As she unloaded her groceries, Avery’s phone pinged with an incoming text.
From Tucker.
Have dinner with me? The text read. I’ll bring over some take-out and we can eat at your place.
Avery reached for her phone and stared at the screen, her hand trembling as she thought about what to say.
Did she want to see Tucker again? Have dinner with him again?
Tucker had broken her in ways that had done long term damage. She’d been ready to commit, dive headfirst into a springtime beachside wedding with a dozen bridesmaids and a yacht club reception when he’d dumped her completely out of the blue, saying he just wasn’t ready to settle down. Avery suspected what he really meant was he wasn’t ready to settle down with her. She didn’t exactly fit the mold of a proper Charleston attorney’s wife, and Tucker’s family was the kind of family that definitely cared about being proper. His mother had never really loved his relationship with Avery. When they broke up, she’d figured she’d finally gotten through to Tucker that Avery just wouldn’t do. Not if he wanted to actually be somebody in the circles that mattered.
Avery had never cared about fitting into anybody’s circle. And maybe that was the problem.
After the breakup, Tucker had ghosted her without a backward glance. No messages. No calls. Nothing. He’d completely cut her off.
But maybe he’d changed.
Maybe he’d decided to stop listening to his mama and do what he wanted for once. Maybe he’d missed Avery enough to forget about being the perfect Charleston son.
Melba’s warning echoed in her head, but Avery pushed it aside. Dinner didn’t even have to mean anything, did it? Maybe it just meant they were two old friends, reconnecting over a shared meal.
It was just one dinner. How much damage could it actually do?
Chapter 2
David leaned against the counter of the nurse’s station in the Medical University of South Carolina Hospital emergency room and spared a quick glance at his watch. Nine hours. He’d been on his feet, working nonstop for nine solid hours. He needed food. And a bathroom break, probably. And five minutes of quiet meditation if he had any hope of making it to the end of his shift.
Most of David’s colleagues had been surprised when David had chosen Emergency Medicine. He blamed Hollywood. Television shows had long since convinced American TV viewers that ER docs were both rugged and handsome, with a little bit of daring mixed in. Just because David looked like a podiatrist, all boring and buttoned up, didn’t mean he had to practice boring medicine. He liked the way his brain had to work in the ER—compartmentalizing, prioritizing, deciding what patients needed what treatment and when. Every day was a giant logic puzzle that only he could sort out.
But nine hours was a long time to go without food.
In the doctor’s lounge, Lucy, the only person in the entire hospital David had known longer than three weeks sat hunched over a pizza box, her phone in her hand. Lucy had attended the same residency program at Northwestern that David had, though she had been a year ahead of him. They’d become good friends, good enough that he’d trusted her when she’d recommended MUSC as a launch point for his career.
She looked up when he entered. “Want some?” She shoved the box in his direction. “It’s fresh.”
He dropped into a chair beside her and reached for a slice. “Thanks.”
When Lucy didn’t even look up from her phone, he nudged her knee with his foot. “What are you reading?”
“A trashy romance novel. Care to join me?”
“You’re still reading those things?” David asked. She’d had the same habit during residency.
“Absolutely. It’s the purest form of escapism.” She clicked off her phone and set it face down on the table then reached for another slice of pizza. “How are you? Settling in okay?”
“To the hospital? Sure.”
“I meant the city. But I’m glad you like the job, too. I knew you would.”
“The city is . . . hot,” David said. “And humid.”
“But?” Lucy prompted, her smile wide. “You still like it, right?”
David thought of the walking tour he’d taken the weekend before at his neighbor’s suggestion. It had been a good idea. He’d never been big on history—he loved the absolute nature of science a little more—but it was hard not to be impressed by cobblestone streets and buildings that were centuries old. Charleston had a story. And he could definitely appreciate that. “I like it,” he finally agreed. “My neighbor sent me on a walking tour of downtown. It helped.”
“Hey! You’re meeting your neighbors. That’s good.” Lucy knew him too well. Meeting people wasn’t exactly his specialty.
“Just one,” he said. “A woman.” Avery’s face flashed through his mind and heat pooled in his cheeks. He looked away, hoping Lucy hadn’t noticed but he was too late.
She grinned. “A woman, huh? I’m guessing by your face that she’s young and beautiful and made you all kinds of nervous.”
“Stop,” David said. “It’s not like that. She’s beautiful, yes, but that doesn’t mean anything. I don’t even know her last name.”
“So ask her.” Lucy leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. “Dating would be good for you, I think.”
“Yes, because spending eighty percent of my time at the hospital makes for a great social life.”
Lucy scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You don’t have to be here that much and you know it.”
“Either way, Avery is not the kind of woman that usually looks at a guy like me.”
“Oh, please. You mean a guy who is a doctor with an oceanfront home in Charleston? Yeah. Exactly what every woman doesn’t want.”
“You’re over simplifying things.”
“You’re overcomplicating things,” Lucy shot back.
“I’m not. Besides, the first time we met, I . . .” He sighed, not sure how to explain the embarrassment he’d endured when Avery had caught him trying to cover his windows with plywood. For a hurricane that had ended up turning back out to sea anyway. “Let’s just say I didn’t make the best first impression.”
Lucy leaned forward in her chair, pushing the pizza box out of the way. Her phone buzzed and she gave it a brief glance before turning her attention back to him.
“Do you need to get that?” David asked, hoping she really, really needed to get it. The look on her face said he wasn’t going to like the direction their conversation was headed.
“It’s not urgent,” she said, with a shake of her head. “Just test results. I’ll look at them in a minute. First, tell me about this bad first impression.”
David picked at a loose threat on the seam of his lab coat. “It was nothing. I just . . . it doesn’t matter. She’s out of my league.”
Lucy stood up and tossed the last of her pizza into the trash. “You sell yourself short, David. You always have. Just get over yourself and tell me what she’s like.”
David had often admired Lucy’s dogged determination, but he’d never been on the receiving end of it before. She was relentless. “She’s from here. Born and raised. She works at the Aquarium. Her father built my house. That’s literally all I know.”
“Is she seeing anyone?”
David shifted. “We spoke for less than ten minutes. How should I know?”
Lucy chewed her lip. “The aquarium, huh? That’s cool.”
“She said she’s the education coordinator there. Actually, she told me she’d give me a free tour if I stopped by some time.”
Lucy’s face lit up. “Why didn’t you say that in the first place? That’s perfect!”
“Stop. I see what you’re doing here, Lucy. It’s not perfect anything. She was just being neighborly.”
“Being neighborly is telling you that trash day is on Mondays or pointing out the place to buy the best coffee. She did not offer a free tour of the aquarium because she was trying to be neighborly. She wants to get to know you.”
“Can you just trust me on this?” Lucy said. “I’m a woman, remember? I know how our brains work.”
David sat, blinking. He hadn’t considered even for a minute that Avery had actually meant for him to come to the aquarium. But then, David didn’t have a lot of experience interpreting a woman’s motives.
“What if you’re wrong?”
“So what if I am? At the very least it could provide an opportunity for you to get to know her a little better. And from the blush I saw creeping up your face, I think you want to get to know her a little better.”
“But, I . . .” David hesitated. “I still don’t think you understand. Avery is . . .”
“Not out of your league, David.” Lucy folded her arms across her chest. Clearly she was done debating. But she’d never actually seen Avery. She couldn’t know what David was up against. “What time is your shift over?” She stood and pushed her chair back in, slipping her phone into her coat pocket. “You’re definitely going to the aquarium to see Avery, but I think we need to do a little tweaking first.”
“Tweaking? To what?” David ran a hand across his face. He had a feeling he was not going to like whatever it was Lucy had planned.
“Stop asking questions. Six? Seven? When are you done?”
David sighed, recognizing the inevitability of his fate. When Lucy set her mind to something, there was no arguing with her. “I’m here until six.”
Lucy looked at her watch again. “I should be finished up by then. Let’s plan on leaving together.”
“You’re not going to tell me anything else, are you?” David leveled a stare at his friend.
Her phone pinged again and she grinned. “Duty calls, David. I really have to go.” She pushed out of the doctor’s lounge, then yelled over her shoulder, “See you at six!”
***
Three hours later, David stood in Lucy’s living room, surrounded by piles of new clothing from stores he’d never even heard of. Lucy had deployed her husband, John, on what she had called a mission of utmost importance. John had been all too happy to comply. He was that guy. The guy that always looked impeccably dressed, even when he was dressed down in denim and t-shirts. David wasn’t so clueless he couldn’t recognize good fashion sense. He did. And was happy to own that John had some. But he wasn’t that guy. He wore clothes that were functional. Comfortable. And scrubs. Lots and lots of scrubs.
He adjusted the shirt John had made him try on. “I’m supposed to leave it untucked like this?”
“Absolutely,” John said. “And you don’t have to button it all the way to the top. Leave the top button open.”
David tugged at his pants. “I just feel like these are sitting so low.” He looked at Lucy. “I wouldn’t have agreed to this had I known you were going to make me wear skinny pants. I feel ridiculous.”
Lucy smirked from her perch on the couch. “Only because you aren’t used to them. I promise you don’t look ridiculous. You’ve been desperate for a makeover for years, David. Why not now? You’re in a new city, you’ve got a new job, and now you’ve got a woman you’d like to impress. These clothes are going to help.”
If only David’s older sisters could see him now. They’d been begging him to tweak his wardrobe for years, they just weren’t bullheaded enough to make him do it. Not like Lucy. All they’d needed to do was stop asking him for permission.
“I never said I wanted to impress Avery,” David said.
Lucy opened her mouth to respond but John spoke before she could. “Who’s Avery?” he asked.
Sufficiently distracted, Lucy grabbed her phone off of the coffee table, swiping a few times before holding the screen out to John. “She’s David’s neighbor. She invited him to go to the aquarium with her.”
“That’s not what happened,” David said. How had this situation gotten so out of hand?
“Nice,” John said, taking the phone.
“Wait, is that her picture? Did you look her up?” David lunged forward, trying to take the phone from John. He suddenly felt like he was back in high school. Five more minutes with John and Lucy, and they’d likely be composing messages to Avery’s work email, asking her to be David’s girlfriend—check yes, no, or maybe.
John tossed the phone back to Lucy before David could intervene.
“I just went to the aquarium’s website,” Lucy said. “Her last name is Middleton, by the way. And her picture is great. It doesn’t look like she has Facebook, but she does have an Instagram profile. She likes sailing. And dolphins. And cheeseburgers loaded with bacon.”
David resisted the urge to pull out his own phone and search for Avery’s Instagram account. He also liked cheeseburgers loaded with bacon. And the idea of Avery on a sailboat . . . He shook his head. He could not get sucked into Lucy’s game.
“Lucy, you have to stop,” David said. “You’re turning this into something it’s not. It’s not a date. It was just a neighborly invitation.”
Lucy dropped her phone back onto the table and crossed her arms. “Why are you so sure of that? What would happen if you just tried? You’re adorable, David. Could maybe even qualify as legit hot if you would lose the glasses and keep the skinny jeans. Any woman would be lucky to have a chance with you.”
David reached up and fingered the frame of his glasses. There was something wrong with his glasses?
“When was the last time you even went on a date?” Lucy said.
David dropped into the overstuffed leather chair that sat opposite the couch and pushed his head into his hands. He sighed, massaging his temples before looking back at his friend. “I’ve dated. You set me up with that nurse back in Chicago, remember?”
Lucy stared. “That was your first year of residency! It’s been three years since then. You haven’t dated anyone else? Anyone recent?”
“Of course I have.” David flinched at his own defensiveness. He didn’t actually have anything to prove to Lucy. She was his friend. She only asked because she cared. “Occasionally.”
Lucy raised a doubtful eyebrow.
“Fine. I never date. But it’s not like residency provided all that much free time. You and John never saw each other, and you were married and living in the same house.”
“That’s true,” Lucy conceded. “You did have a girlfriend in med school, didn’t you? What was her name? Melissa, right? I remember you telling me about her.”
David nodded. “We were together three years.”
“Why’d you break up?” John asked.
David shrugged. “It was mutual. When we graduated and left Boston, we were moving to opposite sides of the country for residency. I was going home to Chicago to start at Northwestern, and she was moving to Seattle. The relationship just didn’t seem as important as our careers.”
“I totally get that,” Lucy said. “It’s normal to feel that way when you’re fresh out of med school. And I can almost see how you could be too wrapped up in residency to have dated then. But you’ve got your career figured out now. You’re settled. You bought a house. It’s time you try and live a little.”
John nudged Lucy over and sat down on the couch beside her, picking her feet up and dropping them into his lap. “Have you ever thought about trying contacts?” he asked. “I can help you out if you want. We could run up to the office right now. I bet I have some samples that are pretty close to your prescription.”
John was an optometrist and as earnest as Lucy in his desire to help, but David had endured enough making over for one day.
He stood. “I think I’m okay for now.” He looked around at the bags of clothing that filled the room. “I guess I’m supposed to take all of this with me?”
John nodded. “They’re organized by outfit already, so remember that when you’re adding them to your closet. I tried to pick stuff that was pretty neutral, so you can mix and match some, but if you have any doubts about whether or not stuff goes together, text me before you make any bold decisions on your own.”
David looked down at his new pants, noticing how they’d stretched and moved with his body when he’d stood up. They were pretty comfortable. “Are all the pants like this?” He looked at John who perked up, likely happy to have David do something besides scowl at him.
“Not exactly like that, but similar styles, yeah. I think I did get you a few pair of those in different colors. And you can dress them down, too. Wear them with a t-shirt and flip flops when you’re walking on the beach. Or put on a blazer over the shirt you’re wearing now and you’re ready for a date. You seriously can’t go wrong.”
David blinked. He wasn’t sure he trusted himself to take the pants from a beach look to a date look without John’s help, but he could at least appreciate the versatility.
“Don’t let it overwhelm you,” John said with a grin, clearly sensing his hesitation. “I promise it’ll get easier.”
Three days later, John stood in the middle of his bathroom and studied his reflection in the giant mirror that hung above his sink. He had to admit he did look better. He’d refused the contacts Lucy kept trying to foist on him—he liked his glasses and didn’t want to give them up—but he had agreed to try a different frame. And they were better. Hipper, without being hipster. David wore the same magic pants he’d tried on at Lucy’s, with a light blue button down, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He looked casual, but intentional. And still like David, which was the most important part. He wouldn’t pretend to be anyone but himself, not even to impress a woman.
He glanced at his watch. The aquarium opened at nine, which meant he had seventeen minutes to get there if he wanted to be there right when the doors opened. He walked to his bedroom and sat down on the corner of his bed. Should he wait an hour? What if Avery was busy doing other things and couldn’t give him a tour after all? Should he have called and scheduled something, so she knew to clear her schedule? He pulled out his phone and texted Lucy and John in the group chat Lucy had started on makeover day. I can’t do this, he typed. Do I go now? At lunch time? What if she’s busy? Should I take her something? Flowers? What do I even say?
D is for Doctor (ABCs of Love Sweet Romance Book 4) Page 2