Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
I’m enjoying myself more tonight, sitting in a simple bar sharing nothing more than conversation, than I have in a long-ass time.
Internally, I cringe. Is it bad that I’m having this much fun with Noah after my night with Gavin ended so horribly? Should I be feeling this happy right now?
I don’t know. But I am.
I can’t believe I almost missed out on it by running away again.
“Can I tell you something that will probably make you laugh?”
Noah looks me over with a curious smile. “I’m all ears.”
“I thought Mary was someone you were…romantically involved with.”
“Really?” His eyes go wide.
I cringe. “In my defense, I didn’t know you had a sister. And Mary is an incredibly beautiful woman. It made sense that you would want to date her.”
“Well, we’re definitely not dating. Pretty sure Jared would have a problem with it.” Noah runs a hand through his hair on a chuckle. “I don’t date very often, period.”
“Oh. So, you’re, like, more of a one-night-stand, casual-hookup kind of guy?”
“One-night stands?” A barking laugh jumps from his lungs. “Uh, no, Sammy. And I’m not into casual hookups either. I’m a little too old for that empty shit. I had a few dates with someone a few months ago that I thought might go somewhere, but…” He shrugs. “It wasn’t what I thought it would be.”
“Why not?”
“I just didn’t have the feeling.”
“The feeling?”
“Yeah. The all-consuming, heart-racing, stomach-aching, I’m-going-to-throw-up-if-this-doesn’t-work-out feeling.”
I nod. I know the feeling. “It’s the same feeling I read about in Brooke’s book about Chase that made me know she had to go for it.”
He searches my eyes for a long moment that makes all my breath stall in my chest. “What’s going on with you and Gavin, Sammy?”
Oh boy. Suddenly, the weight of the world feels like it rests just above where I decide to put this answer.
“We’ve been on a few dates, and he’s a nice person. But I—”
“Last call!” the bartender announces to the half-empty bar, cutting me off midsentence and leaving both my answer and the world hovering somewhere over Manhattan. “Bar is closing in ten minutes!”
“Shit,” Noah mutters and glances at his watch. “I can’t believe it’s already last call.”
“What time is it?”
“A little after one.”
“It’s after one?” I laugh. “The last time I stayed up past midnight had to be when Grant was a baby.”
He grins. “How about I close out our tab and walk you home?”
“Yes, please,” I say with a smile. “This old lady would love to have you walk her home.”
Noah tsks. “You’re not old, Sammy.”
“I’m forty-one, Noah. I’m old.”
“Baby, I’m forty-three,” he retorts. “If you’re old, then I might as well be ancient.”
I shrug dramatically. “See, all you really did there is confirm that we’re both old.”
“Grab your coat, Grandma. Grandpa will pay the check.”
“How’d you know you wanted to be a doctor? Is that something you always dreamed of, or did it just seem like a practical way to make money?” I ask as I unlock the door to my apartment and step inside. I hold the door for Noah to follow, and he does without hesitation.
It’s a little weird that I didn’t ask him to come up and he didn’t ask either—but it’s almost as if neither of us even considered another option.
Noah contemplates my apartment in front of him for a long moment, seemingly studying the layout before meeting my eyes again. “I think abstractly, it was always on my radar. When my sister had the seizures as a baby, everything changed between my parents. My dad sought every bit of information he could from the doctors, and my mom turned in the other direction. She felt betrayed, I think, that they’d messed up her healthy baby and couldn’t figure out how to fix it. Her answer was denial. That it was happening, that it wasn’t changing, and that doctors were imperfect humans doing their best.”
“So, you believed in the doctors, or you didn’t?”
Noah smiles. “A little bit of both, I think. I wanted to prove something to myself. Make something concrete out of the information I’d been given. And probably, at the same time, I was hoping I’d somehow be better than them. That I’d have all the answers.” He shrugs a little. “Of course, I don’t. None of us does. Diagnostics is all educated guesswork.” He turns around and leans against my kitchen island. “Anesthesia? That’s pretty much science. A calculation of sorts. Hard to screw up if you pay attention.”
I roll my eyes and drop my purse on the counter next to him. “I think you’re selling yourself a little short. I’m decent at math, but I wouldn’t want me at the head of any surgeon’s table.”
Noah chuckles. “That’s just because you haven’t been to med school for it. That’s where the confidence comes from.”
I walk around the counter and grab two glasses from the cabinet, offering one to Noah as I do. He accepts with a jerk of his chin, and I grab a bottle of water from the fridge to pour us each a glass as I contemplate my own life.