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“Mother,” I replied in monotone. “I’m not having babies with my just-met girlfriend. Take a chill pill.”

“Does she want babies?”

“Do I?” I challenged. “Listen, Mom, I have to go. I have rounds at the hospital. But for the love of God, do not bring up babies to my date on Friday. I’m begging you.”

“God brought you to me, and He knows what He’s doing. And I’m certain He wants me to have grandbabies,” she saidresolutely.

“Dad,” I intoned. “A little backup, here?”

Silence reigned for two beats before Dad said, “What your mom said.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” I rubbed my eyes.

“Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain,” Mom chastised. “But I’ll let you go. Love you.”

“Love you,” I sighed and then hit the red button. I beat my head against the headrest. It was an amazing thing to be loved by two parents who had taken me in when no one else had been willing to. It was even better to have parents who were so full of love, they didn’t care that raising a multi-racial family had caused them no small amount of pain and difficulty. But God help me, if I had to hear one more thing about babies…

Still. Ruth seemed to be a perfect solution to my problem in the short term. She wasn’t in danger of falling in love with me, and she wasn’t in danger of feeling overly put out if my mom did talk about grandchildren because she had nothing at stake. If Ruth were my real girlfriend, she might run for cover. But she wasn’t, and she would hopefully take that in stride.

Or she would run for cover. Time would tell.

Chapter eight

Ruth

Ruth

“Ineed to hear it again.” Gemma popped her head into my office, and her curly hair swung crazily to the side. “Because I still don’t believe you.”

I lifted my eyes to the ceiling and took my fingers off the keyboard where I’d been tapping away a second before. “Which part? Because it’s literally three days later, and you’re making me want to invent a memory zapper at this point. I wish it had never happened.”

“Ooh, a memory zapper. Like in MIB?” she asked, coming all the way into the office with her chicken pot pie in one hand and an energy drink in the other. “I could use one of those. I flirted with the security guard down in the lobby and he pointed out that my skirt was tucked into my underwear.” She plunked her food down on my desk, and I barely managed tomaneuver my latest stack of match files out of the way.

“Didn’t you do that with the guy in HR last week?” I asked, reaching into my desk drawer to pull out my pathetic lunch of snack mix and a diet cola.

Gemma shrugged and popped open her energy drink. “It’s my recurring curse for stealing Mason Aimone’s eraser in the third grade. His mom was a witch.”

I blinked at her. “She cursed you with that specifically…?”

“Probably.” She sipped her drink. “Anyway, I want to hear it again. I need to. You woke up in his house and he what?”

“Stripped me naked and had his way with me,” I said with bored annoyance. I opened the bag and fished out a bagel chip.

“I wish. You need to get laid. But I need to hear it because I had a thought while I was vacuuming last night.”

“While you were—never mind. What?”

“Don’t you think it’s kind of funny how he was really mad at you, and he showed up to the speed dating thing with the express intent to ream you out, only to take pity on you and bring you into his house?” she asked, raising her sandy eyebrows. Gemma’s eyes looked especially blue today with her bright aqua top bouncing blue tones around her pale face.

I gave her my “granny glance” over the rim of my glasses. “Of course I do. What of it?”

“What if he likes you?” she asked significantly.

I shrugged. “He said he likes me.”

“I knew it.” Gemma stabbed her pot pie with her fork triumphantly. “I knew it. He wants to date youfor real.”

“He doesn’t like me in that way,” I clarified, opening my soda. “He just said he likes me, like… tolerates me. Like maybe I’m not as bad as he thought.” I remembered suddenly that he’d said I was “his type,” and my cheeks grew hot.