Page 16 of Just One Chance
She shifted to give him a little more room. She’d been taking her half of the couch out of the middle. “Good. I can’t feel anything, really.”
“You probably will a little later. You can take some ibuprofen if it starts to feel sore.”
Avery nodded. “Noted.” With her wound tended to and bandaged up, it was probably time for her to go. Instead, she pulled a throw pillow off of David’s couch, running her fingers over the loose weave of the yarn. “Did you always want to be a doctor growing up?” she asked, looking into the intense blue of his eyes.
“Always,” he answered, his voice sure. “By the time I was four years old, I could already name every bone in the body, and identify all the body systems by name and function. I was obsessed.”
“That’s unbelievable,” Avery said. “Your parents must not have known what to do with you.”
He grinned. “It was definitely a struggle. My father’s also a physician, so he at least had the background to answer my endless questions.”
“Are you close to your parents?” Avery maybe should have worried the question was too personal. Her friendship with David was still new, and she didn’t want her interest to suggestmore.But he was easy to talk to. She sensed she could have asked him just about anything and he probably would have answered.
“Pretty close,” David said. “I don’t see them very often. My father recently retired, so they’re traveling all the time now, but we talk every Sunday that I’m not at the hospital.”
A twinge of something shot through Avery’s heart. She liked that David was close to his parents, that they talked on a regular basis. She only had one brother, and she’d never had any cousins growing up. When she dreamed of settling down, she always imagined marrying into a family that was large and welcoming and happy. “And you have the one sister, right?” Avery said. “Is that all?”
“Three older sisters, actually. Two are married, with two kids a piece, and then the one just older than me is the one that did my house hunting for me. She lives over in Atlanta.”
“So you’re the baby of the family.”
David nodded. “Yep. And they never let me forget it.”
Avery smiled wide. The idea of three older sisters hovering over David, caring about him made her happy. It was probably fun to see them all together.
It occurred to her that she’d let her mind wander a little too far unchecked. Why was she thinking about David’s big family, relative to her own desire to marryintoa big family?
“If you aren’t going to let me pay you, you’ll have to let me do something else for you.”
David shook his head. “It’s not that big a deal, Avery. I don’t mind.”
“I know. But still. I’ll feel bad if I don’t do something.” An idea popped into Avery’s brain and before she could even really think about it long enough to decide if it was a good idea, she blurted it out. “Let me cook dinner for you.”
He pursed his lips, lines creasing his forehead.But you said you didn’t want to date,she imagined him thinking.And dinner sounds very date-like.
“Just something casual,” Avery said, hoping her enthusiasm would be enough to convince him. “Lowcountry style. When’s your next night off?”
“Um, Tuesday, I think?”
She nodded. “Tuesday works. Come over at eight?” She scooted forward on the couch. It was time to go, before she started asking David how many kids he hoped to have, or whether he was a dog or a cat person. David shot to his feet, offering her both of his hands. Avery gladly accepted his help, using him for balance as she maneuvered onto her one good leg. She took a tentative step forward, feeling a slight tugging where the stitches were, but no pain.
“You okay?” he asked. “Why don’t you let me walk you home?”
She shook her head. “I’m good. It actually doesn’t hurt at all.”
David’s expression said he didn’t believe her. “I’d feel better if you let me at least see you to your front door. It’s dark outside. I don’t want you to hobble into a hole, or something.”
“Yeah, that stretch of grass between my house and yours is pretty treacherous,” Avery joked.
David rolled his eyes. “Listen, you-who-fell-off-your-roof, better safe than sorry.”
Avery liked it when he teased her. It meant he’d completely forgotten to be nervous around her. “Fine. You can walk me home, Dr. Daniels. As long as you agree to dinner on Tuesday night.”
“Right. Dinner. Eight o’clock,” he said, as he led her through the kitchen to his back door. There was a hint of confusion in his voice, like he still wasn’t sure why she’d asked him to dinner. That he wore it so openly rather than try and play it cool, like he’d expected the invitation, was so completely endearing, Avery almost wanted to hug him.
They walked in silence to Avery’s back door, David only having to steady her once when she’d slipped on a patch of wet grass. “Thanks for walking me home,” she said. “And thank you for taking care of me. For everything.”
He nodded. “No problem.”
