“Your secretary’s maybe-possibly-not-sure-if-she’s-a-lesbian daughter? I feel like you’re disregarding my emotions.” I stand, angling my arm to see my watch. “But we’ll save that for next time. I have to get back to work.”
She pushes back in her chair, making her way around the desk to give me a hug. “I love you, Eli. And not just because you bring me lunch every Friday.”
I drop a quick kiss onto her cheek. “But that makes me the favorite, right?”
Mom chuckles. “You’re my favorite boy.”
I grin, being the youngest of three … and the only boy.
Releasing me, her glossed lips turn downward. “You met Julie when you were sixteen. That’s pretty young to expect forever.”
I nod. She’s been my other half, my better half, my morning cup of coffee, and my favorite goodnight kiss for so long I stopped counting. We were supposed to be forever—that unreachable number. Yet, here I am starting again at zero.
One … I have Roman. He is my one, and one is enough; it’s officially everything.
“She wasn’t everything, Eli.”
How did she read my mind?
“Julie is the mother of your child. That makes her something … but not everything.”
* * *
I grab a coffee and make my way toward my lab. Rounds went well this morning. Some good research results this afternoon is all I need to make Friday officially the best day of this week.
A shiny pair of red sneakers with red soles and red laces snag my attention when the doors open on the second floor. The sneakers move toward me, and my gaze slides up the blue scrubs to the young woman with shoulder-length, sable hair and a friendly smile. She makes eye contact for two seconds before turning toward the doors and pressing the button to the fifth floor.
“Nice shoes,” I say.
“Thanks, Dr. Hawkins.” Her blue eyes make a return to me with her surprisingly enthusiastic reply to my compliment.
My lips curl into an unavoidable smile. “Have we met?”
She tucks her dark hair behind her ears. “Yes. No. Well, I hear a lot about you. And I’ve delivered mail to your office and test results to your lab. We’ve passed in the hall, but clearly you don’t recognize me, maybe because I’m usually pushing a patient or a piece of medical equipment. So … we have not officially met.”
“I see…” I glance at her badge “…Dorothy?”
She doesn’t look like a Dorothy. Maybe a Lauren or an Elizabeth. Maybe even a trendy name like Poppy.
Her hand goes straight to her badge. “Yes. I’m a patient transporter and a nursing student.” Blue eyes roll toward the ceiling as she bites her lips together. Dorothy’s cute. Young. Petite. My mom and sisters would say something like “simply adorable, cute as a button,” or something crazy like that.
My grin swells by twenty percent. She has a forced confidence. I think it’s forced. Maybe just nerves. I can’t tell for sure. “What do you hear about me?” My head cants to the side just as the elevator stops on the fourth floor—my floor.
She points her finger upward. “I’m the next stop.”
“You’re not off the hook. I’ll catch you later.”
“You will?” she blurts as I step off the elevator.
“Yep.” I don’t turn back.
Dr. Warren, my intern, glances up from his tablet, peering over my shoulder as the elevator doors close behind me. “Dorothy Mayhem. Now there’s an odd duck.”
Mayhem? I keep my amusement to myself. Dorothy seems like an oxymoron to Mayhem.
“Odd how?” I brush past him toward my lab, and he follows right on my heels.
“She has like a million pairs of tennis shoes and they always match her undershirt. I saw her in the cafeteria last Sunday, eating lunch. She had a red metal lunch box, all prim and proper looking on one side, but the other side was covered in stickers. Decals … like Nike and Taylor Swift. I tried to say something to her, but she had earbuds in and was reading some textbook. Willow said she’s on the spectrum. I can totally see that. I once dated an Aspie. It lasted all of two weeks. Damn eager to please in bed, so it wasn’t completely awful.”
“You’re a dick. Did you know that?” I swipe my badge to open the lab door.
“I’m just saying … it’s a tough personality. Grating and annoying.”
“It’s ASD, not Aspie, and you’re annoying me. Does that mean you’re on the spectrum?”
He chuckles. “Point made. I was just making conversation. Don’t get me wrong. She’s cute. Kinda has that innocent sex appeal. Plain but forbidden in some ways.”
I pull up the previous day’s test results on my laptop. “Placebo is performing better. Go figure. Tell me why the placebo is performing better, and I’ll forgive you for being a dick.”
Warren deflates as I smirk at him.
No one wants to cure cancer more than me … except Warren. His younger sister died of a malignant brain tumor a year earlier. My motivation isn’t as personal. I just want to stop offering painful and oftentimes false hope to young people who should have their whole lives ahead of them instead of fighting for a chance to have one more Christmas, a high school prom, or the opportunity to fall in love and have their hearts broken.