellence, Damien. And that’s not a bad thing. But somewhere along the way, you stopped letting people walk beside you.”

“I thought they’d slow me down.”

Brandon raised an eyebrow. “And now?”

I smiled, but it didn’t feel cocky. It felt… earned. “Now I want someone who walks beside me. Even if I stop to smell the roses.”

He grinned. “Or plant them?”

My chest tightened in the best way. “Especially that.”

He stood and walked to the small filing cabinet in the corner. From the top drawer, he pulled out a manila envelope and handed it to me.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“A letter of recommendation. It was for a board seat they offered me last year at a teaching hospital downtown. I turned it down.”

“Why?”

He looked at me then, all calm certainty. “Because I realized healing people didn’t have to mean climbing. It meant staying rooted. And I figured one of us ought to be the example, in case you ever needed it.”

I swallowed hard.

“You’ve always been a better doctor when you were a better man first,” he said. “And from what I hear… you’re finally both again.”

“Ruby helped me remember,” I admitted. “Not just who I was—but who I could be. Someone who still saves lives. Just not at the cost of living mine.”

Brandon nodded, his voice soft. “That’s the version of you I always hoped would win out.”

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