Page 73 of Dr. Off Limits

“That doesn’t sound good.”

She shrugged and ripped off some of the flatbread. “I told her about us.”

“And that’s bad?”

“Why would you think that’s bad?”

“Oh, I don’t know, the look on your face?”

She stayed silent for a beat too long as she chewed and swallowed her flatbread. “She just thinks that I’m stupid for not wanting to take our relationship public.”

I sighed. Okay, so the best friend was weighing in on the relationship. “And what do you think?”

“I think she doesn’t understand the stakes. For either of us.”

“Right,” I replied. “So, what’s with sighing and the expression of doubt?”

“Things are complicated.” She shook her head. “And I’m overthinking.”

“Not like you,” I said sarcastically.

She rolled her eyes. “She just made a joke about how we’d be forty with two kids and we’d still be pretending to everyone in the hospital that we weren’t dating.”

I laughed. “Forty is only four years away for me. Not so inconceivable.”

She wasn’t laughing. “I guess she just got my brain whirring. I started to... think about stuff.”

That didn’t sound like a positive thing, certainly if the look on her face was anything to go by. “Maybe we don’t need to think about four years from now.”

“Exactly,” she said, not sounding very convincing. “We’re just borrowing trouble, right?”

“Right. Except I’m not sure you’re entirely convinced.”

“Oh, I completely believe trouble is just around the corner. I don’t need any convincing. I just need to... relax.”

I couldn’t imagine what it was like to live ready to fight. It must be exhausting. I wanted to take that away from her. Shield her from everything bad.

“Sutton, tell me what’s on your mind. What’s really bothering you?”

“I’m not bothered exactly, it’s just... I like you. And I don’t see that there’ll ever be a time when it’s okay for us to be a public couple.”

“I don’t think we need to worry. Right now, it’s difficult. I’m trying to position myself for this promotion; you’re trying to prove yourself. It doesn’t work at the moment but things shift and change. We can’t pre-empt anything. We can’t see into the future. Things have a way of working themselves out.”

“Says you. Things just don’t ‘work out’ for everyone.”

“No, you’re right. We’re surrounded by evidence of that all day long. But in terms of relationships and two people being together—we will make it work. If you remember, we were both determined to stay away from each other. Look how that turned out.”

I put down my fork, shifted to outstretch my legs and then pulled her onto my lap so she faced me. I got the feeling this was about more than us—that she was braced for bad things to happen. It was understandable, and it broke my heart a little.

I tucked a loose strand of hair around her ear. “At the moment, I think we’re both doing what’s best for right now. Do I think if we’re together down the road, we’ll still be sneaking into each other’s houses? No, I don’t. I think we need to cross that bridge when we come to it unless you’re unhappy right now. Are you?”

She shook her head. “No. Right now I’m the opposite of unhappy.”

I wasn’t sure if she was trying to be funny or whether she had an issue with allowing herself to say she was happy. Maybe she was afraid of being happy. Given the way she grew up, it would be completely understandable.

“We should get away,” I said. “Norfolk was great. We could relax and not worry too much about who was watching.”

“Where were you thinking?”

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