Page 41 of Just One Chance
Sunday is good,Avery texted. Maybe an extra week would be good for her in the end. She’d have plenty of time to mull over her feelings and decide how she wanted her conversation with Tucker to go.
Chapter 14
Mondaymorning,Davidwashappy to discover he and Lucy were working the same shift. It wasn’t as if there was a whole lot of time to stand around and talk during a typical day, but he still preferred working with Lucy over anyone else. Lucy didn’t take herself too seriously, but she didn’t let her humor interfere with her abilities as a physician. The way she was fun, without being silly was good for David. Whenever he started to feel anxious or stressed, Lucy always had a way to pull him out of his own head and get him to relax.
If only Lucy could get him to stop stressing about his dating life.
He rounded the corner just past the nurse’s station and nearly ran into Lucy. “Hey,” she said, looking up from her phone. “Where have you been?”
“Showering,” David said.
Her eyes went wide. “Oh, no. You were in triage for the vomit explosion?”
David frowned. “It wasn’t just vomit.”
“Food poisoning, right? An isolated incident?”
“So far.”
Lucy held up an open bag of iced animal cookies. “You deserve a cookie. Want one?”
David reached into the bag, suddenly wondering how long it had been since he’d eaten. He glanced at his watch. It was almost six and he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He grabbed a few more cookies.
“So,” Lucy said, in between bites. “I talked to Haley about going out sometime. She’s totally willing.”
David groaned. “Wait, you already did?”
Lucy shot him a look. “Of course I did. Why are you annoyed that I did exactly what you told me to do?”
“I’m not annoyed, I’m just . . . worn out.”
“Worn out from what? Work? That’s exactly why you need to go on a date.” Lucy shook the bag, loosening the cookies that had fused together at the bottom. “Seriously. I’ve never tasted anything this delicious.”
She held the bag open to David and he helped himself to another handful. “It’s amazing how quickly hunger can lower your standards,” he said. After a few more cookies, he steered the conversation back to dating. “I did go on a date, if you must know,” he said. “Last week. Avery set me up with a friend from work.”
“Wait. You askedAveryto set you up with someone? Isn’t that a little . . . masochistic?”
“No. Why would it be?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you’re in love with Avery and dating her friend guarantees that you’ll always be around her?”
David froze, his hand suspended over the cookie bag. His brain kept tripping on Lucy’s use of the wordlove.It felt right. Terrifying, but right. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“How did it go?”
“Terrible,” David said. “No, not terrible. It was fine. But I didn’t get the sense that she was all that impressed with me.”
“And?” Lucy shook out the last cookies, dividing them equally between them. She folded up the now empty bag and tucked it under her arm.
“What do you mean, and?” David said. “Isn’t that enough of a reason for us not to have a second date?”
“What did you think of her?”
David shrugged. “She was . . . fine. Just not—”
“If you sayAvery, I’m going to punch you in the face.” A nurse came around the corner, stopping when she saw Lucy and David standing together. “Exam Two, doctor,” she said to Lucy.
Lucy moved to follow the nurse, David falling into step beside her. “That isn’t what I was going to say.”
