Playing Doctor: A Standalone Office Romance

by JD Hawkins

  “Thanks, Maeve,” I say gratefully.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  She hangs up and I pull my phone away from my head, feeling a rush of adrenaline now that I’m another step closer. I get into my car and drive.

  22

  Mia

  She meant well, but Maeve’s interrogation before I left the apartment and got in my Miata—and Maeve looking down at me from the window all the while like a mother watching her daughter walk to the bus stop on her own for the first time—has me feeling even more nervous than I should be. She asked if I was “sure” seventeen times, offered to go with me, to at least drive me, and then settled for a promise to call her as soon as anything happened.

  It’s a side of her most don’t get to see. A fierce vigilance. An instinct to put others first. It’s difficult to imagine she’s the same woman who turns up at exclusive parties by herself, and isn’t afraid to wade into a group of guys at a bar and pick one out. Most people would call Maeve attracted to danger, if anything. But when it comes down to it, she’s actually really protective. Or maybe I’m just noticing stuff like that now.

  Strangely, despite everything that happened yesterday, last night was the first half-decent night’s sleep I’ve gotten in weeks. Probably because of Maeve, partly because of the pizza overdose, and maybe a little because of what I’ve decided I need to do.

  All the raging emotions and overworked thoughts of the past few days are now just a low buzz inside of me. Not quite uneasy or uncomfortable, but not quite letting me relax either. I’m still a little shaky, and I still feel like I’m walking a tightrope over disaster, but I’m a little more composed now that my mind is made up. Ready to move forward.

  And I can’t lie, part of my relief is because I’m going to see Colin again first. Talk to him. Because he wanted to talk to me. Maybe this is the apex of my stupidity… The culmination of my naïve, inexperienced, neglected history with relationships… Maybe everyone around me is right and I’ve focused on work so much that when it comes to men I’ve got the brain of a teenage girl who doesn’t know the rules and hasn’t been hurt enough to form a thick skin… But I just want to see him. Plain and simple. I just want to be close to him—honest with him—one last time, and everything else feels irrelevant next to the fact that I’m about to.

  I can’t even play out the interaction in my mind, or think of possible things to say. I don’t have any idea why Colin wants to talk. But it no longer matters. Whatever intentions either of us ever had, when we were together we couldn’t help playing it by ear. Going with the flow. Now I know what all the fuss is about. Why that kind of thing is so special.

  Except… The flow might be taking me over two thousand miles away. To a whole new life. The flow might be taking us farther apart rather than closer together. It feels almost like this meeting is going to mark the start of one future—and the end of another.

  From where I park I can already see him. He’s far away, but even at a distance his presence is noticeable. He’s standing at that same table we met Jake at that weekend everything changed. When I get out of the car, I immediately feel my back stiffen as if he’s already studying every movement, already feeling me with his gaze.

  As I walk toward him my nerves start to jangle, I start to feel self-conscious about my steps, and I start to think maybe Maeve was right to warn me about coming here, but even if I was allowed to turn and run I wouldn’t now. I have to tell him what I’ve decided, even if this thing between us is fully over now. I owe him that, at least.

  “Mia.”

  He says my name firmly, almost formally. His expression unreadable but absolutely focused on me.

  “I’m here.”

  He nods at the table.

  “I got a milkshake.”

  Despite the nerves and the tension, despite the strangeness and seriousness of meeting like this, I find myself smiling.

  “Vanilla,” I say.

  He’s smiling too.

  “I can get you one. Or you can have this if you want.”

  I can’t tell if it’s a joke, or some strange sort of probe. A kind of ritual to test where I’m at, how I feel toward him. The kind of silly game you play with someone when you want to break the ice. But we’ve broken the ice plenty of times already.

  I reach for the cup—it’s a little warmer than it should be, and I realize he’s waited here for a while without touching it—then take a slow sip before putting it back.

  “You know, you’re right. It’s actually a—”

  “Really complex flavor,” he says at the same time as I do, smiling along with me.

  We both laugh, but then his smile fades and I can see he’s tense with something he needs to express—the same as I am.

  “Mia. I’ve got to tell you something—”

  “No. I’ve got to tell you something—”

  “Trust me. What I have to say is more important—”

  “I really doubt that, Colin.”

  “Just let me get this out first because—”

  “Whatever it is, before you say it, you should know that—”

  “I love you, Mia.”

  His words seize me, paralyze me, so that I can’t say anything more, can’t do anything but look up at him and question whether he really said what I think he just said.

  And in a moment the words don’t matter, because I’m reaching for him as he’s reaching for me and our lips are pressing together in a grand release of every burning tension that I’ve had since we last met, and it’s more than a kiss. It’s a promise, and a confession. An apology. His cold detachment the day before… All the times we told each other that things between us could be nothing more than transient… All the doubts and uncertainties… The kiss obliterates them. It destroys the parts of us that ever pretended we could be apart ever again. It’s a kiss that leaves nothing certain but the love between us.

  He pulls away, arms still pressing me to him, and says once again, “I love you.” And this time it sounds more like a declaration than a secret.

  I lay a hand on his chest, let my forehead fall onto his shirt. Inhaling his scent, pressing my face into him. I lean back a little to look at him again, and can’t help smiling, feeling goofy and silly for it, but also feeling secure enough that it’s all right.

  “Is that all?” I say, my smile quivering a little.

  He sighs with affectionate amusement, then his eyes intensify again, and he looks through to some untouched part of me. I feel my breath hold in my throat.

  “No,” he says, as his arms release me and he steps back.

  I know what’s happening. I can see it happening in front of me. But as he forages in the pocket of his pants, then lowers himself to one knee, I can’t believe it’s happening.

  My mind races to find some explanation—anything but the obvious. That this is a dream, a joke, a fantasy, or an accident.

  “Colin, what are you—”

  And then he opens the small velvet box and extends it out to me, the diamond glittering, unmistakable and clear, leaving no doubts. I feel like I’m suddenly moving at a million miles an hour, the kick of acceleration, and yet I’m not in control. Not in control, and yet I’m the center of the universe, the only thing that matters.

  Once again, he tells me.

  “I love you.”

  And this time it sounds like a vow.

  Suddenly time starts to move too fast, and all the pressure of the moment is pushing down on me. The expectation in his eyes and the stature of the ring demanding me to do something, to respond, to be decisive for once instead of running away and overthinking things. And then before I know it, before I’ve even managed to form a coherent thought or an answer, it feels like I’m already taking too long.

  “Colin, wait… I… I’m…”

  It takes an effort to speak, and I stutter, hoping the words will happen even though my mind is a mess. Until I find nothing else to utter but the plain truth I came here with.

  “I’m pregna
nt.”

  His expression changes from one of noble affection to one of bewilderment. His eyes flick from my face to my abdomen, and then back to meet my gaze again with a renewed conviction. He stands up and steps close to me again, hand moving to my lower belly as if he might feel something there. I watch his eyes soften with something almost like pride.

  “You’re carrying my baby?” he says, looking at my face.

  I nod, still feeling vulnerable and confused. And then his hand moves to my face, cupping my cheek delicately, as if he’s already feeling a tender need to take care of me.

  “Then say yes,” he whispers softly to me, “and let’s make a family.”

  Every doubt and every worry, all the reasons I can think of for why I shouldn’t, why it’s impossible, or too difficult, or unimaginable, fade as I look back into his eyes and see a determination that could achieve anything.

  In those eyes I see a different version of myself reflected back.

  He’s not looking at an overanalytical doctor, or a work-obsessed loner. His eyes don’t see a woman who’s naïve and inexperienced when it comes to love, nor simply an attractive girl who was good for some fun. In his eyes, he sees me—not some fantasy version of me, but me just as I am. Someone special enough to swear himself to forever. Someone who could be a great mother. And as long as I can see myself in his eyes, I might just believe it.

  For perhaps the first time in my life, I feel completely sure of myself.

  “Yes,” I say, and immediately feel like I sound too meek. “Yes,” I repeat more emphatically, smiling with the joy of how conclusive it sounds, with the thrill of knowing exactly what I want, the excitement of changing my entire life in a single word. “Yes! Yes!”

  He grabs my waist and pulls me to him, lifting me off the ground, except now it doesn’t feel like we’re two people who want to be close, it feels like we’re just one. A union. Bonded by love and attraction and all the things that drove us together so far—but also by blood now. By this new thing that our love has made. By a future that may be tough, or unpredictable, or overwhelming, but which we’ve just sworn to take on together.

  My feet touch back down on the ground—but only physically—as he releases me, and my head still spins from it all, my body still disoriented from emotion. It takes a second for me to even realize that he’s taking the ring and putting it on my finger. That heaven-colored diamond marking me as his own.

  We stay close, both of us looking at it a moment as I turn it in the light.

  “There’s something else,” Colin says, hesitantly. And I suddenly feel the weight of reality once again, remembering everything that seemed irrelevant just moments ago.

  “What?”

  His hand takes mine so he can interlace our fingers.

  “Come. I’ll show you…”

  He tugs me gently toward my car, looking so happy and enthusiastic that I let myself get carried away—let him carry me away—until I notice he’s going to the driver’s side.

  “Oh no…” I say.

  “Oh yeah,” he replies. “Toss me the keys. I’m taking control.”

  23

  Colin

  I’m gonna be a dad. I’m gonna have a kid of my own. I’m gonna be a dad…

  “Yeah. You are,” Mia says from the passenger seat.

  I turn from the road to look at her for a second. Her face more beautiful than it’s ever been.

  “Did I say that out loud?”

  She laughs.

  “Yeah. You did.”

  I nod and laugh then turn back to the road.

  “I gotta be honest with you, Mia: I’m kinda fucking terrified.”

  Through a laugh that sounds more like a release of tension she says, “Me too…”

  “Everything feels like it’s happening so fast… It’s like the rest of my life was just…not real until now.”

  “I think it’s always like that,” she says slowly, thoughtfully. “For seven years I’ve dealt with soon-to-be parents—some of them planning a family for years, and still… When it happens, it always feels like that for them.”

  “Sure…” I say. “But how many of them met just weeks before they found out?”

  She waves the ring at me and teases, “Well some of them weren’t even engaged.”

  I turn back to the road and point. “It’s just down here.”

  She hasn’t taken her eyes from me, her humor replaced by a frown.

  “Are you…having second thoughts?” she says.

  I pull the car over to a stop and look at her. Then shake my head.

  “That’s the weirdest thing of all… None at all. No regrets. No reservations… If you told me right now that you were just joking and that you weren’t pregnant I’d tell you I wanted a kid with you anyway. And if you’d rejected the ring, I would have just tried to think of another way to make you mine. I’m a reckless guy, Mia. I do stupid things all the time. God knows I still pay the price for some of my mistakes. But this isn’t that. It’s the opposite.

  “It’s me leaving all that other junk behind, wanting to put something together that isn’t just for the weekend. I don’t know… Since I met you… It’s like something has clicked in me. Fallen into place. And I never even realized it was out of place before. The guy I was a month ago, who’d never met you—he just seems like a lost soul now. Does that make sense?”

  She reaches out and puts a hand on my upper arm, squeezing slightly, and her touch feels like some kind of divine grace. I put my hand over hers and look at her. Those dark eyes, that delicate face, her perfect skin. The mother of my child.

  “Yeah,” she whispers and we move toward each other to kiss softly.

  I taste her for a moment, then pull away and grin.

  “Come on.”

  Outside of the car I take her hand and lead her down the street. Eventually I stop and turn to her.

  “Well? What do you think?”

  She turns around, looking in every direction.

  “Of what?”

  I stand behind her and take her shoulders to point her toward the building. She studies it for a few moments.

  “I think we need better housing policies in L.A.”

  “You’re looking at my new practice.”

  She spins around to face me and stare at me incredulously.

  “Your new—what?”

  “I handed in my notice today. I quit.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it for a while—years, actually. It’s great working at a hospital…but I’ve always liked the idea of going it alone, being my own boss. I guess I want to have a little more control and be able to interact more personally with my patients.” She continues to stare at me and I’m careful when I say the next part. “I thought you might as well.”

  Her eyes widen even further now.

  “Me? And you? In private practice together?”

  I shrug, and nod.

  “Why not?” I say, then sigh heavily. “To be honest, Mia, I don’t really have much choice. There’s something I should have told you from the start… Probably none of this would have been so tough if I had. My ex. The crazy one. The one I told you about—”

  “It’s Saskia, isn’t it?”

  Now I’m the one who goes wide-eyed and pale, stunned into stillness. There’s something almost perverse about hearing her name come from Mia’s lips. Two completely different worlds colliding. Two worlds I tried my hardest to keep apart. My past and future.

  “You knew?”

  “I know now. I mean, I figured it out. I wasn’t totally sure. I…” She buries a hand in her hair and paces a little around me.

  She explains how Saskia offered her a job, right after seeing her in my shirt. She tells me how crazy she felt putting it all together, about Maeve’s doubts and about how it all seemed to happen at once. When she’s done I put my arms around her and hold her tight, feeling a streak of anger split through the profound happiness of everything else.


  I was that close to losing her… One more hesitation… One more doubt…

  She turns in my arms to look at the building. “A private practice, huh?”

  “Something of our own,” I say.

  “The place needs a lot of work.”

  “We’ve got a lot of time.”

  She nuzzles her head into my chest and I stroke her back as we turn to face the car. Walking slowly back, holding on to each other as though we might fall apart if we separated.

  “So what now?” she asks.

  “You tell me, love.”

  I hand her the car keys and she takes them with a smile.

  I can’t keep my hands off her all the way up to my apartment. Almost a whole month since I last touched her. A day since I even saw her. It was getting unbearable, and now that I’ve got her I want to make the most of every second. I want to kiss every inch of her, feel every curve and witness every movement. There’s not enough of her, and too much of my own desire—a bottomless pit that I can never fill, that I’ll be trying to fill forever.

  I clutch her waist to me even as I unlock the door and push us inside. She laughs and breaks free, spinning out of my arms with a liquid grace. I smile, feeling like a hunter as I step after her and she dances away, still laughing.

  “I have to call Maeve and tell her.”

  “Make it quick,” I say, flinging my coat away and pulling off my shoes.

  I loosen my shirt and drop back onto the couch, lying down and watching her walk around the room as she tells Maeve what’s happened. In her baggy jeans and tank top, her red hair tied into a ponytail that’s already let slip enough strands to fall around her face, framing it like a flaming gilded edge.

  How could I ever have thought she would just be a one-night stand? How did I even manage to delude myself into believing she’d be a quick fuck and nothing else? She makes every other woman I’ve ever been with seem insignificant and small. And I knew it from the second I first saw her. I knew I would never be the same. I knew there’d never be another. It just took this long for me to admit it.